Customer Reviews

Killing Dragons: The Conquest of the Alps

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It was hard to decide whether to give this book four stars or five. The book isn't anywhere near to being a complete history of the conquest of the alps (con), but what is here is extremely well-written and interesting stuff which I could barely put down (pro) even though it's a pretty hefty 360 pages in all.

The first half of the book (176 pgs) is devoted to Mount Blanc, starting in prehistory, working up to its first ascent in 1786, and then continuing on up til the mid-nineteenth century. More than just the climbs themselves enters into the story. Fleming is as much concerned with the philosophical and cultural meaning of the exploits as with the exploits themselves. So he tries to give us a feel for their context in the wider scheme of things and what the people were like who were doing these things. The amount and variety of material which Fleming has researched and brought into the mix is what makes the reading so fascinating. There's everything from what the mountain villages were like to the scientific debate over why glaciers move.

Most of the second half of the book concerns itself with the eventual first ascent of the Matterhorn (1865) and the events surrounding it in the decade before. If Mount Blanc was all about ice, the Matterhorn is obviously all about rock. The author's obviously British perspective weighs heavily in here, which is where we get the most info on first ascents other than the two principals -- esp. if they were done by Whymper as warm-ups for the big prize.

Only the last twenty pages or so is devoted to the "modern" (post-Mummery) era, and the concentration so far as the detail is concerned is on the Eiger North Face.

So even if the coverage is much more limited than I would have preferred, Fleming is such an accomplished story-teller that I could recommend this to climbers and non-mountaineers alike.

"Killing Dragons" is a history of the exploration of the French, Swiss, and Italian Alps from the early 18th century to 1938, when the "last problem of the Alps", the Eiger Nordwand, was finally "solved." The first half of the book discusses the early French and Swiss scientists and adventurers who explored the slopes of Mont Blanc and studied the glaciers of the Bernese Oberland. The 19th century belonged to the eccentric British explorers and scientists and an American expatriate, William Coolidge, who were driven to the mountains by a variety of forces. The end of the British domination of Alpine exploration came when almost all of the peaks had been conquered by their most straightforward routes, leaving only the more technically challenging direttissima routes, north faces, and other novel paths. These climbs required technical innovations (such as the use of pitons and carabineers) and a new more gymnastic approach and attitudes that the British and the French considered to be unsporting. This left the great technical climbs in the Alps to the Austrians, Germans, and Italians, and hence it is fitting that the book ends with a description of two Bavarians' and two Austrians' conquest of the Nordward.

Parts of the book, particularly in the first half, although competently-written and useful from an informational perspective, are quite dry and not particularly gripping. Later sections on John Tyndall and Edward Whymper are significantly better and Fleming's description of the personalities and feuds involved are actually quite interesting. I enjoyed the biographical information about Whymper, which fleshes him out as an individual. For more details about Whymper's exploits, I would highly recommend his book "Scrambles Amongst the Alps."

There were a few worrisome factual and editing errors early on in the book, such as when the mountain Pilatus is repeatedly placed above Geneva. This is a strange error as the general map included with the book correctly puts the mountain near Lucerne. A few detailed maps would have been a most welcome addition.

Overall, this is a smoothly-written and useful historical overview of Alpine exploration written very much from a British perspective and one that I would recommend to anybody who has a special interest in the area or the history of mountaineering. (A prior knowledge of the area by the reader will also help compensate for the lack of detailed maps.)

In Killing Dragons: The Conquest Of The Alps, Fergus Fleming recounts the incredible exploits of the men who explored Europe's most famous and dangerous mountain range. French and Swiss scientists tackled the peaks in the late 18th century seeking to learn more about the atmosphere, earth's origins, and glaciers. By the 1850s this scientific pursuit had evolved into a fierce competition between British climbers. The climbers became celebrities seeking to climb ever higher and more impossible mountains -- while trading quips and barbs and in public press. Stories of the climbers valor, rivalries, egos, and disasters become the substance of popular interest. Highly recommended reading that is both informative and fascinating, Killing Dragons tells how the great Alpine mountains fell to these colorful, eccentric climbers and is a "must" for anyone who has ever contemplated the adventure and sport of mountaineering.

I am surprised to see only a 3-star rating average currently for this book. I thought it was an engrossing read for anyone with an interest in the history and development of alpinism in general and tourism in the Alps. I had recently read Trevor Braham's "When The Alps Cast Their Spell" which left me cold. Despite it winning the Boardman Tasker Prize I found it dense and dull. Starting into Fleming's Killing Dragons I was wondering why I was reading a book that covered so much of same ground, and expected to more or less skim through it, but I soon found myself hooked.

Braham focused on the players: each chapter is centered on one major figure from the era. Fleming instead works chronologically through the development of the key mountains and towns, and, although he does attach the narrative to each character for a time (especially to Whymper), he really follows the succession of challenges: Mount Blanc, the Matterhorn, the Meije, the Eiger Nordwand. This structure lets him write a book that maintains a sense of suspense and drama that is rare in non-fiction.

This book while not compelling or a must read, is still a well written if standard introduction to the the story of the conquest of the Alps by (mostly) British climbers from the Alpine Club. While it is neither as authoritative nor comprehensive (nor thankfully as long) as Walt Unsworth's "Everest" it is nonetheless a fine introduction that engagingly lays out both the plot and characters in the story of man vs the Alps. From his blbliography and introduction, you can pick up the story in more detail where you please. His treatment of Whymper is first-rate; indeed he is more indulgent and less sardonic with these heroes than he was of John Barrow and his "boys."Mr. Fleming, in addition to laying out the facts, is always shrewd in his analysis of motive and character. Again, while this is no classic, it is a professional job by an intelligent writer on a fascinating subject intended for the general reader. I was appreciative.

I read Mr. Fleming's two books on the North Pole, and because I liked them I picked this one on the Alps, but this book is a failure by Mr. Fleming's own standards. It is quite a mess, and worse than that, a dull mess. Mr. Fleming literally wanders around the Alps in his narrative without any real plan as far as I can see, and although it is presented as "The conquest of the Alps", the editor (if not the author) should have been more honest and simply acknowledge that it is just a sort of whimsical account of some of the British pioneers in the Alps, plus a bit on the Eiger, but just because the Eiger has such a vis atractiva of its own (there were no Brits there).

It seems to me that while the history of the exploration of the North Pole follows a more or less straight chronological line, and because there is a vast bibliography to consult about it, Mr. Fleming did well in his two books on that subject, but this one is not worth reading, at least not to me.

I suggest you rather go for Harrier's "The White Spider", and for Whymper's own recollection of his Cervino's first ascent.

"Killing Dragons" is an engrossing series of portraits of men and mountains woven into a chronology of alpine exploration that spans 150 years. The bulk of the narrative focuses on two big, suggestive mountains - Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn - and their two principal suitors: de Saussure and Whymper. But there are delightful side roles for a whole throng of colourful characters such as Bourrit, Forbes, Tyndall, Ruskin, Stephen and Coolidge. Ultimately it's also a story about how surprisingly quickly and drastically man's relationship to nature can change: in barely two centuries the general mood regarding the mountain world switched from superstitious awe to scientific interest to exploratory zeal to nationalist competition to, ultimately, solipsistic thrill-seeking (which is still the dominant ethos today).

Fergus Fleming is a masterful storyteller with a penchant for tongue-in-cheeck humour, quirky details and the burlesque. In one or two cases it's even over the top, as when he inserts a footnote with a deadpan comment of Edward Whymper on the ubiquity of "crétins" (deformed, mentally handicapped people) and goitre sufferers in rural Alpine communities: "Let them be formed into regiments by themselves, brigaded together, and commanded by cretins. Think what esprit de corps they would have! Who could stand against them? Who would understand their tactics?" An example of a more successful gag comes when Fleming comments on the death of Coolidge who, after the demise of his beloved aunt Meta Brevoort, withdrew and became and quarrelsome, exasperatingly punctilious Alpine historian. Fleming: "An imp of perversity was loose in Grindelwald that season - either that or the Swiss possessed a keener sense of humour than they were normally credited with - for the great pedant was given an exquisitely apt send-off. The 'Echo of Grindelwald" misspelled his name in its official notice, the authorities put the wrong age on his headstone and the carver missed out the the 'u' in 'mountains'." The book is full of these kinds of hilarious observations. (Incidentally, Fleming himself may have something of Coolidge's pedantry as he is remarkably scrupulous about spelling of French and Germain toponyms throughout the book).

On the whole, Fleming does an admirable job in weaving the locales, the societal trends, the climbing epics, the individual characters and their relationships and rivalries into a rich tapestry. My only complaint is that this book refers only in passing to and omits a more extensive discussion on Albert Mummery, an important and colourful character who heralded a new era in mountaineering. His remarkable ascents on the great Alpine peaks (Zmutt ridge on the Matterhorn, amongst many others) and his fantastic daring to be the very first to attack a Himalayan 8.000 meter peak (already in 1895!) would have been a more fitting and logical conclusion to this very British epic than the unsavoury story of the German siege on the north face of the Eiger.

The author has admittedly presented a thorough (if not exhausting) history of the earlier attempts and successes in summiting the Alps. And there you have it! Not much excitement, nothing thrilling...sort of like Sgt. Joe Friday on the old "Dragnet" series...just the facts, ma'm! This book might be enjoyed by those who find interest in the arcane and the mundane. I say pass it by and find any number of much more interesting books on mountaineering, exploring and stories of summiting. I gave it two stars for the nice picture on the cover jacket!

The author of "Barrow's Boys" has once again written an extremely interesting work that deals, mainly, with British eccentrics doing unusual things: this time they are exploring, and climbing, the Alps. I found the subject very compelling, because I have always had a desire to see the Matterhorn, a desire that began when I saw, as a young boy, Walt Disney's "Third Man On The Mountain". Having lived one winter in Denver, I loved going into the Rockies and just looking around, and observing the majesty of creation. This work is a very good introduction to the beginning of mountaineering in Europe, and is suitable for the general reader. Anyone who considers themselves learned in the field will probably not like this work, but I enjoy learning something new in everything I read, and this book certainly gave me that type of information. There were a few typos scattered here and there, but they didn't detract from my pleasure in reading this work. The writing style is casual, and it's something worth reading if you love mountains, and like hearing about the odd and determined people who climb them.

Fleming is not, as one reviewer states, a "great writer"; he is, in fact, a fairly dull, lazy one, given to repeating himself, relying on second-hand sources (i.e., he quotes other writers quoting Dumas, Dickens, etc.) rather than the originals, and he has a silly, reductive view of theism (i.e., one either believes in natural development OR God and dragons). I can't say I *enjoyed* reading this book all that much, but it did make me want to hunt down books on mountaineering by Leslie Stephen and Edward Whymper, among others. Fleming approaches his subject--the popularization of the Alps--not from a mountaineering or literary or scientific point of view, but rather from a social one. He is very much concerned about whether so and so was a snob or a gentleman, and that's fine, but prospective readers should be aware. I would much prefer a more technical discussion of climbing, but Ferguson doesn't seem all that well-suited for this. Having bashed this book pretty well, I have to admit I learned from it and am glad I read it. It beats reading Bill O'Reilly or being poked in the eye with a sharp stick.