It is interesting to think of the many different dramatic accounts of mountaineering there really are out there. Really, there is no lack of abundance. People have ample opportunities to read these accounts of climbing mountains that are so extreme, that for some reason or another speak to people on another level because of the dangers encountered in high altitudes. The White Spider is very much one of those accounts. It’s gripping, easy to read, and the stories that stick with you are the ones where people fought against the elements, and in many cases unfortunately lost their lives in the process. And why do we read these? What is it about these dramatic stories that get people to read them? Barcott would say it is because we must “induce courage by artificial means.” That is, that since the world seems to have run out of opportunities for everyone to carry out their own acts of courage, then we as humans must find different ways to fulfill a burning desire to be courageous. Barcott’s argument is that people love to read these dramatized accounts to take the place of something that would not be normally carried out in many people’s lives. And maybe that is true. Perhaps people like to read stories like the first ascent of the North Face of the Eiger because they will not get that opportunity to climb a mountain, or do anything similar, but still want the experience.

Or maybe, just maybe, it is because people love stories. There could be a possibility that it is not a desire to find “artificial courage”, whatever that may mean, but simply that men and women are gripped by stories. A story of the first ascent of the North Face of the Eiger has a lot it in, overcoming what seem to be impossible obstacles, beating death, testing the human will. And I think there may be something in stories like this that people love to read about. Really, almost any story that is told well that includes people beating what seem to be impossible odds are stories people love. It could be about mountaineering, or it could be classic epics like Homer’s Odyssey. As these stories have been told time and again, people are looking for novel ways to write drama, to tell stories that grip people and capture imaginations. I think that is why mountaineering dramas are an incredibly popular genre of literature. They are in and of themselves novel stories. When a climber writes a first hand account of a first ascent, or of a climb that went terribly wrong, people will definitely read it. Maybe there is something in people that causes us to connect with these modern day epics, it is not the same story over and over again, but instead, each time a mountaineering drama comes out, people have a new story, a novel experience that has not been told again, and cannot be replicated. Really, I think that’s why mountaineering drama is so popular, because people are reading unique stories in an exciting fashion that comes in a new and novel form with each mountain peak.