Climbing Days by Dorothy Pilley | Introduced by Dan Richards | Book Review | Canongate

 

Ever since I read Climbing Days by Dan Richards, I have been intrigued by Dorothy Pilley. Dan's great-great-aunt was a pioneer mountaineer, and someone that the last few decades have somehow allowed to fade into some obscurity. Having finally had the chance to read her original account, Climbing Days - here republished in a stunning edition by Canongate, and introduced by Dan Richards - I am surprised and saddened that this book isn't one of the canons of British climbing literature.

But saddened no more! Here, again, is the book in all its glory, and what a surprising, delightful and exciting read it is. Tracing Dorothy's climbing journey from her very first forays in the UK all the way to her pioneering ascent of the north-north-west face of the Dent Blanche in Switzerland, this is a complete and satisfying climbing journey that takes all the great climbs in its stride. Equally though, it is tender escapism, inspiring dreams of distant mountains many of us will never see. Mountains of the mind, and all that. 

Climbing Days takes in the Lakes, Wales and the Isle of Skye - with Dorothy expressing equal amounts of awe as anyone doing the same today will experience - and then further to Switzerland, France and Spain for adventures in alpinism as her skills, confidence and social circles grow.

One must constantly remember (with both awe and horror), when reading this fine piece of mountaineering literature, that what we think of today as 'climbing' took a very different shape in the 1930s, when this book was first published. I often felt a thrill when remembering that when Dorothy says 'abseil', she means wrapping a rope around her thigh and shoulder and lowering herself just so. No Grigri, no belay or rappel device, just a rock with a rope slung around it to hopefully keep one safe. Equally, climbing looked rather different: there is no mention at all of harnesses, and though carabiners were coming into fashion around this time, they weren't widespread yet. Pitons - metal spikes to drive into the rock and use as a step or anchor - were more common, but falling, generally, still wasn't a safe option, just something hopefully avoided or mitigated mid-air. 

In the same vein, reading about rescue operations she occasionally took part in is fascinating. At the time, there was no official mountain rescue - just a handful of (hopefully) experienced climbers, who happened to be staying in a nearby hut, and were gracious enough to go looking for a missing colleague who hadn't returned. She shares tales on hut etiquette, rationing and packing (for example, how they slowly moved away from carrying heavy tins to spartan rations), and even her first close encounter with a crevasse. In a way, Climbing Days is a beautiful glimpse into the development of mountaineering and alpinism in the early twentieth century.

But then, so much more too: I am so pleasantly surprised by how funny Dorothy is. Considering Climbing Days was first published in 1935, it reads as easily as any modern climbing memoir, and her often tongue-in-cheek, self-mocking yet awe-filled rememberances fill the pages with life. Not always plain-sailing; sacrifices had to be made. 'I haunted second-hand bookshops for climbing literature,' she writes, 'going without a new hat or sacrificing lobster salad for a bun and coffee lunch.'

Lyrical, too; developed from her diaries that she kept throughout her entire life, Dorothy had plenty of material to draw on and develop into vivid descriptions of landscape and experience.

'After supper I went outside, wrapped in blankets, to watch the moonlight moulding the backs of a sea of clouds in the valley and cutting the upper glacial world into heraldic simplicity of sable and silver.'

The two Climbing Days - that of Dorothy Pilley and that of Dan Richards - are a brilliant match, and if any of this appeals to you, I would advise reading them both. The order doesn't matter, though Dan's book is perhaps a great contextual introduction to Dorothy's work. I am just glad that, to my ever-growing library of badass, inspiring female climbers' memoirs, I can now add this wonderful account.

 

Cairn by Kathleen Jamie | Book Review | Sort of Books | Author of Findings, Sightlines and Surfacing

 

Cairn by Kathleen Jamie

What a delight to be reading Kathleen Jamie again. Her return with her new book, Cairn, is masterful – in this new collection of short pieces and poems, she exceeds herself, the format enabling her to chisel each piece to perfection until what is left of a rough stone (though beautiful to begin with) is its shimmering centre. She brings all of her grace and poetic mastery to this collection, one that deserves reading and rereading often.

The introduction sets the scene with a somewhat bittersweet tone and self-mocking note, gently making fun of Kathleen's own earnestness of youth – now writing to us from the other side of a threshold of age, where one becomes 'more hander-on of the world than its inheritor'. How lucky for us to have honest notes from someone who observes and sends letters, to let us know what it's like. This handing over, this changing of the guards runs through the book like an undercurrent, through climate protests and summit trips. Her fear for the future, and future generations is palpable throughout. But it is also a sort of taking us by the hand, pulling us forward, gently into action.

Her short-form writing is beautiful, like a collection of trinkets on one's windowsill, and on my first read I already read everything twice. In fact, I pick up other books to intentionally slow my pace. I don't want to read it all at once, and I know it's not enough, anyway; I return to reread it all, not in order this time, in and out of sentiments and snapshots of images beautifully conjured in such few words. 

A sense of mourning lingers in these fragments, farewells to the departed and especially to one's young self. Kathleen is such a wonderful weaver, connecting with ease the muddy hillside springs ('if even they had run dry, what then?') to an all-encompassing sense of loneliness, 'like a five years bairn again, blythly venturing toward the edge of the known, but with no-one left alive to call me home.' 

She mourns and fears for the future and the planet, and writes tender reminiscences of an age where this mourning didn't yet penetrate our every waking thought. 'Envy us, infants in an undisfeatured world.' In phone wires and raindrops, she sees our entire past and future, and this is what makes her writing so exceptional. Her perspective, too; in 'Peregrines', she becomes the predator, her eyes zooming into the small detail and zooming out again, experiencing being the one with the threatening aura. In 'The Mirror', from a fallen mirror, to a Pictish stone, to a lakeside, back to the mirror again in one fell swoop, somehow changed. 

Every description is worth cherishing, and I enjoy them immensely for their singularity, their rejection of sentimentality: 'The flash of gold is the same blaze of winter sunset mirrored in a puddle. The flare and die, the feathering dark.' And, often, a wry smile, an aside firmly rooting us back in reality: 'Suddenly we're stood watching a big fat metaphor.' Her tone of darkness and humour, so well intertwined, is what makes me love her even more. She raps her own knuckles. The truth is, no one out there writes quite like this.

There are pieces of poetry too, which add to the feeling of the cairn: the placing of stones of various shapes and sizes, on our way to somewhere. They complete the collection that reflects Kathleen deeply, personally.

This book feels as much a piece of literary mastery as a plea or prayer or warning. Kathleen doesn't want to settle comfortably in beauty. A piece about a simple flint, another about avian influenza makes me well up. 'What use is the summer sunlight, if it can't gleam on a gannet's back?'

'We can't stand around like innocents, slightly unsettled, scrolling on, wishing things were "back to normal"', she warns. So, perhaps, Cairn is a marker of a path, an invitation to follow on – or even just to set out and peek around the next bend.

Bothy: In Search of Simple Shelter by Kat Hill | Book Review | William Collins

 

'And come I may, but go I must, and if men ask you why,
You may put the blame on the stars and the Sun and the white road and the sky.’
(Gerald Gould: Wander-Thirst)

My first bothy experience was Dubs Hut in the Lake District. I was hosting a group of women as part of a hike organised by Gutsy Girls, and after a day of relentless rain (and I mean relentless), we arrived to Dubs Hut soaked, but delighted. There was a fire, and so warmth to dry our drenched clothes; there were hot drinks and boil-in-the-bag dinners, and extreme pride for having walked who knows how many miles in the pouring rain. I didn’t end up sleeping inside, though; having carried my tent all the way up, I figured I might as well use it.

Whether you sleep in them or around them, bothies are really quite magical: the crudest of shelters in secluded spots, just enough of a roof over one’s head to feel a little bit safer, a bit more out of the elements than in a tent. What Kat Hill does very well in her new book, Bothy: In Search of Simple Shelter, is to evoke all the feelings that a bothy awakens. Comfort, community, the simple joy of shelter (the smell of drying socks).

But Bothy is a strange book: it's not history, it's not really travel narrative. Instead, each chapter is an essay on a theme linked to bothies, be it how to live a good or simple life; romanticism and mythology; conservation or the concept of wilderness. And Kat's writing is meditative. As soon as we head into a chapter, I can settle, knowing that we'll ramble over literature and history, nature and philosophy. 

The book starts with a rather refreshing prologue: Kat is entirely conscious of the dangers of tipping into the romantic with her chosen topic. She sets the record straight, straight away. Bothies didn't 'heal' her. 'Wilderness' didn't 'heal' her. It's a process, gradual, where bothies are 'a place to start'. And isn't that just enough?

Initially, she shares quite a lot of personal details about her life in quick succession, but these are barely revisited later in the book. It feels like she has unloaded her reasons in her prologue, and thus freed, moves on. Instead, she meditates on simple questions like what do we need (in a bothy or otherwise); what constitutes adventure; our need for hideaways, even as adults.

In her writing, she wanders; on her Penrhos Isaf trip in Wales, for example, she starts out by recounting the history of gold mining in the Welsh hills (something I've never read about) before winding her way to meditating on the marks we make as humans, on leaving no trace – or what to do with the traces we do leave. 'Humanity,' she writes, 'is now grappling with the problem of how to cover the tracks of our existence where we have already caused damage.' This kind of meandering, or weaving, works most of the time, though in some chapters I question the relevance of some of the explorations. We often get quite far from the bothy itself, and it must be said that the link back at the end doesn't always work. Her in-depth research as an academic and historian is laudable, of course, and the book is full of learnings, from the history of the Mountain Bothy Association to Highland clearances and climate change. I just question if it all builds a cohesive narrative. 

A stand-out chapter for me, Maol-bhuidhe (chapter six) considers the freedom of walking. Kat finds and highlights the childish joy in just putting one foot in front of the other, and crafts a beautiful love letter to walking. This is the part of the book that really makes my feet itch, lyrically exploring how walking can be hope, freedom, distraction; how walking can make talking easier, and how, at least temporarily, it can move anxieties a step further away.

So what is this book really about? It's difficult to say. Bothies form a vague structure – each chapter a trip to a different one – but I would struggle to sum it up. It's meditation. That's the best I can think of: as if the author wrote down each thought following the next as she treads. So it's not travel writing, not completely nature writing either. A strange mix of research and personal narrative, though the author's personal life stays somewhat at arm's length. It’s less of a connection to the author than seeing through her eyes, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But if nothing else, it’s certainly a warm invitation to seek out a bothy, if you haven’t done so yet.

An Alphabet for Gourmets | M.F.K. Fisher | Book Review | Daunt Publishing | Introduced by Ella Risbridger

'There must, for me at least, be a faint nebular madness, dignified no matter how deliberate, to a dinner that is exquisite.' 

Reading M.F.K. Fisher's books is like taking a plunge into some non-existent nostalgia, memories I've never had. Perhaps better referred to as daydreams: friends sat around tables heaped with exquisite food, good wine that's matched perfectly, perhaps on a French hillside (or Swiss, like Fisher's), overlooking a French (or Swiss) sunset, orange rays painting the vines, seemingly endless across the green hills, ripe grapes sagging. Rituals: a drink before dinner, perhaps a dry Martini or a 'rye', Scotch and soda for the men; starters, soups, salads (never after main), dessert, coffee – not too strong so as not to lift the post-dinner reverie. 

Or perhaps feasting on a tray of oysters in Manhattan (or are we crossing over to Consider the Oyster?), at some swanky restaurant with velvet booths and dimmed lighting, where the maitre d' comes to say hello, tops up our Champagne (which has been carefully chosen, the perfect age and would never overpower the food). 

Or even enjoying a 'rained-on burger', as Fisher puts it, but still with a cinematic quality somehow – perhaps we've had a horrendous day, and just on the verge of desperation, a burger truck shimmers in the half-darkness, the pouring rain. Salvation by a sloppy patty.

Oh, I love spending time with M.F.K. Fisher – from the first pages she is unashamedly her; an almost forceful grab of my hand, and we're off. By the time we reach 'C' for Caution in this alphabet, we're exploring Calf's Head à la Tortue, which is by and by the most complicated and terrifying dish I've ever heard of. There are oysters, of course, 'en caisses', though neither her nor me know what that means. Oysters, nevertheless, and buttered paper in pots to keep the steam in, and 'whole peas fragrant as flowers'. And sauces! So many sauces in one dinner, and wines paired with each dish. That, as I say, before we've even passed 'C'.

And oh, to have a meal in such style, pre-ordered, as it is, by this gourmet of gourmets, whom people are too afraid to entertain in their own home, lest their simple tastes offend her (though it breaks one's heart to read how much, in fact, Fisher pined for such invitations. Although whether she would actually enjoy the meal, or just the romanticism of it, remains unanswered): 'smoked salmon, a small rack of lamb, potatoes Anna, Belgian endive salad, and a tray of Langlois Blue, Rouge et Noir Camembert, Wisconsin Swiss, and Teleme Jack cheese; Scotch or sherry first, and then Louis Martini's Gamay Rosé.' 

I relish and revel in the atmospheres she evokes, though I've never experienced them myself – therein lies the power of her writing. Of an egg sandwich, prepared by neighbour Aunt Gwen (not an aunt at all), the recipe makes one drool; but she also lists physical and spiritual ingredients ('equal parts of hunger and happiness'), and under Prescription, she directs the egg sandwich 'to be eaten on top of a hill at sunset', and 'preferably before adolescence and its priggish queasiness set in'. 

In this abcedaria, she touches on all the crucial aspects of life, from wooing someone with food (and whether that's even possible), to being hosted by good-willed but incompetent cooks, to Xanthippean gastronomy (i.e.  food served at home with an unhealthy dose of complaining, whining or accusing by a sour wife). There is also the question of squabs (young pigeons), how food can taste better on an Atlantic cruise, how to best cook trout, and a long treatise on the value of salt. Just to name a few.

So now, reader, hand me a sizzling casserole so that I may toss hot buttered spaghetti in it, topped with humble parmesan and generous gratings of black pepper! A bottle of Zizerser, to be opened at altitude, otherwise the pink champagne will not froth! Or even just bread and 'sweet' butter (as she always calls it – doesn't it sound much better than just 'butter'?), a simple omelette cooked with care for half an hour, or anything cooked in consommé and fat, 'for hungering people who have had no fat at all for too long a time become moody, shiver easily, and grow sick.'

God forbid!