Al Alvarez - Feeding the Rat: A Climbers Life on the Edge

1 The Spigalo Giallo, one of the most beautiful of all Dolomite climbs. Mo and Al are the lower pair.

2 Showbiz. El Toro Expedition members modelling sheepskin coats for Morlands. Mo is kneeling in front, with Joe Brown behind him.

3 Mo on Roraima better than de-scaling a boiler in Sheffield.

4 Jumaring is a boring and exhausting process.

5 Jackie on top of an unnamed peak in Langrang Himalaya Jackie went like a steam engine.

6 The Ogre Expedition members. Left to right: Clive Rowland, Chris Bonington, Nick Estcourt, Doug Scott, Paul Braithwaite and Mo. The Ogre is in the background on the left.

7 Mo as Rambo III

8 The Mission. Left to right: Hamish MacInnes, Mo and Joe Brown dressed to kill.

9 I like adventures jungle travel, river travel, exploring places that are green on the map Mo fording the River Mulatas in the Upper Amazon Basin.

10 The Old Man sticks straight up out of the Atlantic like the admonishing finger of God.

11 The Old Man of Hoy not going anywhere but up.

12 The Old Men of Hoy. Left to right: Paul Trower, Al and Mo.

General
The Savage God: A Study of Suicide
Under Pressure: The Writer in Society: Eastern Europe and the USA
Life After Marriage: Scenes from Divorce
The Biggest Game in Town
Offshore: A North Sea Journey
Rain Forest (with paintings by Charles Blackman)
Night: An Exploration of Night Life, Night Language,
Sleep and Dreams Poker: Bets, Bluffs and Bad Beats

Novels
Hers
Hunt
Day of Atonement

Poetry
Lost
Penguin Modern Poets, No. 18
Apparition (with paintings by Charles Blackman)
Autumn to Autumn and Selected Poems 1953 76
New and Selected Poems

Criticism
The Shaping Spirit (US title: Stewards of Excellence)
The School of Donne
Beyond All This Fiddle: Essays 1955 1967
Samuel Beckett

Anthologies(editor)
The New Poetry
The Faber Book of Modern European Poetry

Autobiography
Where Did It All Go Right?

Copyright 1988 by Al Alvarez
Introduction copyright Jane Kramer 1999

First published in Great Britain in 1988

Parts of this book originally appeared in slightly different form in the New Yorker

This electronic edition published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
www.bloomsbury.com

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

Picture credits
The author and publishers are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce photographs: Mo Anthoine, nos 2, 4, 5, 6, 7; John Cleare/Mountain Camera, nos 1, 10; Hamish MacInnes, nos 3, 8, 9; Chris Mikami/CM Photography, nos 11, 12.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to Bloodaxe Books for permission to reprint Love by Miroslav Holub, translated by Ian Milner, from Miroslav Holub, Poems Before and After: Collected English Translations (Bloodaxe Books, 1990)

The Old Man and The Voice by Jane Kramer first published by
Los Poetry Press, Great Britain 1999

Epilogue by Al Alvarez first published by Thunders Mouth Press,
New York 2001

A CIP catalogue is available from the British Library

eISBN 978-1-4088-4277-5

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FOR MO AND JACKIE AGAIN

Long before I knew Al, I had an Al Alvarez epiphany. I was flying to Europe on one of those cheap Air Icelandic student flights call it the last propeller that took twenty-two hours and stopped in Reykjavik to refuel. It was no place for a book. No one over twenty-five ever flew Air Icelandic. No one who did sat down. You danced in the aisle, drank, smoked, groped and fell in love. Reading on a twenty-two hour flight to Europe was the airborne equivalent of Saturday night alone, at home, by the telephone.

But not this time. Maybe it was the recession, maybe the season, but the only children on the flight were babies. I spent fourteen or fifteen hours staring into the sky, and then we landed in Reykjaviks tiny airport. Icelanders, having no diversions besides other Icelanders, are famous for reading books, so I went into the terminal to find one. I cant remember the book I actually bought I think it was Bunyan, but it doesnt matter, and in the event it isnt the Bunyan I have now. (Bookcases are a sign of age; your old books begin to look as old as you do, a little worn, a little flaking and faded, and you find yourself thinking, Wait a minute! I only bought that thirty years ago, and then you replace it and look younger).

What I do remember is the shock of reading the introduction. It was an absolutely ravishing piece of prose. It made a short novel out of the bones of a barely-known life, an adventure out of an exegesis. It was so seamless that it even looked seamless. When I searched for some dates even some centuries would have helped I couldnt find them, and this, as they say, was something I could relate to. Whoever wrote that introduction hadnt wanted to see any ugly numbers sticking up in the middle of his sentences. When I got to a name, way over on the right at the bottom of page xxxiv, give or take a Roman numeral, I met Al Alvarez. He became my mentor. I wish he had been on the plane.