Customer Reviews

Kurt Diemberger Omnibus: Summits & Secrets, the Endless Knot, Spirits of the Air

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The author's awesome attainments in mountaineering: the only living man with two first ascents of 8,000-meter mountains, are matched by his boundless curiosity and his enthusiasm for every new experience. He is a man of high good humor, tenacity, and independence with remarkable communication skills.

The autobiography is three books "Summits and Secrets" written as a young man, "The Endless Knot" takes up his ascent and harrowing descent of K2 in 1986 and the loss of his beloved partner, Julie Tullis who died there; and "Spirits of the Air" written in middle age.

Though "Summits and Secrets" covers interesting material about Diemberger's childhood and early manhood, I found the translation to be stiff. I fault the translator because the other two books are so free flowing and at times lyrical. In these autobiographies, you get a sense of the complete man, not just his genius on the mountains. He loves to sing (he claims it helps him breathe better on the mountain), can and does swear thunderously in German when thwarted, has small vanities, and a never failing appreciation of the charms of the ladies. Unlike many of the climbing fraternity, he doesn't appear to have a double standard where women climbers are involved. He judges everyone on his or her merits. I became so attuned to his storytelling, I felt as if it was all directed to me personally, that he wanted me to be entertained and share his wonder and delight at all he had seen. I am glad to report that as of this date, Kurt is still going strong lecturing, climbing and doing camera work. The story ends at 1991, and I had to follow up to see how he has fared this last decade.

The much-traveled Mr. Diemberger for some reason had never been in the United States until his 40th year. (Maybe because we cannot boast of any 8,000 meter peaks!) He was an enthusiastic tourist as is shown in the following excerpt from "Spirits of the Air." His awe and amazement during his helicopter flight through Grand Canyon is infectious:

"I am staggered! Overwhelmed is no word for it! And anyway, there's no time to be overwhelmed when new sensations are continually bombarding you, shaking you, grabbing your attention, whetting your appetite for even more unexpected thrills. You are looking ahead, back, down, as gigantic buttresses sweep past, pillars and palaces of red rock, side valleys opening and closing, the terrific gorge agape below you--- You are flying through the biggest trough on earth. All the pictures I have ever seen of the Grand Canyon are forgotten. They are tiny facets, mosaic pieces, nothing more - I see that now. No human brain can comprehend this intricate labyrinth that is the Grand Canyon. It is a world!"

Let Kurt take you on his journey. You will never regret it.

Of this omnibus I have read only The Endless Knot but am so impressed with it that I wanted to lodge a review. This account of climbing K2 during one of its hungriest years is rendered luminous by the simple, unaffected, honest and straightforward affection between Kurt and his working partner Julie. Kurt's "married to the mountain" prose and his personal honesty make this a genuine monument in the literature.

Since 1956 Diemberger is on the way as an extreme mountaineer. One who survived so long! One who withstood so many Eightthousanders. This cannot be accident. Should he belong to the prudent sort of extremists, who not only master the craft excellently, but also use skilfully their brains? A good reason to listen to somebody like him, when he tells the tales about his mountain stories? At least for an alpinist it should be out of question.
Kammerlander characterized him as a traveller between the worlds. But there are much more worlds which D. started out to explore than only the often hawked around journey to the unknown inner self, the inner mountain, which you always have to climb as well when climbing a mountain. D. does not only pay a visit to a mountain, up-down and home! He is interested in the complete artwork: landscape, people and what is my role in that. Good presuppositions also to make films and write books. In both he was also successful.
The author was not satisfied with mountains, he became a traveller of adventures in deserts and jungles as well. The uncertain is attracting him, he calls it a "spell". He knows very well that you cannot get to the bottom of everything, even if you can get on top of everything. Man himself is mysterious. He says: "praise the life in which we do not know if it is successful!! No matter what comes, one has to survive to be able to expose oneself time and again to the zest. The author would find it hard to accept boredom.
Similar to Reinhold Messner he must have been fed up one day just to stand on a Eightthousander. This is what true adventurers distinguishes from others. They are no specialists except in that they cannot be determined. They are creative and flexible. This belongs to their strategy to survive! Hierin D. is an expert.
This is not Messner. He does not try hard to find any philosophical deeper meaning in what he does which is always proposing a suspicion that there needs to be an excuse for what one is doing or even to find in explanations the salvation of the own being driven. After all man, be it a mountaineer, has not the goal to climb some mountains, instead to do good what he does. D. says that there is a problem. The problem is not to have an objective scale.
Diemberger has no answers. He just tells his tales. They are entertaining, in times you need a little breath to keep on. It is the historic moment you can share. No stories about the 24th ascent. No comparisons to the achievements of others are necessary. The music plays there where Diemberger climbs. He lived after the principle: That we still live is a constant gift, is properly the main thing, the rest will be found.

I admire Diemberger's achievements: he's obviously an intelligent and sensitive man and an impressive mountaineer. However, he's very much an amateur writer, at least to judge by this translation. The tragic events he describes in The Endless Knot (by far the best of the three books here) are certainly dramatic in themselves and make compelling reading for that reason. Unfortunately, the foggy haze of Diemberger's prose obscures as much as it illuminates. He uses the present tense, presumably to make it all seem more immediate and dramatic, but the result is something like the bad narration on a reality-TV show, where everything seems over-hyped. Also, at the beginning of the book, I had to spend a fair bit of time trying to straighten out his chronology, since he's describing several different expeditions, and they come across as a tangled muddle. I came to this book after reading several superlative mountaineering books: Rick Ridgeway's The Last Step The Last Step: The American Ascent of K2about the 1978 ascent of K2, and the Boardman-Tasker Omnibus The Boardman Tasker Omnibus: Savage Arena, the Shining Mountain, Sacred Summits, Everest the Cruel Way(two books each by Joe Tasker and Peter Boardman). These thoughtful, wonderfully written books put Diemberger's to shame, though I suppose it's a lot to ask that a great mountaineer be a good writer as well. Still, a good editor could probably have helped. Worth reading for the events described if you can hack your way through the prose.