RARA-AVIS: Hardboiled rock

From: Michael Robison ( miker_zspider@yahoo.com)
Date: 14 Oct 2004


I'm reading Gores's COME MORNING. I had heard that there were climbing scenes in it. Cool to find out that I had done one of them, the 1000 foot Royal Arches route. I don't much care if fictional streets don't match the real city's, and it didn't bother me that Gores borrowed El Cap's famous pendulum and tacked it onto the end of the Royal Arches, but on the other hand I thought that Gores did a mediocre job of tapping the literary significance that he could have got out of the climb. He chose to emphasize the blissful panoramic view from the top instead of the metaphor of the rope uniting the climbers. Both might be cliche, but it seems to me the latter would have far better suited his purpose. And never once does he mention the fact that Louise is protecting Runyan by belaying him, a significance that goes beyond the mere mechanics of climbing. Altogether a fairly ineffective use of climbing.

Trevanian did a lot better with THE EIGER SANCTION, and the little-known climbing classic, Salter's SOLO FACES, is even better.

miker

                
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