Taken to Boardman-Tasker
When I used to stay at my dad’s house in Wales, every night I’d pick one of his climbing books and flick through it; Touching the Void, One man’s Mountains and The White Spider. But of all these books the one that stood out, and the only climbing book I’ve read cover to cover - and more than once - was Joe Tasker’s book Savage Arena.
First off what a title! It took a long time to think of a title that would do justice to Joe’s, summing up in one of two words exactly how climbing feels to the writer at times.
Secondly it’s a great story; the Eiger in winter, piling a van with gear and heading off to the Himalaya, and then the final incredibly story of the first ascent of the West face of Changabang - one of the most futuristic ascents to that date.
Lastly, and the thing that really hit me, laid their in my dad’s spare bed, was that Joe was from Hull… and that he’d been a dustbin man!
I think reading Savage Arena both inspired me to climb hard mountains, and more importantly, write about it as well, with Savage Arena remaining one of the best high mountain books ever written.
So thanks Joe!
Joe Tasker and Pete Boardman disappeared on May 17, 1982 on the North-East Ridge of Everest. (you can read Joe’s Obituary by Dick Renshaw
here). And in memory of them the Boardman- Tasker was established, aiming “promote literature by providing an annual award to authors of literary works, the central theme of which is concerned with mountains.”
And so learning I’d been shortlisted for the prize this year was a real honor, and it was amazing to meet Joe and Pete’s family and friends on Saturday night. But I have to admit sat listening to Tim Noble give his speech, slowly working down the runner’s up, was far more gripping than any A5 lead!
But somehow I won!
Here’s what Tim said about the book:
“And so by default to our winner. Andy Kirkpatrick’s book Psychovertical is, despite its title and front-cover hype a compulsive read and re-read. Kirkpatrick, in his first book, manages a minor miracle: in measured and balanced writing, larded generously throughout with wit, self-deprecation and mordant humour that he keeps in fine check, he finds the perfect measure of himself on some of the planet’s most dangerous climbs. It is perhaps because he knows himself so well that we accept both his expressed incompetence in climbing and writing (he is dyslexic) and efforts to overcome it without demur. Here is no case of classic British irony.
We warmed to this author – to his urge to live life to the full; to understand his limitations as son, husband and father. The loss of a father figure in particular points to an underlying theme over thirty years of mountaineering biography; but none of us could recall a more sensitive and less self-indulgent treatment of the theme than here presented.
The book is very cleverly structured (we all wonder if the Hutchinson editor gets credit here). The cuts from scene to scene and climb to climb work wonderfully well – a sort of mountaineering Day of The Jackal – as Kirkpatrick comes closer and closer to his nemesis on Reticent Wall. And it is this climb, the running narrative of the book, that grips the most: 14 pitches of aid climbing, unrelieved by conversation with a partner other than himself, should by rights be boring. But it grips the heart further and further. These chapters are without exception exceptional – the best writing about aid climbing we’ve read, and make for sweaty-palmed page turning. On this basis alone the book is a winner. Taken as whole it stands as a beacon for the next generation of young turks: a challenge to pick up the pen and overcome their own reticence. Kirkpatrick has taken up the baton on behalf of generation x and, at just the right moment, has said ‘Yes I can’. The judges are delighted to award the 2008 Boardman Tasker Award to Andy Kirkpatrick for Psychovertical. “
If you want to hear Joe speak for himself (and you have Realplayer) then click here.
— November 24, 2008 09:08 AM
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