Mysterium
A Novel
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2.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A BBC Summer Read
"Must-read . . . [Mysterium] ascends, literally and figuratively, vividly capturing the outer edge of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual travail." --The Washington Post
Inspired by the true story of Nanda Devi Unsoeld’s tragic 1976 death while climbing her namesake mountain, Susan Froderberg’s novel Mysterium tells the tale of a courageous woman’s ascent to the summit of India’s highest peak to honor her fallen mother.
Mysterium, known as Mount Sarasvati, looms over the Indian Himalayas as the range’s tallest peak in the dazzling fictional world Susan Froderberg has created.
Sarasvati “Sara” Troy is determined to reach the peak for which she was christened, and to climb it in honor of her mother, who perished in a mountaineering accident when Sara was just a child. She asks her father, a celebrated mountaineer and philosophy professor, to organize and lead the expedition.The six climbers he recruits are an uneasy mix. They include his longtime friend Dr. Arun Reddy, a recent widower, and Reddy’s son, who often challenges his father; Wilder Carson, the acclaimed climber who is tormented by the death of his brother; Wilder’s wife, Vida, a former lover of Dr. Reddy; and the distinguished scholar of climbing Virgil Adams and his wife, Hillary. Porters and Sherpas are recruited in India to assist and be part of the team.
The party’s journey is harrowing, taking them from the mountain’s gorge, into its sanctuary, and finally onto the summit, a path that evokes the hell, purgatory, and heaven of Dante’s Inferno. As the air thins and this unforgettable journey unfolds, Sara emerges as a Beatrice-like figure, buoying her companions up the mountain through the sheer strength and beauty of her being. Both monumental quest and dreamlike odyssey, Mysterium is infused with the language of climbing and profound existential insight.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Froderberg's austere adventure story is set in the early 1980s on Mt. Sarasvati, a fictional mountain in the Himalayas, and follows a group of climbers as they attempt a peak that hasn't been climbed for 25 years. Instigating the climb is Sara, named for the mountain, which was in turn named for the goddess Sarasvati, and which is called Mysterium by Westerners. Sara wants to climb the mountain to honor her mother, who died when Sara was seven. She and her father, a philosophy professor and avid climber, are joined by six other friends ranging in age from their 20s to their 60s, all with their own ghosts and issues. On the gradual ascent, which takes months, they are accompanied by various porters and Sherpas, who believe, evidently with some justification, that the mountain is unhappy with those attempting to conquer her. Froderberg (Old Border Road) has a firm grasp on the technical aspects of climbing, as well as its many dangers, but her formal and sometimes oracular vocabulary, which routinely includes words like "curmurring" and "orogeny," is likely to send readers to the dictionary. References to literary classics, including Dante's Divine Comedy and Melville's Moby-Dick also abound. The book offers the unusual combination of an intellectual challenge coupled with a brutal but ecstatic story.
Customer Reviews
Not as good as real life story
This novel is based on the real life story of an expedition to climb Nanda Devi in 1976. I have read multiple accounts of that expedition; and all of them are more interesting and in my opinion better written than this novel.