The subtitle of this book is "Alex MacIntyre and the birth of light and fast alpinism," which suggests the biography of a mountaineering pioneer, does it not? The author sets us straight in the Preface, saying "this story of Alex is not in any sense of the word a pure biography." I would go farther and say that it's not a biography at all. Rather, it is John Porter's thoughts and memories of a time during which he often climbed with Alex MacIntyre.
If you met John Porter in a bar and spent all night talking about climbing, I imagine you'd hear something like this book. He tells a wide-ranging story, covering everything from the history of mountaineering to equipment design and the politics of British adventure clubs. He wanders from topic to topic and from past to present, mostly staying superficial. His accounts of climbing are only intermittently compelling.
Other books have given me a sense of the adventure of mountaineering or of the strange psychology of its top competitors. One Day as a Tiger left me with a sense of how irresponsible climbers tend to be: wandering off from base camp, smashing train speakers during an illicit trip through the USSR, forging permits, abandoning crashed cars, gaming donors. Does this mean I've gotten old?
As for the purported protagonist, Alex MacIntyre comes across as a talented climber during a time of change, but no pioneer.
If you met John Porter in a bar and spent all night talking about climbing, I imagine you'd hear something like this book. He tells a wide-ranging story, covering everything from the history of mountaineering to equipment design and the politics of British adventure clubs. He wanders from topic to topic and from past to present, mostly staying superficial. His accounts of climbing are only intermittently compelling.
Other books have given me a sense of the adventure of mountaineering or of the strange psychology of its top competitors. One Day as a Tiger left me with a sense of how irresponsible climbers tend to be: wandering off from base camp, smashing train speakers during an illicit trip through the USSR, forging permits, abandoning crashed cars, gaming donors. Does this mean I've gotten old?
As for the purported protagonist, Alex MacIntyre comes across as a talented climber during a time of change, but no pioneer.
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