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This novel exposes the obsession that draws climbers away from civilization to test themselves against the most intimidating and inaccessible mountains in the world. James Salter captures the adventure of Gary, a roofer of churches, who feels restrained by conventions and flat ground. Unable to find happiness in his life, he travels to southern France to climb to the summits of the Alps. He finds peace and happiness within himself soon after. But when fellow climbers are trapped on the mountain, he makes a daring one-man rescue during a storm that brings him the notice he has always shunned. But the glory quickly dissapates and he returns to the anonymity he prefers, having thoroughly satisfied himself.
Buy It Because: You love Salter. If you don't know Salter, don't worry, I didn't either until last year (shame). Salter writes books that you can finish and immediately want to reread. He's a writer in the same class as Markham and Hemingway. He may be the best American writer in the last 50 years.Back to Solo Faces. This book is nominally about rock climbing but, like everything that Salter writes, it's really about relationships...a little about male-female ones but more deeply about male-male friendships and rivalries. And very deeply about men's internal dialogue. This self-conversation--one filled with loathing, lust, hope, doubt, and notions of courage--is where Salter is the master. His tales leave the reader with the 'sense' of this struggle...a sense that sticks to you like a recurring dream.And when it comes to describing and capturing a city or country's essence, I challenge you to find someone who does it better:"He began to see France, not just a mountain village filled with tourists, but the deep, invincible center which, if entered at all, becomes part of the blood. Of course, he did not know the meaning of the many avenues Carnot or boulevards Jean Jaurès, the streets named Gambetta, Hugo, even Pasteur. The pageant of kings and republics was nothing to him, but the way in which a great civilization preserves itself, this was what he unknowingly saw. For France is conscious of its brilliance. To grasp it means to sit at its table, sleep beneath its roofs, marry its children.""France was like a great, quarreling family, the Algerians, the old women with their dogs, the people in restaurants, the police—a huge, bickering family bound eternally by hatred and blood.""Paris—it was like a great terminal he was already leaving, with a multitude of signs, neon and enamel, repeated again and again as if announcing a performance. The people of Paris with their cigarettes and dogs, the stone roofs and restaurants, green buses, gray walls, he had held their attention for a moment."
