Customer Reviews
A passion shared - By: Richard K, 18 Jun 2007 
...is not a passion halvedin this case. I, like MacFarlane, am a bloke slightly obsessed with mountains & he took me back to some good memories of climbs that I will probably never attempt again. It was with open-eyed exhilaration that I read this book. Splendid reading, even for those who like level terra firma.
Fantastic prose! - By: speakmymind, 13 Mar 2007 I have tended to read books of the mountains when skiing each year & this book was fantasticin its ability to explain why we take risks & why people climb mountains. It was great to read then go up into the mountains & it gave me a completely different appreciation of where I was. Bravo!
If you love mountains you must read this. - By: John Gilson, 28 Aug 2005 I don't feel qualified to review this following the universally excellent comments it has justly received. However, I must say that it is one of the few books that I return to to read passages from time & time again. It is a fantastic book & for Lake District lovers, a must read.
A gentle climb - By: , 12 Jun 2005 
This book has been deservedly praised for the way it traverses a great deal of material with such elegance & elan. It retells some familiar storiesin a fresh way & neatly blends cultural history with evocative descriptions of the author's mountain experiences. Although the central theme that landscapes are culturally determined is familiar & the format of these kind of cultural histories is now well established (Sprawson on swimming, Solnit on walking, Woodward on ruins etc.), the book never feels tired & the pace is maintained until the last page. MacFarlane is sure footed on writers like Shelley or Dr Johnson, stumbles a bit on art (Alexander Cozens was not a nineteenth century artist!) & is reallyin his element with anecdotes on Victorian climbing. 'Mountains of the Mind' centres on European attitudesin the eighteenth & nineteenth century, culminatingin Mallory's ascent. This leaves a slightly disconcerting gap between the 1920s & MacFarlane's own recent experiences: it would be interesting to read how cultural attitudes have changed since Mallory's time. Although the mountains of Asia are central to the narrative, the cultural attitudes to mountainsin Asia are not discussed. So for example, he doesn't discuss Hsieh Ling-Yun or Han Shan or the Western beat poets & climbers subsequently inspired by them. Then again, it's such a mountainous subject it would have been a challenge to include everythingin one volume.
Travels through 'Deep Time.' - By: charlie orr, 26 Jan 2005 
O the mind, mind has mountains..............
Gerard Manly Hopkins. c.1880
In this unique book Robert MacFarlane presents us with mountains both as physical/ geological construct and, as the title would suggest, the mental construct of modern man.
His very persuasive standpoint being, that mountains & our attitudes towards them owe as much to mindscape as they do to landscape.
MacFarlane cleverly blends the twoin a progression from 16th century 'terra incognita' & a 'There be Dragons' mentality, through the 'sublime' mountain worship of Shelley, Ruskin et al, to the scientific endeavors still linked with mountaineering at the beginning of the 20th century, arriving finally at the noble pursuit of mountain climbing & the consequent courting of danger as a laudable endin itself. And all this, runningin parallel with the acknowledgement of 'Deep Time' inherentin the ongoing decoding of geological encryption.
His description of landscape & geological forcesin what he calls 'The Great Stone Book' is fascinating & is achievedin such a way that it is both simple & at times poeticin its rendering of information more normally associated with the technically prosaic.
He is eclecticin his literary references with quotes ranging from Petrarch to Simpson - Joe & all pointsin between, sampling freely from poetry, prose, diary & letter. He also draws heavily on the artistic endeavors of many across the ages & it isin this department that the book displays what is, for this reviewer, its only weakness, poor quality photographic reproduction.
Mountains Of The Mind could be said to be truly, & indeed literally, visionaryin its conception & MacFarlane has succeededin telling a wonderful tale of the evolution of the mountain worldin the consciousness of modern man.
