The Ascent of Rum Doodle
A classic that every climber should read.

Format	Book	Category	Fiction
Title	The Ascent of Rum Doodle	Pages	200
Author	W. E. Bowman	RRP
Publisher		Reviews	1
Edition		Ave Rating	(5.00 of 5)

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dave h. 3/8/2011

The Ascent of Rum Doodle is, quite simply, brilliant. It is narrated by Binder, the hapless leader of an expedition commissioned to climb Rum Doodle, which, at 39,000.5 feet, is the world''''''''s highest mountain. As all readers of the book will know (and here I permit myself to quote the great Totter), "To climb Mont Blanc by the Grepon Route is one thing, to climb Rum Doodle quite another." Some of Binder''s companions include a mountaineer who struggles to emerge from his sleeping bag, a doctor who is constantly sick, a linguist who continually offends the natives, a cameraman who can''t take a photo, and a pathfinder who is continually lost. The book starts with a pre-expedition meeting in England, where we are introduced to the major characters. Bowman then moves swiftly on to the journey to Yogistan (home to Rum Doodle), which occupies several enjoyable chapters. The remainder of the book contains an account of the expeditions exploits, which are, in a fashion, successful. The book operates on at least two levels. There is the superficial humour inherent in many of the situations in which the expedition finds itself, and then the deeper, subtler humour found in Bowman''''s parody of mountaineering literature (having read some mountaineering literature would be an advantage): for instance, the descriptions of the geography of the Rum Doodle Massif and the mountain itself: "The Rum Doodle Massif is the shape of a reversed W", "North Doodle lies West of the true summit", and ''The North Wall is a sheer face of rock, broken only by cracks, seracs, bergschrunds, moraines, iron maidens,...'''' [etc] I challenge anyone to read this without having (at the very least) several good chuckles.