Summit Journal's editor, Michael Levy, caught up with John Long, the preeminent rock-climbing writer of our time, for a conversation about the craft of storytelling, what gets him going in climbing today, and a book he reviewed in the forthcoming issue of the magazine, SJ 322. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Michael Levy: How many years have you been writing about climbing at this point?
John Long: Oh shit…. Like 50 years? I started doing stuff about adventure sports earlier than climbing. I was working for a river guide company on the Colorado River — that was my first exposure to big adventure — and It was there that I met someone from the Sierra Club who told me about Yosemite and climbing. And as soon as I found out about climbing, that was it for me.
ML: You have a piece — a book review in fact! — in the upcoming issue. It was a bit torturous to write, correct? Talk about that.
JL: At this point, writing about adventure sports and climbing, I'm not really interested in trying to do a better job at what everyone else has been doing; you know, risk taking, the thrill of it all, introspection, lifestyle…. That stuff has been done to death as far as I’m concerned. What interests me in particular, especially as I get older, is what are those pieces and experiences out there that are strong enough to cause a shift in my perspective. For instance, big-wall climbing isn’t nearly as popular as it used to be; but back when I started, you could look at a beginning climber at the bottom of El Cap and then see them at the top – and they did not look like the same person. Those kinds of boundary experiences are what make adventure writing particularly rich to me. Things that involve a fundamental shift in someone' s perspective.
So the book I reviewed for Summit Journal – it’s the embodiment of that. I wanted to jump in and wrangle it as best as I could; not just to stir interest in a work that isn’t a go-to book in the climbing and adventure world, but also, on a personal, existential level, to grow from reading it closely.
When you’re reading something like this it is an adventure. It throws your normal way of looking at the world completely in its ear.
But the problem with this book is that while it’s very well grounded, what is grounded is so slippery. The normal way we describe things doesn’t get us very far into this work. What’s being presented is a certain kind of mindset and existential awareness that is totally experiential. So how do you describe your own experience? The genius of this particular piece is that the author was able to capture that, to bottle it. When you find something that is unique and interesting, it’s a trigger for all kinds of unexpected things to happen.
ML: How has your approach to writing evolved over the years?
JL: Without really trying, my writing transitioned from an exuberant, adrenaline-blast to more of an internal-terrain review. As you become more and more aware of what’s happening, the questions get more interesting and more personal as you go. And that’s basically what happened for me.
ML: Out of your whole oeuvre, what are some personal favorite, perhaps lesser-known, works?
JL: I recently did an anthology called Granite Mariner that collected a lot of my stuff going all the way back, some of the best stuff.
In that collection there are a couple small stories that are never going to be big popular things, but as far as I was able to, they crystalized what I’ve been working toward for a long time, certain narrative styles that I’ve been trying to pull off my whole life. They’ll never be hugely popular, but I fulfilled an artistic promise to myself – I got as close as I’ll ever get to realizing a certain form.
The story that actually got me working in that direction was the one that appeared in Summit Journal 320, called “Shiva.” That got me thinking, Wait a second. With these kinds of stories, the climbing and adventuring and all that stuff — it’s incidental to the narrative. That’s what I wanted to do all along. That’s what Jack London and Joseph Conrad did. All the people I grew up reading had specific venues and genres they worked within. Conrad had the sea, for example. I always thought I’d work in the adventure world, but I didn’t just want to do adventure writing for its own sake.
ML: Who is one climber today that really impresses you, or that you take a particular pleasure in following?
JL: As far as watching someone, I could watch Janja Garnbret forever. You watch Janja, and I don’t know how to describe it. The physical prowess, the head, the competitiveness, the right attitude – she's got the whole package.
I also really like to follow Will Bosi. I love watching those videos of him going off and picking off the most difficult things ever. Because the things he’s doing, as far as physical movement, are among the hardest things humans have ever done… has to be right? Guys like Shawn Raboutou and Aidan Roberts, too. The stuff they do is incredible. But Bosi, a skinny Scottish kid cranking all of that, and with a great attitude? It’s just really fun to watch. And he gets ‘em all done!
ML: I’m going to rip off the last question Ezra Klein asks all his guests on his podcast. What are three books you’d recommend everyone to read?
JL: One is the book I reviewed in the forthcoming issue of Summit Journal… people will have to read to find out.
Another is Selected Poems by James Tate. He managed to cover terrain in a completely different way than anyone else did. I love his originality.
And then I would say, if you’re a writer, Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener is a must. I don’t think anyone’s ever done short-form narrative writing any better than that. He won the Pulitzer for it. Those big, thick tomes he did later – I could never read any of that. But Tales of the South Pacific, based on his experience during the Second World War – it has all the elements you need to tell great stories.
Feature Image: John Long, back in the day. Photo by Dean Fidelman.
Check out Granite Mariner, by John Long
