#9 The Schreuderspitze (1981) Mark Helprin
For the next 20 days or so I plan on alternating between two
authors. I’ll read through both Mark
Helprin’s Ellis Island and Nam Le’s The Boat.
The hope is that by reading two authors, I’ll both break up the monotony
of reading only one voice, and also be able to use both voices as a tool for
analysis.
My introduction to Helprin is a good one. Schreuderspitze is a gripping story about a
troubled soul. A man, a talented but
struggling photographer, who has befallen tragedy decides to disappear from his
urban life and become a hermit in the mountains.
“He was soft from a lifetime of near happiness”, but soon
through a vigorous regimen of exercise and diet becomes a changed man, a
mountain climber. His goal to ascend
Schreuderspitze (no literal translation) becomes symbolic of a climb to light,
mystery, and heaven itself. His mind,
spiritually due to his recent loss and physically due to his starvation diet,
becomes a hazy mesh of dreams and reality. What does one feed on, food or
dreams? Sub consciously deciding to
climb or stay, live of die, his trek to the Alps ultimately leads him to a
fitting resolve.
Unlike other such stories like say Jack London’s To Build a
Fire which is Man vs. Nature, or Alex McCandliss in Jon Krakauer’s telling of Into the
Wild which is Man vs. Himself in the pure harshness of nature, Schreuderspitze
is about the burden of man’s past vs. the prospects of his future. Nature is just the venue.
This is a great complete short story, fully realized and
meaningful. I’m looking forward to the
rest of the collection
Notable Passages: “It is hard to dent oneself, to pare
oneself down, at the heart and base of a civilization so full”
“In Munich are many men who look like weasels. Remarkably,
they accentuate this unfortunate tendency by wearing mustaches, Alpine hats,
and tweed. A man who resembles a rodent should never wear tweed.”
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