Kim - A Journey Between Worlds
by Kim Rangiaonui Logan
Kim Logan is one of New Zealand’s most experienced mountain climbers, but is not well known outside of the climbing fraternity and in the film industry. The auto-biographical journey he describes is literal – he has climbed some of the highest peaks in the Himalayas as well as in New Zealand – and also highlights how a Maori boy emerges from a European society and education.
The product of what used to be called an ‘inter-racial marriage’, he had a difficult childhood, and attended many schools across the North Island, before finding his feet in South Island adventures.
The book attempts to make an impact partly through its design: the title KIM is in vertical bold, black letters on the front cover, and stands out from a distance. Highlighted text appears in a large font size, which then take up a whole page. These begin with a quote, attributed to Ernest Hemingway, to the effect that the only real sports are those that involve the risk of losing life. This might set the tone, but the design and typography in the body text don’t always help achieve a sense of narrative. Most chapters have text in a completely different typeface which interpose childhood memories into the mountaineering stories. It is obviously a way of breaking up a conventional narrative, but the problem is that there is no continuity in the story, and the book isn’t written in chronological order.
These problems are clear in the third chapter, ‘A White Nightmare’. This involves a climb up the K2 mountain in 1995, where a New Zealand party led by Peter Hillary meets up with experienced Spanish climbers, and a mixed group then reach the summit. But none of them makes it back to base camp alive, and another Kiwi climber who returns in a blizzard then dies of hypothermia in the night. The book includes photos from this expedition, including a group shot of the New Zealanders, their Nepalese cooks, and the English climber, Alison Hargreaves. But of the climbers in the group photo, seen with their aluminium plates being used as frisbees, only Logan and Hillary lived to tell the tale.
Logan included an obituary to his friend, Bruce Grant, who he had introduced to climbing. But many other friends are lost in other climbs, with their bodies then left in crevices in the Himalayan mountains, or lost in the Southern Alps. Reading this in the same week as two more climbers die on Mt Cook, it can only been concluded that mountaineering involves going beyond risk-taking, and into tempting fate, relying on luck for survival. This may be a great New Zealand calling, but the author seems to suggest that having an emotionally deprived childhood somehow insulates him from the continual human suffering he is involved in, even when his own siblings have died young overseas.
by Kim Rangiaonui Logan
Kim Logan is one of New Zealand’s most experienced mountain climbers, but is not well known outside of the climbing fraternity and in the film industry. The auto-biographical journey he describes is literal – he has climbed some of the highest peaks in the Himalayas as well as in New Zealand – and also highlights how a Maori boy emerges from a European society and education.
The product of what used to be called an ‘inter-racial marriage’, he had a difficult childhood, and attended many schools across the North Island, before finding his feet in South Island adventures.
The book attempts to make an impact partly through its design: the title KIM is in vertical bold, black letters on the front cover, and stands out from a distance. Highlighted text appears in a large font size, which then take up a whole page. These begin with a quote, attributed to Ernest Hemingway, to the effect that the only real sports are those that involve the risk of losing life. This might set the tone, but the design and typography in the body text don’t always help achieve a sense of narrative. Most chapters have text in a completely different typeface which interpose childhood memories into the mountaineering stories. It is obviously a way of breaking up a conventional narrative, but the problem is that there is no continuity in the story, and the book isn’t written in chronological order.
These problems are clear in the third chapter, ‘A White Nightmare’. This involves a climb up the K2 mountain in 1995, where a New Zealand party led by Peter Hillary meets up with experienced Spanish climbers, and a mixed group then reach the summit. But none of them makes it back to base camp alive, and another Kiwi climber who returns in a blizzard then dies of hypothermia in the night. The book includes photos from this expedition, including a group shot of the New Zealanders, their Nepalese cooks, and the English climber, Alison Hargreaves. But of the climbers in the group photo, seen with their aluminium plates being used as frisbees, only Logan and Hillary lived to tell the tale.
Logan included an obituary to his friend, Bruce Grant, who he had introduced to climbing. But many other friends are lost in other climbs, with their bodies then left in crevices in the Himalayan mountains, or lost in the Southern Alps. Reading this in the same week as two more climbers die on Mt Cook, it can only been concluded that mountaineering involves going beyond risk-taking, and into tempting fate, relying on luck for survival. This may be a great New Zealand calling, but the author seems to suggest that having an emotionally deprived childhood somehow insulates him from the continual human suffering he is involved in, even when his own siblings have died young overseas.
Review by SA Boyce
Title: KIM: A Journey Between Worlds
Author: Kim Rangiaonui Logan
Publisher: Ugly Hill Press
ISBN: 9781067086510
RRP: $55
Available: bookshops
Author: Kim Rangiaonui Logan
Publisher: Ugly Hill Press
ISBN: 9781067086510
RRP: $55
Available: bookshops
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