I really enjoyed Robert Macfarlane’s style of writing in this book; how he broke it down going back and forth between the history of mountains and geology to his own stories.  His stories really drew me in and kept the history sections a little more interesting every time he went back to them.  When he wasn’t telling his stories, he focused on the geology and physical form of a mountain, as opposed to the romantic view of a mountain.  We have talked about the difference between writers who are mountaineers and writers who are not, like Rene Daumal.  I think what Macfarlane is trying to do in his book is remove the romantic view that is often attached to mountains.  Or at least question and be critical of this following.

This romantic view of the world is seen all throughout history though.  Much like writers and artist in Europe who heard stories about peoples of the Caribbean and the Americas in the 1600’s – often viewed as savages or even portrayed as beast like.  There are poets who are responsible for romanticizing mountains found in Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory.  Marjorie Hope Nicolson mentions how some poets who wrote about the mountains had never been in the mountains before or have even seen them.  They were writing about stories they have heard.

Then you have Robert Macfarlane, a mountaineer, who questions how mountains are viewed and imagined differently over history, the “mountains of the minds” he refers to.  I like Macfarlane’s geological approach in explaining mountains (his mountains of his mind).  It seems to be the same for other explores as well.  He writes about Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin, people who were classifying nature using science.  In the late 1700’s to early 1800’s explores were doing the same for mountains, Macfarlane writes, “geology provided a reason and an excuse – scientific inquiry – for traveling to the mountains (p 35).

Mountains really are just a mass of rock and ice that are gradually changing over time.  But then everyone has their own different perception and emotional attachment to them.  As more people are climbing these mountains and dying on these mountains, it is almost as though mountaineers are unromanticize mountains.  I think Macfarlane is touching on this as well by explaining his own fear and risks he has encountered in the mountains.  Macfarlane writes, “the mountains one gazes at, reads about, dreams of and desires are not the mountains one climbs.  These are matters of hard, steep, sharp rock and freezing snow; of extreme cold…and of unspeakable beauty” (p 19).  I really enjoyed the end of the book when Macfarlane rewrites Mallory’s story.  As painful and ugly as Mallory’s story felt, in some ways it sounded a little romanticized as well.  But again mountaineers experience all kinds of emotions and these emotions can change in seconds.

Either way what attracted poets to write about mountains and climbers into them is a shared sense of curiosity to explore the unknown.  A person can use a mountain for many things, whether it is a metaphor on paper that you read from home or a place where you feel at home.  This book definitely had me thinking of what a mountain means to someone, their relationship to one, and why so many people are passionate about them.