{"product_id":"mountainish","title":"Mountainish","description":"\u003cp\u003eTranslated by Katy Derbyshire.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIncredible how differently mountains are seen. Ski slopes, investment opportunities, holiday regions, hunting grounds, places for climbing expeditions up to the sky, ursine paradise.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA narrator and her dog are criss-crossing the Swiss Alps. She travels with friends who share her interest in food, languages and their topographical contexts. They collect colours, even look for colourlessness, and develop the idea of a walk-in diary, a vain attempt to archive their observations, encompassing portraits, descriptions and ruminations on mountains, hotels, people, language, food, flora and fauna.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGradually, other mountains appear in their observations and memories, as do the mountains of literature and art. Mountains may be sites of fear and awe, of narrow-mindedness, racism and ever-looming collapse; Alpine lodges may be places of hospitality, retreat and unexpected encounters; of nature under threat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 515 notes, Zsuzsanna Gahse unfolds a finely woven interplay between her six characters while giving us a vivid panorama of mountain worlds, a multi-layered typology of all things mountainish.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e~ ~ ~ ~ ~\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePraise:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘In Mountainish, Gahse directs her reader through 515 notes, making it clear with great elegance and wit that an escape to the mountains is not an escape from the self; that the unconscious is bound to landscape and reverberations; that words haunt like ghosts; that the echo of self cannot be avoided. Each note is a story and each mountain or what is like a mountain is a language; it is a matter of orientation. I have marked the pages of this brilliant book as though it were an atlas. It is a place to which I am compelled to return, even if I might be smashed apart.’ – Sharon Kivland\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Some writers aspire to build castles in the air, but Zsuzsanna Gahse dares to deconstruct far more fundamental geological edifices. In Mountainish she approaches – through a series of impressionistic fragments – a distinctly individual understanding of altitude and terrain. Cliches crumble to reveal startling new vistas. A generous and perceptive gathering of kaleidoscopic observations on landscape and the languages that echo through them. Katy Derbyshire’s translation is clear as air at 15,000 feet.’ – Nancy Campbell\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Mountainish is an idiosyncratic book – an unusual combination of intellectual speculation, delicate observation, and sustained flippancy. In Zsuzsanna Gahse’s Alps you might find a group of buses doing a dance routine or a new theory of language; friends discussing cave art or an unfortunate donkey plunging to her death.’ – Daisy Hildyard\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Somewhere in the Swiss Alps – amidst rock, scree, lakes and caves, between ochre and red, and in the place ‘where vowels fly through the mountain skies – lies Mountainish. Zsuzsanna Gahse’s observations, at once sharp and supple, challenge us to look, to listen – to look and listen all over again. I loved it!’ – Amy Arnold\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53595617493339,"sku":null,"price":18.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0569\/8951\/5850\/files\/zabriskie_mountainish_1e9d82a0-633a-48d6-a87c-54ed73d0fc14.jpg?v=1784630668","url":"https:\/\/zabriskie.de\/products\/mountainish","provider":"Zabriskie Buchladen für Kultur und Natur","version":"1.0","type":"link"}