De la amistad con una montaña

Why are mountains so fascinating? Once feared as horrible stone masses, they have been considered since Rousseau's time as a place of relief and serenity, in contrast to the degenerate cities, and arouse an attraction that does not wane. Son of snow and fir trees, raised in Austria and Switzerland, the author also has a very special relationship with the subject: the higher he climbs, the closer is the reunion with his youth. So this book is really a kind of sensory autobiography in which everything contributes to the memory of the past. Climbing means oxygenating the spirit, reconnecting soul and body in a single loop, an exercise in friendship that unites fellow rope members... But why climb to the top if it's only to go back down, why the pain? of ascending becomes pleasure, why the absurdity of this practice makes the absurdity of existence seem trivial, what metaphysics of the absolute is at stake here; what challenge to time, aging, panic and danger? Is there room for an ontology of heroism in our post-heroic times? With a resplendent and sensual style, this essay is a compendium of things seen and read, of literature and philosophy, of the rituals of a passionate practice and of questions about the destruction of our ecosystem; the twilight of a way of understanding adventure and, ultimately, the meaning of life.