Firstly, the film. When James, Davie and I were having dinner on Friday evening (Ally having set off to visit Cat in London) we had a look at what films we might want to watch during the evening. If we don’t have a clear idea of a film that we want to see, we often get a bit stuck; finding a film that pleases all of us can lead to a mediocre compromise. But this time we struck lucky. We quickly came across a film that none of us had seen but which appealed to all three. It was a documentary called “The Dawn Wall” which followed two climbers, Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson, as they attempted a new and incredibly difficult route up El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. If that sounds familiar, it’s because about a year ago we went to the GFT to see a film called “Free Solo” which was also about a climb up El Capitan, by Alex Honnold. And it turns out that the two films were released only about ten days apart. However “Free Solo” seems to be the better known of the two documentaries, perhaps because it went on to win an Oscar.
The difference between the two types of climbing is that the term “free solo” refers to climbing alone, without any ropes or harnesses, therefore any mistake at all can easily be fatal. “The Dawn Wall” on the other hand features “free climbing” which is just as difficult, climbing using your own physical strength with no support such as hooking onto the rock, but using equipment such as belays solely for safety.
“The Dawn Wall” was excellent. Like “Free Solo” it featured the climbers’ lives and backgrounds as well as the climb itself. As a very young man, Tommy Caldwell and a group of friends had been kidnapped while climbing in Kyrgyzstan. In order to escape Tommy pushed one of his captors off a cliff. This naturally had a huge impact on his life and his first marriage. Both men are amazing climbers and their journey was fascinating.
Secondly, the book. When visiting a new country, Alasdair likes to read a book by a local author. I thoroughly approve of this and often do the same thing myself, and sometimes I also watch a film about the area. When he went to Kyrgyzstan in the summer he read a book called “The Day Lasts more than a Hundred Years” by Chinghiz Aitmatov (actually set just over the border in Kazakhstan), and then recommended it to me. I have read it over the last week, for some reason expecting it to be a bit grim, but in fact I have loved it! I would go as far as to say that it’s the best book that I have ever read. It is fantastic. Published in 1980, it’s set in the 1970s with lots of flashbacks to the 2nd world war and the 1950s. The story is about Yedigei, who is making his way by camel across the Sarozek steppe to the Ana-Beitt cemetery to bury his recently deceased old friend Kazangap. On the way he recollects his past life as well as various Sarozek legends. The characters in the book live a hard life working at the Boranly-Burannyi railway junction, “where the trains go from west to east and east to west ...” Yedegei has a legendary and wild camel called Karanar, and animals are an important part of the book. He is loyal to his family and friends, and has had his share of troubles in life during the Stalinist regime. The parts that moved me most involved his relationship with another family in his tiny village whose father has been taken away for interrogation. The little boy Ermek very much reminded me of Alasdair and I have to admit that I cried several times while reading the book. But it isn’t all sad; there are funny parts and surreal parts, there are evil monsters and “mankurt” zombies, and even a weird subplot about the Soviet space programme that involved aliens! It really is the book that has everything and I loved every minute of reading it.
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