H. W. TILMAN Part 2

TILMAN SAYS:

From The Ascent of Nanda Devi¹:

I have always admired those people who before ever reaching a mountain, perhaps even before seeing it, will draw up a sort of itinerary of the journey from base camp to summit---a complicated affair of dates, camps, loads, and men, showing at any given moment precisely where A is expected to be, what B will be doing, what C has had for breakfast, and what D has got in his load. It always reminds me of the battle plans an omniscient staff used to arrange for us in France, where the artillery barrage and the infantry went forward, hand in hand as it were, regardless of the fact that while there was nothing whatever to impede the progress of the barrage, there were several unknown quantities, such as mud, wire, and Germans, to hamper the movements of the infantry.

Tilman with his baked loaf

What does one make of the man from this snippet of his writing? The first step, perhaps, should be to consider style, generally, and its several characteristics. Then one might apply what was learned to assess both the writer and his writing.

Begin with a definition (so we have some idea what we are talking about): Style consists of the way a writer uses grammar, syntax, and vocabulary to embellish or compress his work to fit a specific context, purpose, or audience.

Grammatically, the selection above is both formal and precise. Parallel structures---four elements of the 'complicated affair' followed by four specific examples---suggest Tilman's preference for an orderly syntax. This structure is also the means by which he embellishes the piece. His audience, he expects, is one that is well educated. Words such as 'omniscient' with an etymological root from Latin pepper his work.

What offers the clearest insight into his character is his use of humor, typically British, dry as dust. He ends the selection with a flippant description of the horrors of the trenches of the first world war as merely so many 'unknown quantities.'

Where does this leave us? Tilman was a man both orderly and precise, well educated with enough experience of the world to give substance to his ideas. He was a laconic man, often described inaccurately, I think, as shy. He had no more use for slang and 'sloppy syntax' than he did for the hypocrites and slackards of the world.

Finally, another man's opinion. The following abridged quote is from David Warren's weblog 'Essays in Idleness' (http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/):

[He] communicates a masculine nobility almost gone from this world---a form of incorruptible flippancy which we correctly associate with those knights of old, who dared without hesitation, and laughed at everyone, especially themselves.

1Tilman H W., The Seven Mountain Travel Books (Diadem, London, 1983), 222.

H. W. Tilman

H. W. Tilman

(Born: February 14, 1898, Wallasey, England

Died 1977, at sea, Atlantic Ocean)

The way one lives colors every aspect of one's behavior. Irresponsibility breeds the accident prone man. Attention to detail fosters the dauntless woman. The athlete's dictum is that one plays as one practices. There is just no escaping the fate that comes when one's character lacks backbone.

Bill Tilman lived a full life through eight decades. He fought in both the first and the second world wars. A Himalayan explorer of the first rank during the 1930s, he summited Nanda Devi (25, 363') in 1936. At that time, the ascent was the highest ever accomplished. By the 1950s, Tilman decided he was too old for the Himalayas, so took to ocean sailing and climbing lower peaks in remote places. All his adult life he wrote.

In his biography of Tilman, author David Glen wrote:

He was a man whose basic shyness and reticence to boast of his astonishing achievements belied a great sense of honor in the way he conducted his life.¹

And whether in the mountains or at sea, Tilman was always more than willing to do the hard work. First off in the morning on the trail; first to volunteer for the night watch at sea, he was a man who tolerated no slackness. Ready with praise for those who had done well; upbraiding to those who had succumbed to laziness.

He had this to say about writing:

Apropos of writing books, Dr Johnson's [Samuel Johnson, 1709 - 1784] opinion was that "any blockhead can write if he sets himself doggedly to it." I should like to alter that and say, "any blockhead can write a book if he has something to write about" ...

Tilman had a life well lived; and his books and the style of his writing are obvious reflections of that life. He noted the commonality of sailing and climbing; and his comments on the two apply equally well to writing:

Each is intimately concerned with elemental things, which from time to time demand from men who practice those arts whatever self-reliance, prudence, and endurance they may have.

1 David Glen, Warrior, Wanderer (Visual XS, LLC, 2003)

SHALLOW WATER

James Fenimore Cooper, 19th century writer (The Last Of The Mohicans, 1826), had this to say about that simple little word creek:

'Creek,' a word that signifies an inlet of the sea, or of a lake, is misapplied 

to running streams, and frequently to the outlet of lakes.

The 1934 Webster (last of the handbound dictionaries and a proper size for a proper dictionary) has 'creek' as a narrow inlet in the shore of a bay or cove winding through a low coast.

A fellow named Worcester, a competitor of Webster and the flag bearer for the English those erudite fellows at Harvard spoke, had a 'creek' simply as a small inlet. He was the first to note that "... in the Middle, Southern, and Western States, the word might well mean a 'small river" or a "rivulet."

Here in the Pacific Northwest no one would call the Columbia River a creek. In my backyard, a small stream of running water is named Boulder Creek. It runs into the Salmon River to the Sandy to the Columbia. This a common usage in this part of the world.

Now some folk use 'crick' instead of 'creek.' This is especially so in the Midwest and south. Them boys at Harvard would scoff at such usage. But it was good enough for Mark Twain (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), and William Faulkner (Flags In The Dust.) Good enough for me.

                Stella in the crick with her buddy Edgar