Up where the air is clear

Robert Twigger’s father was born in a Himalayan hill resort and carried to school in a sedan chair. His son, born in 1965 and long fascinated by the region, has produced a social and cultural history of the mountains. It is a hybrid volume — and why not? Twigger leaves no mountain path untouched in his bookish reportage.

Topics covered in this long book include crustal formation and destruction, the pre-Buddhist Bon religion (even today 10 per cent of Tibetans are Bon-worshippers), shamans, yeti, Colonel Francis Younghusband (‘the first mountaineer’), altitude sickness (which fascinates Twigger), the 19th-century exploration of Nain Singh, that bloody annoying Madame Blavatsky and much else.

Chapter titles include ‘The Mapping of It’, and ‘Mythical Origins’, in which we learn that ‘Himavant was the ancient ruler of Himalayan India. He was father of Ganga, the river goddess,’ and so on. Other chapter titles — such as ‘The Major is Drowned and to be Auctioned off Today’ — are less guessable.