Climbing the Rum Doodle
The Ascent of Rum Doodle ( The Ascent of Rum Doodle ) is a short satirical novel published in 1956 by the British William Ernest Bowman (1911–1985). Bowman parodies the bombastic writing style that was typical of British expedition reports from 1930 to 1950 by describing an expedition to the 40,000½ foot high Rum Doodle mountain in the fictional country of Yogistan . The report by Bill Tilman on the first ascent of Nanda Devi and the report by Maurice Herzog on the first ascent of Annapurna were particularly influential for Bowman's novel .
While the book was translated into French, Spanish and Danish as early as the 1950s, the first German-language edition did not appear until 2013 (translated by Wolfgang Colden and Michael Hein). In the English-speaking world, the novel has been reprinted several times since the 1950s and was included by the British newspaper The Guardian in its 2009 literary canon 1000 Novels everyone must read ("1000 novels that everyone must have read "). Margarete von Schwarzkopf called the novel endearingly bizarre in her book review and a successful political satire on megalomania, ambition, pride and prejudice.
content
Expedition leader "Binder" is commissioned by the "Rum Doodle Committee", headed by Sir Hugeley Havering, to put together a suitable team for an expedition to the Rum Doodle, the highest mountain in the world. Binder, the first-person narrator, succeeds in doing this and forms a group that combines all the necessary characteristics:
- Burley is the "strong" man whose drive should drive the team
- the linguist Constant is supposed to ensure communication with the Yogistanis
- Jungle will serve as a navigator and trailblazer
- Prone is the expedition doctor
- Shute will capture the highlights of the expedition with his three-dimensional cinematographic color camera
- Wish is the accompanying scientist
However, it quickly turns out that the expedition participants are spectacularly incompetent in their respective fields of expertise. Boy Scout Jungle is unable to find the first meeting point in London (and reports by telegram as soon as he sees the Pole Star ), and later leads the expedition members in circles because he forgets to release the lock on his compass . Burley suffers from attacks of all kinds of "indolence" such as base camp, glacier and sleeping bag indolence. Prone experiences a never-ending series of illnesses, including such unusual ones as "Bavarian measles " and the result of every scientific experiment by Wish ends with the number 153 - regardless of whether it is altitude or temperature. Expedition leader Binder regularly withdraws to meditate on leadership qualities and tries to involve his expedition members in deep psychological conversations. Thanks to Constant's linguistic abilities, the expedition is almost not accompanied by 3,000 but 30,000 yogistani porters, the rest can only be held back by appropriate payments from assault. Their general unfriendliness turns into open hostility after every attempt at contact. Binder reacts to every mishap with British composure, because the expedition committee has already given him the following instructions: "Climbing Mont-Blanc via the Grépon route is one thing that Rum Doodle has to be climbed, as Totter once said has a completely different one. "
In the end, Binder and one of his expedition participants manage to climb the summit - but unfortunately that of the wrong mountain. The expedition is still successful, because the yogistani porters carry Prone to the summit of the Rum Doodle due to a misunderstanding.
effect
The novel has a reputation for enjoying cult status among mountaineers. In Kathmandu a restaurant and bar is called "Rum Doodle". It is a popular meeting place for expeditions planning to climb Mount Everest. A small mountain in the Antarctic Masson Range is officially called Rumdoodle Peak , inspired by the novel .
Web links
Single receipts
- ↑ Webpage of the restaurant in Kathmandu accessed on November 8, 2013
- ↑ Webpage that predicts the weather of the Rumdoodle peak accessed on November 8, 2013