I really enjoyed Robert Macfarlane\u2019s 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.\u00a0 His stories really drew me in and kept the history sections a little more interesting every time he went back to them.\u00a0 When he wasn\u2019t telling his stories, he focused on the geology and physical form of a mountain, as opposed to the romantic view of a mountain.\u00a0 We have talked about the difference between writers who are mountaineers and writers who are not, like Rene Daumal.\u00a0 I think what Macfarlane is trying to do in his book is remove the romantic view that is often attached to mountains.\u00a0 Or at least question and be critical of this following.<\/p>\n
This romantic view of the world is seen all throughout history though.\u00a0 Much like writers and artist in Europe who heard stories about peoples of the Caribbean and the Americas in the 1600\u2019s \u2013 often viewed as savages or even portrayed as beast like.\u00a0 There are poets who are responsible for romanticizing mountains found in Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory.<\/em>\u00a0 Marjorie Hope Nicolson mentions how some poets who wrote about the mountains had never been in the mountains before or have even seen them.\u00a0 They were writing about stories they have heard.<\/p>\n Then you have Robert Macfarlane, a mountaineer, who questions how mountains are viewed and imagined differently over history, the \u201cmountains of the minds\u201d he refers to.\u00a0 I like Macfarlane\u2019s geological approach in explaining mountains (his mountains of his mind).\u00a0 It seems to be the same for other explores as well.\u00a0 He writes about Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin, people who were classifying nature using science.\u00a0 In the late 1700\u2019s to early 1800\u2019s explores were doing the same for mountains, Macfarlane writes, \u201cgeology provided a reason and an excuse \u2013 scientific inquiry \u2013 for traveling to the mountains (p 35).<\/p>\n Mountains really are just a mass of rock and ice that are gradually changing over time.\u00a0 But then everyone has their own different perception and emotional attachment to them.\u00a0 As more people are climbing these mountains and dying on these mountains, it is almost as though mountaineers are unromanticize mountains.\u00a0 I think Macfarlane is touching on this as well by explaining his own fear and risks he has encountered in the mountains.\u00a0 Macfarlane writes, \u201cthe mountains one gazes at, reads about, dreams of and desires are not the mountains one climbs.\u00a0 These are matters of hard, steep, sharp rock and freezing snow; of extreme cold\u2026and of unspeakable beauty\u201d (p 19).\u00a0 I really enjoyed the end of the book when Macfarlane rewrites Mallory\u2019s story.\u00a0 As painful and ugly as Mallory\u2019s story felt, in some ways it sounded a little romanticized as well.\u00a0 But again mountaineers experience all kinds of emotions and these emotions can change in seconds.<\/p>\n Either way what attracted poets to write about mountains and climbers into them is a shared sense of curiosity to explore the unknown.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I really enjoyed Robert Macfarlane\u2019s 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.\u00a0 His stories really drew me in and kept the history sections a little more interesting every time he went back to them.\u00a0 When he…<\/p>\n