Review of Not Climbing Mountains by Claire Thomas – impressive for the patient reader | imaginary

ShUntil the late 18th century, before they became targets of conquest, Switzerland’s mountains were considered merely “a natural backdrop, remote and best left alone,” as Claire Thomas wrote in her recent book, On Not Climbing Mountains. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was particularly responsible for this shift, recasting mountains as “a site of spiritual support and potential enlightenment… People arrived, started climbing, and have been climbing ever since.”

Not to Climb Mountains is a novel, but it draws from and references a great deal of actual historical and literary sources, and is told in a strangely impersonal tone. We follow Beatrice, the reclusive narrator, as she travels by train through Switzerland, her father’s birthplace, all the while longing to be “beside the point, outside of time, and somehow unbound by what can be measured.”

Each of the book’s vignette-like chapters centers around a historical figure—Mary Shelley, James Baldwin, Charlie Chaplin, Katherine Mansfield—whose life or work is connected to Switzerland in either obvious or tenuous ways. These are not traditional portraits, but told obliquely and with a lovely light touch.

In particular, Beatrice was fascinated by the works of the Swiss painter Jean-Frédéric Schneider. In a country that reaches such dramatic heights, Schneider chose to photograph “small, humble interiors” such as train station waiting rooms (one of which appears on the book’s cover). Each of his paintings seems to “suggest a vast story beyond its limited dimensions” – a description that could apply equally to each of Thomas’s carefully crafted chapters. Each chapter seems very consciously framed; Every historical detail has been carefully selected. There is a sense, throughout, that the author behind the scenes is tightly in control of her material; History churns beneath her prose.

The significance of particular images or scenes is not always immediately obvious: Thomas frequently highlights small details before revealing the bigger picture. As a result, her themes are often ambiguous, which is part of the fun of the book. For example, characters we might assume are historical turn out to be characters from a Graham Greene story. Lines from Nabokov – “the wondrous crystalline world”, “the dazzling white square” – may sound like they are describing an Alpine landscape, but they are actually describing a butterfly seen under a microscope.

However, the most mysterious presence of all is Beatrice herself, who only makes her presence known intermittently; We don’t even know her name until halfway through the book. For example, one passage describing specimens from Nabokov’s butterfly collection at the Geneva Museum suddenly switches to first-person in one line: “I noticed his name on the posters at the exhibition I visited.” It is eventually revealed that the reason for her breakup was grief over the loss of her parents. The abundance of Switzerland-related material is an attempt to distract, although “it is becoming increasingly clear that such a diversion is impossible.” In one of the few scenes in the present, she receives a visit from her father’s friend, but when he leaves, she feels “empty again… afraid that the obsessions of art in book stories are no longer useful.”

Like Thomas’s previous two novels, this book is concerned with the endurance of art. But stylistically, it represents an ambitious departure. When performance was motivated, this was a much slower and more effortful reading. The performance was distinctive and often funny. Writing Not to Climb Mountains is a much more nuanced work, gaining meaning through association, digression, and resonance. At one point, Thomas references W.G. Sebald, and his fans will surely recognize his influence here: the plaintive tone; The solitary and contemplative narrator; blurring of fact and fiction; intertextuality; Deep preoccupation with memory.

I don’t consider myself the type of person who needs a lot of readers It is happening In the book – however, I found myself clinging to the very limited action here and wanting more. Of course, Beatrice’s emotional withdrawal is in keeping with her distress, and is entirely intentional on Thomas’ part. However, I was frustrated that any access to its interior was fleeting. A different kind of reader – perhaps a more patient one – might find Not Climbing Mountains more satisfying than I did. Ultimately, I found this work to be admirably complex, but a little too oblique to fully capture my attention.