Not Much Has Been Written about the Mountains… On the Subject of Mountain Studies

The juxtaposition of the various accounts, ranging from John Hunt’s 1953 account of the first ascent of Everest (1953) to the film accounts of Alex Hohnold’s solo climb of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park (film Free Solo 2018), allows Grabowicz to trace not only the changes taking place in the way mountains and climbers are perceived, but also – more broadly – the processes taking place in culture.

However, sometimes these two types of literature: mountain literature and mountaineering literature (literature related to climbing in the Tatra Mountains, in the Alps, and in the Himalayas) are equated. This can be seen, for example, in an article by Andrzej Mirek, who, wondering whether the popularity of mountain literature is a transient fad or a permanent trend, states:

Once in a while, mountain literature is literature tout court. There is no denying that the combination of writing and climbing skills is something special. It seems possible that inferiority complex felt by mountain people towards literature has a paralysing effect on them. They themselves once read something that enthralled them, and they would love to write like that too. More often than not, however, wanting does not mean being able to. A large part of what is published on the market are technical accounts of expeditions. Even if the co-author of the book is a writer, taking the expedition memoirs to a higher level is most often not so much impossible as unsuccessful. Detailed accounts of the setting up of camps and the arduous ascent of the summit simply do not have the necessary potential. It is somewhat of a paradox that the best “mountain books” are written when ice and rock exploits are juxtaposed with details of life outside climbing. Distance, irony and vivid honesty are further ingredients, promising an interesting read, yet not guaranteeing it. (Mirek 2020).

Conclusions: Mountain Studiesfrom the Literary StudiesPerspective

The main distinguishing feature of mountain literature – according to Stępień – is… mountains. The statement strikes one as obvious, but the way he explains it reflects well the transdisciplinary and holistic nature of mountain studies:

“Mountain” literature owes its existence to the mountains, it is constituted by this specific space, the mountains – that is, “areas of great height differences, rising above the surrounding terrain from which they usually also differ in terms of geological structure and vegetation and fauna” determine its ontic status. (Stępień 2012: 87).