Mountains of the Mind

Robert Macfarlane has carved a unique niche for himself, writing about nature, the importance of place, and the ways in which people live in, and engage with a landscape. Mountains of the Mind, his first book which he wrote when he was just twenty-six, is about the allure of mountain climbing, and the raw beauty and sublime glory of the high places of the world. The book combines history, geology, myth and memoir into a thoughtful, engaging, and often poetic narrative.

Mountains of the Mind is one of several books that was published to mark the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest, and it is widely regarded as a work that broke new ground in nature and exploration writing. The Daily Telegraph called it a book that defies classification, The Times called it one of the best and most unusual books in the annals of climbing literature, and The Guardian gave Macfarlane their prestigious First Book Award.

The book begins with an account of the author’s introduction to climbing literature as a child. He was staying with his grandparents in Scotland over the summer when he was twelve years old, when he came across The Fight for Everest, written by E F Norton. This is an account of the 1924 expedition in which George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made their ill-fated attempt to scale the great mountain. Macfarlane writes that a fire was lit that day, a desire to be in the mountains and to experience the adventure and the wonder of climbing for himself.

His writes about his many climbing adventures while reflecting on what mountains mean to us. He traces the change in attitudes towards mountains, which until the 18th century, were considered hostile places into which no sane person would go, a time when the ideal of natural beauty was the meadow and the ploughed field, not the craggy slopes of a mountain untouched by man. He writes about the history of climbing and its many heroes, as he tries to lay out what it is about mountains that enchants and fascinates the people who love them so much that they can't stop going to back to them.