Time on Rock: A Climber’s Route into the Mountains, by Anna Fleming. Canongate Books, Ltd., 2022.
I am writing a memoir on rock climbing and motherhood. It is not complete yet, but something that is helping me keep the vision of it as I write the last bits is putting together a book proposal. (See “I only read 27 books this year…”) One section of this dreaded task that has been most helpful is the Competitive Analysis, where I find what books are similar to mine in subject or in structure or both and talk about how my book idea is different from and/or similar to what the author of those books did.
I have also been intending to start the practice of writing book reviews this year, and have not yet. Never too late to begin, right?
Two brand new books that I discovered were from UK authors, one called A Line Above the Sky by Helen Mort and the other, Time on Rock by Anna Fleming. While A Line Above the Sky is probably more like what I’m writing since Mort writes her story from the perspective of becoming a mother, Time on Rock has become a true favorite as well as an example of the kind of writing about climbing that I hope I’m able to emulate. In this memoir (though sticking it into this genre may be too limiting), Fleming writes about her personal growth in skill and strength as a rock climber and the different places and types of rock, mainly in the UK, that formed her. She weaves together a brief history of each place, a little geology lesson, how climbing was developed in each area, and how her own body experiences it. She braids all of these strands together in a way that makes for great reading because she doesn’t get mired down in one thing.
Here is the table of contents:
Opening
I. Peak District— Gritstone
II. Yorkshire — Gritstone
III. Kalymnos— Limestone
IV. Cuillin I— Gabbro and Basalt
V. Lake District— Rhyolite
VI. Cuillin II— Gabbro and Basalt
VII. Dinorwig— Slate/Llechi
VIII. Moray— Sandstone
IX. Cairngorms— Granite
Epilogue Creag and Dubh
Loch— Granite
One of my favorite things that Fleming does in this book is taking a close look at the way the type of rock influences how her body moves and what strength she gains from it. There is a meditativeness throughout that shows the love she has for climbing and place— she never has to come out and say it. More than anyone other climber I have read, except for maybe Steph Davis, Fleming describes climbing in a way that made me feel it— the rock’s texture, the surrounding weather and mood, and how a body interacts with it all.
Time on Rock gave me a lot of information about what climbing is like on the giant island across the pond. It also taught me a list of new geography terms, some of which I will probably never use: fell, beck, roll, gambol, firth, ceilidh. I wished for a pronunciation guide to be included— the absence of which is my only gripe about the book— but maybe it isn’t necessarily meant for readers outside the UK. Maybe everyone over there knows how all these words sound. Still, the book beckons me to go and try the climbing. Someday, perhaps.
Here’s a short excerpt to give you a taste of her writing style:
Each rock type speaks its own language, which is shaped, in part, by its geology. Different stones are composed of distinctive minerals, giving rise to particular textures and densities of rock which erode in their own characteristic style. Climbers home in on this superficial matter, their focus drawn to the surface, the meeting place of weather and geology. Rocks have patterns, and climbers learn to read these patterns by mapping their body to the stone. In time, all the playful practise of exploration and experimentation builds up into a vocabulary and then you become fluent in the rock.
Some rocks are easier to read than others. There are some that you get on and take to immediately, finding a ready flow of comprehension. Others are more difficult. Some have a complex grammar that you struggle to get your head around and as you make your way into that alien language, you meet frequent stumbling blocks.
Ah, she did warn me about the stumbling blocks of language there, didn’t she?
Makes you want to read it too, right? I was unable to get this from the library, so I ordered it from alibris.com, $26 US. I recommend this book to all rock climbers, but also to people interested in reading/learning about climbing even if they don’t yet climb.
