Mountains of the Mind

Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane is a selective and fascinating cultural account of mountaineering, combining personal anecdote, literary quotation and an overview of three centuries of scientific inquiry. The result is a compelling and affectionate portrait of Man's changing attitude to Nature at its most extreme.

This attitude started to change in the eighteenth century, when 'people started for the first time to travel to mountains out of a spirit other than necessity, and a coherent sense began to develop of the splendour of mountainous landscape'. Prior to this, dangerous peaks were to be avoided, and climbing them for the sake of it was considered tantamount to madness (and, to other cultures, such as the Sherpa people, almost sacrilegious).

As the nineteenth century progressed, courting danger at high altitude for the sheer thrill that it provoked became firmly entrenched in society. Ruskin in particular thought that turning back from a dangerous place would result in a slight deterioration of character. Upon their return to Britain from their exploits, explorers gave lectures to huge crowds in the cities, and it soon became the thing for sons of the aristocracy to be guided through the Alps as part of their Grand Tour.

Gradually, this spirit of adventure, in conjunction with the twentieth century's advances in transport and communication technology, has conquered almost all the unknown regions of the world. No matter how many people die on mountains every year, climbers will continue to climb, in search of personal fulfilment and victory over the inanimate peaks.

Macfarlane's personal stories of fear, danger and exhilaration among the mountains imbue his book with an additional personal dimension. He inherited his love of the outdoors from his grandfather who, interestingly, never put into words why he loved risking his life at altitude. As Macfarlane says, 'I tried to talk to my grandfather about it once … He didn't really understand the question, or even that it was a question. To my grandfather the attraction of altitude was beyond explanation, or had none.' Macfarlane has provided as good and entertaining an answer to the question that wasn't a question as his grandfather could have ever hoped to read.'