Excellent stuff, and I also included The Lord of the Rings in my own recent Post on a related topic.
I’m intrigued by Green River High.
You could add The Hike by Lucy Clarke, though I wasn’t over impressed. It didn’t read as if the author had done a lot of hiking, and I didn’t find the rest of the story strong enough to redeem the deficiency. Oh well, Oxfam gets to benefit twice.
In terms of mountaineering fiction (per your UKH list*), a real climber, Dougal Haston, wrote a novel, Calculated Risk. I remember it as a decent effort, but don’t ask me for details. I have a vague feeling Al Harris did one too, and more recently Joe Simpson has several to his name, his first being The Water People. I’ve actually read this and I’d probably agree that its average Goodreads rating (3.09) is fair enough. Let’s just say, read Touching the Void instead.
*The Eiger Sanction is weird, considerably more so than the movie.
It's only one chapter in Green River High - but the only fictional treatment of the Yorkshire Three Peaks that I'm aware of miht be worth £3.03 off Abebooks. I looked at 'The Hike', but even deleted the free sample on my Kindle - yes, the Oxfam 'library' is an excellent service. 'Climbers' by M John Harrison (SF author most of the time) is highly rated - grungy realism on a litter-sprinkled Stanage Edge. The Haston book (not that DH ever calculated risk) seems to be largely autobiographical, even to the extent of including his own actual death by avalanche on La Riondaz .
I forgot about M John Harrison—how could I? I have The Centauri Device and The Pastel City on my shelves. And Climbers even has my old stamping ground of Trowbarrow in.
The problem with either taking long walks or bagging tall peaks is the same- the epic comes to an eventual end. Then what? You forget the sore feet, all the numbing frost and discomforts, you remember the joys, the vistas, the intensity, while forgetting the drudgery. And you start planning the next one I suspect.
You do indeed. Though with the Long Distance Walkers' Association's non-stop hundred-miler, the agony value was high enough that the necessary forgetting would take me more than 12 months, so I only entered it every two years. (My early post https://aboutmountains.substack.com/p/suffering-and-fun is about this necessary forgetting.)
Yes it all starts with boundless energy, energy and optimism, then the endless slog and toil, then finally the stuff upper lip and the wish one were back in the cottage, snug under the blankets!
Loved your synopsis of Green River High, Ronald. Hurray for the Wise Old Bird. I am very in favour of books in which a Wise Old Bird is the protagonist.
I was trying to rack my brains about novels with long journeys on foot. Recently I read 'A Fringe of Leaves' by Patrick White which features a long walk by the protagonist back to civilisation. Before reading, I thought this would be the main part of the novel, but actually it was only a small segment near the end. Maybe also 'Voss' by White as well... I haven't read it.
"Voss is the fifth published novel by Patrick White. It is based upon the life of the 19th-century Prussian explorer and naturalist Ludwig Leichhardt, who disappeared while on an expedition into the Australian outback."Wikipedia. No. 77 on the Guardian 's 100 best novels. Maybe should take a look even if it probably isn't about hiking as such.
Well, if you do, maybe I will too (though won't get to it anytime soon). I really enjoyed A Fringe of Leaves and was keen to read another White novel though had settled on The Tree of Man. But I had Voss in my sights too.
(Yes, I was thinking of 'long distance walking' in its widest sense!)
Excellent stuff, and I also included The Lord of the Rings in my own recent Post on a related topic.
I’m intrigued by Green River High.
You could add The Hike by Lucy Clarke, though I wasn’t over impressed. It didn’t read as if the author had done a lot of hiking, and I didn’t find the rest of the story strong enough to redeem the deficiency. Oh well, Oxfam gets to benefit twice.
In terms of mountaineering fiction (per your UKH list*), a real climber, Dougal Haston, wrote a novel, Calculated Risk. I remember it as a decent effort, but don’t ask me for details. I have a vague feeling Al Harris did one too, and more recently Joe Simpson has several to his name, his first being The Water People. I’ve actually read this and I’d probably agree that its average Goodreads rating (3.09) is fair enough. Let’s just say, read Touching the Void instead.
*The Eiger Sanction is weird, considerably more so than the movie.
It's only one chapter in Green River High - but the only fictional treatment of the Yorkshire Three Peaks that I'm aware of miht be worth £3.03 off Abebooks. I looked at 'The Hike', but even deleted the free sample on my Kindle - yes, the Oxfam 'library' is an excellent service. 'Climbers' by M John Harrison (SF author most of the time) is highly rated - grungy realism on a litter-sprinkled Stanage Edge. The Haston book (not that DH ever calculated risk) seems to be largely autobiographical, even to the extent of including his own actual death by avalanche on La Riondaz .
I forgot about M John Harrison—how could I? I have The Centauri Device and The Pastel City on my shelves. And Climbers even has my old stamping ground of Trowbarrow in.
Well but is Climbers any good? Seemed a bit grim and depressing the first chapter.
The problem with either taking long walks or bagging tall peaks is the same- the epic comes to an eventual end. Then what? You forget the sore feet, all the numbing frost and discomforts, you remember the joys, the vistas, the intensity, while forgetting the drudgery. And you start planning the next one I suspect.
You do indeed. Though with the Long Distance Walkers' Association's non-stop hundred-miler, the agony value was high enough that the necessary forgetting would take me more than 12 months, so I only entered it every two years. (My early post https://aboutmountains.substack.com/p/suffering-and-fun is about this necessary forgetting.)
Yes it all starts with boundless energy, energy and optimism, then the endless slog and toil, then finally the stuff upper lip and the wish one were back in the cottage, snug under the blankets!
Loved your synopsis of Green River High, Ronald. Hurray for the Wise Old Bird. I am very in favour of books in which a Wise Old Bird is the protagonist.
I was trying to rack my brains about novels with long journeys on foot. Recently I read 'A Fringe of Leaves' by Patrick White which features a long walk by the protagonist back to civilisation. Before reading, I thought this would be the main part of the novel, but actually it was only a small segment near the end. Maybe also 'Voss' by White as well... I haven't read it.
"Voss is the fifth published novel by Patrick White. It is based upon the life of the 19th-century Prussian explorer and naturalist Ludwig Leichhardt, who disappeared while on an expedition into the Australian outback."Wikipedia. No. 77 on the Guardian 's 100 best novels. Maybe should take a look even if it probably isn't about hiking as such.
Well, if you do, maybe I will too (though won't get to it anytime soon). I really enjoyed A Fringe of Leaves and was keen to read another White novel though had settled on The Tree of Man. But I had Voss in my sights too.
(Yes, I was thinking of 'long distance walking' in its widest sense!)