MOUNTAINS AND MEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 386, 15 November 1946, Page 5

MOUNTAINS AND MEN

Sir,-John Pascoe’s review of A. P. Harper’s Memories won’t do. His preliminary and rather old-fashioned review of the contents of the book may please most of your readers, though some points merit attention: (1) As a title, Memories of Mountains and Men should be stressed, Harper does not detail his expeditions; those have been related in the special Alpine .’ournals. Mr. Pascoe seems to feel a want, but the author writes round his title, which is preferable to such titles as "With Crampons in the New Zealand Alps" or "Unexplored New Zealand," though these may be selected. by publishers to bolster up their’ blurbs. Nobody expects the Memories to have a "connected narrative." (2) A bad critic points to things not actually in a book, If he feels the need, why does the reviewer not set about editing Charles Douglas’s diaries? Is the parody of the shanty part of the criticism? Did Mannering and Harper actually agree to go their separate ways, one to the tops and the other to the passes? Is the survey of mountaineering history really so short and is there’ a better survey? Though the reviewer makes no "indi--vidual explorations" he seems to smudge the canvas by going beyond his own personal reactions to the contents of the Memories. He is neither consistently disinterested nor wholly partial, but he seldom reads between the lines, and when he states that the Memories is not a great book he drops a terrific "brick." The book has the tang of the horse and buggy days of New Zealand, when men pitted themselves against solid obstacles, when the differences between the sexes was more acute, and when love of © the back-country could be expressed without sentimental puff. Harper has very definitely corrected the impression that Alpine Clubs are mutual admiration societies. Moreover, he sets-out his Memories without dullness and with just the correct admixture of. "comedy situations which afford the comedians the necessary opportunities to create genuine laughter." He has the clear mental vision of pioneering shorn of its absurdities, in — fact, a way of living. This is in the text and "between the lines." . The elusive echo of the Hooker will send more and more men hurrying, out to their bivvies, but it may be a long time before another book like Harper’s Memories helps us along ‘the mountain

way.

D.

MACMILLAN

(Christchurch).