
I don’t know if you’ve ever been asked to write some words about a life-changing book, but there’s a lot of considerations that go into picking the right one. You don’t want to pick one that too many people have done; you don’t want to show off by picking one that no one’s heard of that’s full of long words and weighs a tonne. You also know, if you’re conscientious, that you’re going to have to reread the thing. And that’s what swung it for me. I love rereading The Ascent of Rum Doodle.
I dusted off my battered copy of WE Bowman’s classic, I shuffled the pages back into order, I sliced myself 400g of banana bread and I headed to my hammock. I love this book. I love being transported into Bowman’s charming, ridiculous world of Yogistani summits. I love hearing the icy adventures. I love inhabiting the well-meaning mind of the very unreliable narrator: leader of the expedition and understated titan of British literature, Binder.
First published in 1956, Rum Doodle is a parody, I suppose, of the old-school mountaineering books of the time. In those days, people used to climb up the big ones, then slide back down and type it up. Bowman’s mountain of choice is the fictional Rum Doodle, at 40,000 (and a half) ft, the most imposing peak of the lot. The account of the ascent in question is dripping with stories of heroism and camaraderie. Human spirit triumphing against the odds, at altitude. Well, that’s Binder’s story anyway.
The writing is on the wall from the moment we meet Binder’s singularly ill-chosen team in the London pub where the plans are finalised. The doctor, a man named Prone, already has a severe cold to the head, and over the course of the book racks up a vast list of ailments ensuring he is of no medical use at all throughout. The language specialist cannot communicate with the locals as he is unable to make the requisite gastric gurgles at the heart of the Yogistani language. The navigator-in-chief is called Jungle. He never makes it to the meeting, finding himself lost in Hounslow. It’s perfect.
It is Binder, though, through whom we see the action unfold. A more optimistic, loving leader you could not hope to find, but a sad subtext rises like a gas from his words. The respect he feels from his men is in his mind alone. He wants to bind, but they do everything to keep him out of their tents. In the most laugh-out-loud set-piece of 20th century literature, Jungle navigates himself into a crevasse, and the other men join him one by one. The more they send for champagne and the more they sing, the more Binder – sat on the crevasse’s lip – commends their spirit and fortitude. And the more we become aware that they’re having a piss-up, and Binder ain’t invited.
This book didn’t catch me at a particularly formative age. The closest I got to anything like it as a teenager was reading cut-the-rope classic Touching the Void, which is tonally quite different. I didn’t find Bowman until my twenties. And since then I have reread it about once a decade.
The last time was in Kathmandu. The book has a charming affiliation with Nepal’s capital. It is its spiritual home. In the shadows of Everest, gap-yearing 20-year-olds in tie-dyied pantaloons plod around the secondhand bookshops. They’re all well-stocked with Bowman’s masterpiece and it’s a right-of-passage to buy yourself a copy and get stuck into it in the thin air of the Himalayas. My pal hadn’t read it so I bought him a copy and we repaired to The Rum Doodle Cafe to read it with a pint of Gorkha.
Why such an impact? I think it’s something like a magic trick when a book from more than 60 years ago makes you laugh out loud. It’s a trick that Wodehouse manages, for me. And I think Galton and Simpson have it. And The Diary of a Nobody. Your laughter turns to a frown. You knit your eyebrows: “How have you done this even though you’re from the olden days?” I think it is the very fact I’m laughing that makes it feel so fresh and modern. The turns of phrase, the naivety of Binder. Though of course it isn’t modern. Au contraire. No one’s wearing Gortex and at one point seven men form a chorus line on a cliff edge and sing a drunken rendition of Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage Mrs Worthington.
I hadn’t read it for a decade when my friend and I sat down in The Rum Doodle Cafe and opened the pages. Within minutes he was spitting his Gorkha out. It did for him what it did for me, the kid lost control. I don’t know how Bowman does it.
As my hammock swung gently to a halt, I stuffed the pages back in, in perfect order, and slotted it back on to the shelf. Ready for its next rediscovery.
• Tim Key is a poet and standup comedian. The fourth season of Tim Key’s Late Night Poetry Programme is now available on vinyl.
