Zen in the Art of Climbing Mountains

Rating:
Summary: What a Gumby
Review: Shulman's book is all together not very good. He relates a story on climbing Mont Blanc with an obviously 'vacation type' climbing group. A vacation package much like one would book to vacation in the Bahamas. He tries to make it seem like it was such a harrowing experience and although it was probably exhilarating to him, most mountaineers would consider it a 'yak' trip. The climbing inaccuracies were astounding. He describes abseiling (rappelling) as the most difficult of tasks where to any climber, it's simply a mode of transportation. Then to find out from the description, he was probably lowered down or rappelled with a top-rope belay. Give me a break! Although Shulman says that Buddhism and Zen mediation helped him with the 'ordeal,' I hardly consider almost getting lost trying to find the tram a situation where one has to dig deep to find the strength to go on. I've had more nerve-racking experiences getting lost in the inner city. He also relates nothing about his teammates, they don't even rate names. It was like he was traveling alone with ghosts in the background. Having what his teammates thought and did would have improved the story. A totally uninteresting book for climber/mountaineers and not much to offer on the philosophy of Buddhism. The only reason I give it a two is because it has two of my most favorite subjects, climbing and Buddhism. If you really want to know what it takes to climb a mountain, read "Beyond Risk : Conversations With Climbers" by Nicholas O'Connell. There are climbers in there that relate Buddhism to climbing such as Reinhold Messner.

Rating:
Summary: 5 stars for the "Gumby" review
Review: What a superb brief description of an awful book. My 5 stars are for the "Gumby" review. I recognize the profile: melodramatist with regretably easy access to word processor gets scared in the woods. Oh, brother.

Rating:
Summary: 5 stars for the "Gumby" review
Review: What a superb brief description of an awful book. My 5 stars are for the "Gumby" review. I recognize the profile: melodramatist with regretably easy access to word processor gets scared in the woods. Oh, brother.