[slackline]

Inclined to agree with "what dave said".

He's opted to self-publish, so despite others having aread and advising he has the final call on whats in and whats not.  It's his book telling his story from his perspective, what more should one expect from a biography? 

[Baron]

You're all obviously much cleverer than I. Found it hard to concentrate on and confusing. Not unlike the man.

White Peak/Dark Peak

[dobbin]

I agree Jo - I am the lager!

[Danny]

Of course you're all right, who would expect anything less than Dawes from his self-published autobiography?

I'm just saying I didn't think it was very good.

I'm sure Mein Kamph is "very Hitler" full of anti-semite diatribe, but worth (maybe) reading for a number of reasons other than it being good.

This is sort of how I felt about JD's tome - I certainly thought it was worth reading, all in all.

[Paul B]

What dave said. What on earth were you expecting?

A book that was memorable for conveying his unique life thus far, and his equally unique way of looking at things, rather than a book that was memorable for his 'unique' way of writing?

Its a poor argument to suggest that this book couldn't have achieved those things with a decent edit. For an example, the "TPOC" Johnny interview does a fantastic job of conveying his analogy of sliding cars (walking along Eccy rd. he was perched outside a coffee shop doing exactly that during the summer). Unless I suppose, shifting tense is actually what the man is all about.

[Duma]

What dave said. What on earth were you expecting?

A book that was memorable for conveying his unique life thus far, and his equally unique way of looking at things, rather than a book that was memorable for his 'unique' way of writing?

Its a poor argument to suggest that this book couldn't have achieved those things with a decent edit. For an example, the "TPOC" Johnny interview does a fantastic job of conveying his analogy of sliding cars (walking along Eccy rd. he was perched outside a coffee shop doing exactly that during the summer). Unless I suppose, shifting tense is actually what the man is all about.

I didn't mean to imply it couldn't have acheived that with an edit, but I think it did do both without, and memorably. Sadly I suspect it would have been less likely to give a true impression with more editing. Perhaps not true of most subjects, but then Dawes is not most.

Anyway, it's a matter of taste i suppose...

[Rocksteady]

To my mind Dawes is a poetic writer - he is capable of producing beautifully apposite phrases and descriptions. However, he doesn't seem very capable of organising these in a way that flows and makes sense to a reader. One experience leaps to another, associated only in the author's mind. While it contains some very good writing, I wouldn't say it was well-written. I wouldn't want to read a novel written by him!

It certainly makes for an unconventional read. It contained some great anecdotes, some beautiful phrases, and photos and the early part was excellent, but then it became mystifying. Much of the book was dedicated to describing individual movements and the moments in which they took place. These are what seem to be important to Dawes, and in a way this illuminates the mind of a great climber.

At times when I was reading this I felt that it was a therapeutic exercise for the writer, rather than an autobiography designed for the reader. I felt it was a journey into Johnny's mind, rather than a journey through his life. Perhaps he's making the point that these are, metaphysically, the same thing?!

I don't know if I enjoyed it or not really - I think I agree that it would be a much better 'book' if someone had taken Dawes' rambling genius and imposed some form of logical order upon it. 

[grimer]

I thought it was really good myself. I maybe agree that it doesn't come across as written by a natural writer inasmuch as the logic is not always there to see. However i saw it in earlier versions and it had improved so much in this respect that I thought it had been well edited / self edited. It could have been a very hard-to-follow book, which might have represented Johnny accurately in some respects but been unreadable. It might have been very readable in a ghost-writteny way but not represented Johnny. As it is I think it's a great compromise.

I'm also impressed by how much effort it would take to grind out something like this off your own back which influences me I think.

Bits i liked best were what seemed to me to be where the clearest writing was, such as going to the Ferrari factory, being down and out in LA, cycling through France.

[Doylo]

A Dawes book was always going to be unconventional and therefore slightly polarising.  I enjoyed it but preferred the structure and content of Jerry's book (but then JM is my hero)

[duncan]

This was the first time I’ve read a climbing autobiography and then, immediately I finished, started from the beginning again.  Partially because it was wonderful but partially because, in paces, it was so frustrating!  But did anyone expect otherwise?  It could have easily been a complete dog’s dinner but, like Dawes’ coaching, it is far more coherent than legend suggests it could have been.  Parts of it are still chum.

Climbing careers have an arc to them.  The excitement of the obsessive first 5-10 years of increasing achievement is inevitably followed by relative decline, accompanied by (choose 2 from 3) disappointment, injury, diversification, and (optional extra, available to mountaineers) death.  To some degree then, the first section of a climbing biography writes itself.  Full of Myself is a fascinating and brilliant read up to The Indian Face section which stands out, it’s familiarity jolting. 

Biographers have a challenge maintaining interest in the third act of any climbing biography.  How to treat the decline?  Keep it brief, arrange content thematically (Revelations, The Hard Years),?  Stick resolutely to chronology (Rock Athlete, The Villain)?   As Johnny’s life, particularly post-Indian face, seems to have been rather unstructured his choice,  describing a series of episodes with little interrelationship or clear chronology, seems appropriate.  Or so I think now.  I’m glad I re-read the second half of the book.  It’s a book about Johnny the person rather than Johnny the climber, so much of it is not about climbing.  It is the antithesis of Revelations in this respect.  The non-climbing bits are often the best bits.  First time around I got a bit lost and skimmed sections.  Second time I was more patient and it revealed some of the most interesting writing of all. 

Perhaps an editor and professional publication job might have helped, but the editing would have to be very subtle not to loose much of the charm and wonder.  It absolutely does not need ghost-writing.  A total immersion in the minutiae of 80s UK climbing does help in places: it will be an interesting task for a translator.

You have to read it.   

[grimer]

I agree with the total immersion in the scene bit. There one one line where he talked about sardines in Crispin's van. Crispin once told me that story about how JD let a whole can of sardines in oil fall into the air vents of a van so every time the air blew it smelled of rotten fish. I thought if I didn't know the story would I have understood the sentence. I think that's maybe why the non-climbing bits seemed clearer to me, as in you aren't relying on a shared knowledge.

[mrjonathanr]

It’s a book about Johnny the person rather than Johnny the climber, so much of it is not about climbing. 

Totally.

[jcm]

Another interview with Johnny on Planet Mountain.  Most interesting one I've read so far.

"Careless Torque. I told Ron Fawcett about it, and he climbed it just before me in 1987."

I didn't realise johnny had done CT! awesome etc.

I didn't think Johnny meant to say that he'd done Careless Torque, but that he'd been interested in it but Ron had beaten him to the first ascent. I agree with anyone else the words used would imply he'd done it, but in Johnnyspeak I don't think it's necessarily so. If he has I certainly don't think it's ever been publicised before, though I stand to be corrected.

I really enjoyed it, but it does suffer a bit from what most climbing autobiographies do - the bits people are mainly interested in are stuff that happened a long time ago and the author has spoken about many times, and he probably doesn't feel are particularly relevant to him as he now is. I remember sitting next to Dennis Gray at dinner once, and he was full of talk about some tedious expedition to Morocco, whereas what I wanted, of course, was to hear what Joe and Don and the rest were "really" like. In FoM I'd have liked, for example, to hear more about how Stone Monkey came to be, and what if anything he was doing climbingwise after about 1988. And a little bit of chronological structure in the second part wouldn't have come amiss - how he got to LA in the first place, for instance. Still wonderful and unmissable, of course, and as Grimer said a good compromise between the usual footballer sort of thing and echt Johnny-circa-1984 unintelligibility, which I think many of his wellwishers rather feared.

In a funny way, I thought the best line in it was George Smith's - "if you ever saw Johnny climb in his prime, you never forgot what you saw".

Do his problems on the Manchester underpass still exist, I wonder? I suppose no-one has ever gone and done them - even the Stone Monkey arete? My favourite photo in the book was him on The Veil.

[slackline]

Video interview on the Guardian

[fatboySlimfast]

Do his problems on the Manchester underpass still exist, I wonder?

yeah, walked past the arete a couple of weeks ago

[Baron]

Love the vid

[mrjonathanr]

Where is the underpass?

[slackline]

Where is the underpass?

Isn't it under the .  Several of the bridges/underpasses are quite similar so I'm not sure which section it is.

[fatboySlimfast]

its the pedestrain underpass section where the A34 goes under the motorway

[Muenchener]

Where is the underpass?

Isn't it under the A57(M) / Mancunian Way.  Several of the bridges/underpasses are quite similar so I'm not sure which section it is.

Yes it is. It's the crossing over Brook St by UMIST. The classic was called Concrete Society and takes the arete left of the Concrete Society design award plaque (if it's still there)

[slackline]

UMIST is no more though (merged with Victoria Univ of Manchester in 2004).

[mrjonathanr]

Thanks guys.

[Bonjoy]

Haven’t read this thread till now as I didn’t want to read any spoilers it might hold. I’m about half way through and so far I think it’s magnificent. Unless the second half is chock full of errors I don’t see what folk are talking about vis-à-vis needing editing*. The only error I noticed was a sling being described as 2mm in one page and 3mm in another, which did not spoil things excessively for me I must admit.
So far it’s the best biography I’ve read (TBO I’ve only read climber biographies). It does take patience and some bits take re-reading to sink in but that’s because Johnny often uses uncommon (often truly brilliant) phrasing which is naturally unfamiliar and takes a bit of thinking around. I like the way it’s written with minimal explainer content. I don’t expect to understand everything said in a book any more than I do the lyrics of a song.
It’s not an easy read for many of the same reasons that it is a great read. It’s the first book in a long time that I intend to read twice.


*Paul, how can you hold this up against The Power of Climbing on the grounds of editting!? TPOC is the worst edited book I ever read. The photos are good and it interviews a lot of interesting (as well as a few utterly random) people but in all other respects it’s a poor book.

[Paul B]

*Paul, how can you hold this up against The Power of Climbing on the grounds of editting!? TPOC is the worst edited book I ever read.

It may be somewhat down to the fact that I have to pick at, and re-edit a lot of my own work at the minute and doing so makes you focus on the minutiae more than is normal. However, I found the book distracting to read, not due to content or a unique take on the world, purely on the basis of grammar. TPOC is poorly edited (true) but at least it doesn't contain shifting tense (and it was raised as an example to counter the point that the only way to convey his unique take on things was with flawed linguistics). Again, as I said before I'd have been a little more willing to accept its flaws if it was priced accordingly, but it wasn't. That's just my opinion and for what its worth I'm strongly of the opinion that if a book is to be a challenging read it should be so based solely on content.

[Andy B]

Wot Lovejoy said.