Books reviewed: “The General in His Labyrinth” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “Kiss or Kill” by Mark Twight, “Everest: The West Ridge” (Abridged) by Thomas Hornbein.

They say you can learn a lot about a person by browsing their bookshelf. The trouble with this approach is most voracious readers move through books at a faster rate than they can accumulate them. None of these three will end up on my bookshelf. That says something too, I suppose.

The General In His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez

The General In His Labyrinth came to me on the street in Queens, NY, this past December. My sister and I walked below the subway – in Queens it’s an aboveway – and perused an old immigrant’s table of random junk, a frequent decoration on Queens sidewalks. I grabbed a Garcia Marquez novel, although I didn’t know the title. Christina grabbed a story of Egypt, or some other Arab country – she is on a quest to “read the world.” Garcia Marquez is the quintessential Colombian author, I said, but she remained uninterested. Perhaps she’d read Colombia already.

The proprietor emerged from inside his shop. “You can have those books for free,” he said. “I tried to sell them for $3 but no one wanted to buy them. Take them.” So we did. My book was worn, creased and flaking on the spine. I would read it quickly, I knew, and leave it somewhere. “New York is a city of free books,” Christina commented.

Two months later I got around to it, after punching through both climbing books below. The General in His Labyrinth tells the story of Simón Bolivar, the “Great Liberator” of South America. Bolivar fought the Spaniards up and down the Andes, pursuing his grand dream of a united South America, a latin nation which would challenge the United States for power and influence. Today, South America remains divided and distrustful. Statues of Bolivar can be found across the continent. In Bolivar’s native Venezuela, the worthless currency is called bolivars.

I knew only a little of Bolivar before this book, and after reading it I’m unsure exactly what is fact and fiction. But this is always true of mythological figures, as all heroes must be. Garcia Marquez creates a wonderfully nuanced portrait of Bolivar in his last days, deteriorating in both body and mind as he journeys north from the heart of Colombia towards the Caribbean coast, where he insists he will leave the continent. As his entourage travels up the Magdalena river, the general finds himself lost in a maze of memories. In this way, the book, although not a straightforward one, serves as a biography of Bolivar.

The plot, based in reality and more grounded than some of Garcia Marquez’ signature supernatural efforts, achieves a dreamy quality by floating in and out of diversions flash-forwards and flashbacks, creating a visceral “labyrinth” for the reader, who has to struggle to maintain awareness of who, what, or when is being described. A common technique for Garcia Marquez, but wonderfully suited to this particular character and story.

Trivia: this novel is classified as a “dictator novel“, a peculiarly South American literary trend.
Trivia 2: A posthumous novel from Gabriel Garcia Marquez is due to be published in just one month! “Until August” (or in the original Spanish, “En Agosto Nos Vemos“).
Trivia 3: Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood reviewed this book for the New York Times back in 1990 (before I was born!) You can read that column online, here.

Kiss or Kill by Mark Twight

We could call Kiss or Kill a dictator book too, although more for the absolutist attitude than for the political power of its protagonist. Kiss or Kill is a collection of essays published by alpinist Mark Twight, mostly in the 1990s. They chronicle some of his climbs and convey his general attitude toward the climbing world. This is an angry, edgy book—to the point of being off-putting for a lot of folks. The cover, with the phallic ice axe, shirtless Mark, and smoldering stare, should tell you a lot about what you’re about to encounter.

This book came to me in a bulk purchase of climbing guidebooks. I grabbed a couple of the rarer ones which I wanted, and re-sold the rest to cover my costs. I sold Kiss or Kill to a friend who is living on the road. Recently, we caught up in Cody, Wyoming, and I was able to pass the book on to him. A few days later, climbing ice together, he told me of his opinion: “We were reading some of the opening stories in that book, and he’s mostly right, I think, but he is also kind of an asshole.”

Twight writes with a lot of ego and a lot of honesty. His climbing achievements speak for themselves; if you are familiar with alpinism, the climbs he writes about will blow your mind. But at the same time, the attitude can be difficult to digest. I think this is a valuable book because Twight writes honestly about tough topics which often remain unspoken – but it’s also easy to see why it ruffles feathers.

“It’s like we weren’t even on the same mountain!” Jeff Lowe told Twight when he read some of the essays Mark had written about their climbs together.

You truly never do know what’s going on in someone’s mind.

Everest: The West Ridge by Thomas Hornbein

There is a blurb on the back of Kiss or Kill which says something like: “Twight is a visionary. One copy of Kiss or Kill is worth more than all the Everest dreck put together.” Which was funny to read, as I came to Kiss or Kill directly after finishing up Everest: The West Ridge, a 1966 tome which is a tentpole of the “Everest dreck” genre.

The book (which I read in abridged edition) describes the 1963 American Expedition to Mount Everest, which put Jim Whittaker on the summit via the South Col (standard route), and saw the first ascent of the West Ridge by Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld, a route which today still counts few successful ascents.

This was a historic climb and the book has a historic vibe. Long, dreary chapters are spent describing the trek into the Khumbu – a trek today which is entirely skipped with a short, convenient plane flight from Kathmandu to Lukla. Nearly half the book describes the massive, foreign snake, supported by an army of porters, lugging their gear across poor rural Nepal to plant the American flag on top of an arbitrary point; the entire enterprise infused with jingoism and a sort of sense of obligation.

The attitude of this book and Twight’s could not be further from each other. Still, taken together, they make an interesting duo: the old and the new. The national expedition to make the summit submit at all costs, an old holdover; and the new, single-push, cutting-edge, hyper-individual alpinism. Twight often doesn’t even go the summit after completing his climbs of the mountains’ most technical faces.

This book is a classic in the sense of the classic quote:

“A classic is a book everyone wants to have read, and no one wants to read.”

In this case: Everest: The West Ridge is a good book to have in your library, but probably not one you will return to often. The book features a number of impressive full-color photographs of Nepal at a very different time, which are fascinating and well-presented. There is also a 50th anniversary edition of Everest: The West Ridge available which would look nice on the coffee table.

So, in the end, I lied when I opened this blog post – I will keep Everest, the West Ridge, in my collection. The General in His Labyrinth went to a Little Free Library, and Kiss or Kill rides the road with Zach and Emma.

The life of a book is a story in and of itself.

Read on.

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