Synopses & Reviews
"Whether we climb them or view them from afar, they continue to pull at us, calling us home, those mountains." So writes editor Gregory McNamee in his eloquent introduction to this compelling anthology of mountain-inspired literature from sources as varied and far-flung as the peaks themselves.
The writings take all manner of literary forms: folktales, myths, essays, travelogues, and poetry of both ancient and modern times. We hear from familiar voices--Whitman, Muir, Chekhov, Conan Doyle--and from those not so familiar but equally fascinating, including Russian naturalist Nikolai Prejevalsky and English "lady" adventurer Isabella Bird.
The mountain experiences described in these works are enormously varied as well. They range from the powerful altitude-induced vision of Simón Bolívar atop Mount Chimborazo, to a Victorian-era pleasure trip in the Alps as recounted by Mrs. H.W. Cole, to V. K. Arseniev's tale of survival and rescue in a Siberian mountain storm. Yet whether they speak of profound spiritual journeys, easy pleasure trips, or face-to-face encounters with death, all these voices are raised in collective celebration of the glories and terrors of the most awe-inspiring of Earth's natural treasures.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 257-262).
Table of Contents
Mount Katahdin /Henry David Thoreau --Mountain people /Martin Frobisher --Front range /Walt Whitman, Isabella Lucy Bird --Sacred geography /Navajo text --Songs for the mountain world /Akimel O'Odham, Chiricahua Apache, Cheyenne, Southern Paiute, Wind River Shoshone, Tewa, Tohono O'Odham, and Paiute texts --Sierra Nevada /John Muir, Mary Austin --Mount Saint Helens /Ursula K. Le Guin --Popocatepetl /Fray Lâopez De Gomara --Climbing to the middle of the world /Aimâe Felix Tschiffely --Andes /Kechua and Spanish folk songs, Simâon Bolâivar, Ida Pfeiffer, Charles Darwin --The Tepuis of Guyana /Sir Arthur Conan Doyle --Mountains of Africa /Ashanti, Wachagga, Giyuku, Xan, and !Kung folktales, Pliny the Elder --The mountains of the moon /Abu El Fadel --The ascent of Kilimanjaro /H.H. Johnston --Mysteries of the highlands /John Barrow --Table Mountain /Joshua Penny --High Japan /Japanese myths, Dåogen Kigen, Bashåo, Nanao Sakaki, Asuka Gasei, Yoshinori, Ota Dokan, Kayano Shigeru --Sakhalin /Anton Chekhov, Maritime Chukchee folktale --Storm /V.K. Arseniev --Mountains of China /Han Shan, Li Po --Mountains of Mongolia /Nikolai Prejevalsky --Himalayas /Susan Rijnhart, Zahiruddin Muhammad Båabur, Sir Martin Conway, Hindu myth, Sikkimese hymn, Photius, Mark Twain --Frontiers /Richard Francis Burton, T.E. Lawrence --Central Asia /Kirghiz epic, Sven Hedin --Anatolia /Frederick Burnaby, Bob Shacochis --Zion /Hebrew text --Hellas /Archilochos, Sappho, Alkman, Pausanias --Mountains of water and mystery /Russian folk poems, Romanian and Bulgarian folktales --Highlands /Dorothy Wordsworth, William Butler Yeats, Scottish folk songs, Alastair Borthwick --Mountains of Europe /John Ruskin --Volcano /Jon Thorlaksson --Vesuvius, Etna and the Apennines /Pliny the Younger, Carlo Levi, Franciscan text --Sierra /Antonio Machado --Alps /Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sir Leslie Stephen, Mrs. H.W. Cole, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway --Mountain dreaming /Australian aboriginal myths --Mount Cook /Freda Du Faur --Mount Kare /Isabella Tree --Pele /Hawaiian myth -- The mountains of Erewhon /Samuel Butler --Cataclysm /Bertolt Brecht --The hollow-men and the bitter-rose /Ren§e Daumal --The ends of the earth /Estonian folktale, Sir John Mandeville.