Foreword
The Cause of the Imagination
Katie Ives
Night after night, a young climber dreams of a singular buttress, lit gold by sun, on the vanishing point of the horizon. Each time she draws near, the formation eludes her. Over the years, it shapeshifts to reflect her evolving yearnings, from an icy mountain pink with alpenglow to a rime-plumed red-gold spire, to the blazing snows of sacred Mt. Kailash, forever “unclimbed and unattainable.”
The image of this unreachable, visionary summit lies at the heart of Heather Dawe’s short story collection, Dreams of Lost Buttresses, haunting the pages with the hint of something transcendent and ineffable, echoing old legends of lost paradises, suffusing physical landscapes with wonder and possibility. As a seeker of tales of imaginary peaks, myself, I’ve been struck by how many people have similar recurring dreams, redolent with elusive ideals and inmost longings. Even the ascent of real cliffs and peaks can feel like enchantment: when your body and mind seem to flow in perfect cadence with stone, ice, and sky; when small details—a crystal of sharp quartz, a tuft of frozen moss, a pane of crystalline névé—take on an existential weight, allowing passage upward, or even survival; when you become so lost in the experience of your surroundings that you start to feel weightless, formless, transparent, as if you’re weaving yourself deeper into the patterns of an immense cosmos each time you move. [i]
It seems strange, given the intensity of such experiences, that fantastical writing has so often been relegated to the margins of mountain literature. Yet climbing fiction, by nature, tends to be subversive to an everyday view of the activity. It cannot establish records, solidify claims, or glorify heroes—if none of its characters or ascents are real. Less preoccupied with numbers, grades, speed, or style, it can focus on pushing more significant boundaries, stretching, instead, the limits of imagination and empathy. At its best, it is inherently unsettling, shifting the landscapes of what might be said. [ii]
And that kind of literary ground shift is particularly urgent today. Back in 2016, in The Great Derangement, the Indian author Amitav Ghosh observed how environmental catastrophes now form part of our daily existence with a frequency and scale that might have once seemed to belong to the realm of speculative fiction. “The uncanny” and “the improbable” have become the norm. Writers cannot respond to this altered reality, he argued, if they continue to focus on tales of seemingly autonomous individuals dominating nature, thus perpetuating assumptions and practices that have contributed to our ongoing climate crisis.
What we need, instead, are stories that remind us of the collective peril and interwoven destinies of all living creatures: moments of “recognition,” as Ghosh defined them, when an encounter with something wondrous or dangerous reawakens an awareness that we were never wholly isolated or different from rest of the natural world, that nonhuman beings, too, might have their own sentience and desires. Moments of metamorphosis, both literal and figurative—as the Canadian mountain writer Thomas Wharton described in a similar 2023 Hazlitt essay—tales that can “take [us] further out of [our] skin” and into a “deep kinship” we have forgotten, along with all the responsibilities that change in perspective implies. [iii]
Such moments appear throughout Dreams of Lost Buttresses. Dawe’s stories contain much that reflects our present day or that lies on the cusp of our possible future: a pandemic virus that lingers in human bodies long after the initial infection; travel restrictions that render mountains inaccessible; rising temperatures that result in weather extremes, scarce water, and violent conflict. We also glimpse how climbers might try to navigate in such realities. How we might apply the familiar crag-honed skills of facing uncertainty and transcending limitations to something other than claiming new routes or exploiting mountain resources. How we might rewild our minds and lives, instead, and recognize our place again within the fabric of ecosystems. How we might regain what is lost whenever climbing becomes—as the Victorian mountaineer Leslie Stephen wrote in The Playground of Europe—about vanquishing “the phantoms of [our] own imagination.” And how we might restore the myths and dreams that he recalled departing like slain dragons from the seemingly conquered Alps.
“Listen to the other voices, the ones in your imagination, your intuition,” one of Dawe’s characters advises. “They’re telling you things too. There are places in these mountains to explore other than lines on buttresses that prove how hard you can climb.” In such places, the nonhuman world is richly sentient and expressive: interconnected tree roots communicate across a forest of boulders; curious ravens croak messages to solitary wanderers; a hibernating bear appears lost in unknown dreams of his own, warm in a den below falling ice shards.
Again and again we encounter instances of transfiguration: climbers change into animals or merge with earth and stone, finding new homes for their spirits in realms of wild water, mountains, and woods. “Blend into the rock,” a character urges, “let yourself drift into it.”
Another protagonist learns to see “each element of the topography as one variable in an equation, creating mathematical patterns of overwhelming harmony and beauty, part of the language of the universe itself. Trusting herself to follow these imagined paths, she found she was no longer fighting the rock, but transforming herself to meet it.”
The search for such numinous experiences becomes an act of resistance in one of Dawe’s envisioned futures, a dystopia taken over by machines and bots, in which humans are corralled in cities and only permitted the artificial escapism of virtual reality. This protagonist’s rallying cry resonates beyond the book itself, “There was one cause remaining that he would forever fight for: access to his own imagination.” At a time in our real world when censorship menaces libraries and schools, when the rise of AI threatens to replace human creativity with mere “predictive text,” when societies seem bent on automating and monetizing all aspects of existence, when the wildness of both nature and mind are at risk, and when creativity is essential for finding a way through our mounting crises, it is more crucial than ever for all of us to struggle for the rights of the imagination.
And we need more books like this one: unpredictable, unfettered, unafraid. We are all in a precarious world together. How can we each use that enchantment of ascent—when we’re not climbing—to help mend it and ourselves? And what will you, now, do, when you finish the dreams of these lost buttresses and return to those of your own waking life?
*****
Metropolis Dreaming
Heather Dawe
‘A deglobalised world of high-tech sufficiency is the only way to environmental stability. As humans withdraw from a position of dominance the biosphere could be partially restored, and much of it rewilded.’ — John Gray, New Statesman, November 2022
‘Soma is what they would take when hard times opened their eyes’ — The Strokes
The furthest archway of the old viaduct was where Malc always started to climb. It was darkest at the wall corner, where the end of the viaduct met the bank of the steep-sided stream-valley it spanned. Unusually this place was not enriched with the blue-white of the daylight strobes; the associated secrecy and more natural feel was what attracted him.
As he traversed the brickwork, Malc first stepped his left foot over, spanning his legs across the wall corner, then reached over with his left hand to a small groove in the old cement work. The rest of his body followed, balancing and contorting delicately, requiring the focus and consideration Malc adored, taking him out of himself and enabling him to forget everything but the moves and the moment.
He continued in this way, moving steadily along and up the sandstone brick-edges and cracks in the wall. In a few places he had chipped out a hold or two himself, but only where he really considered it needed.
Although Malc’s shoes were archaic, they still had most of their rubber edges intact and, combined with the roughness of the wall’s weather-hewn bricks, provided enough friction to prevent him falling to the sharp rubble-strewn ground below. Malc had previously considered clearing the debris beneath the wall but in the end had not done so, concluding it would only have aroused the suspicion of the Scanning Watchers.
Cities had become places you couldn’t leave. Perversely they were ‘safe’, the world outside unpredictable in terms of intense weather, water availability, rampaging viruses and outlaws who would find you on the steadily disintegrating highways. Some of them would befriend and protect you if you joined their gang. Others would rob, kill and maybe even eat you if the scarcity of food at the time was great enough.
In the face of such adversity, it was perhaps a small thing that the mountains that used to be Malc’s sanctuary weren’t there for him anymore. He used to go to them as often as he could, cramming his real life into the weekends, away from the tedium of his day job. However he had been feeling, the mountains had always improved his mood and state of mind.
The city Malc resided in sat on a flat and arid plain from which, to the west, the foothills of the Great Grey Mountains rose up, higher and higher, to form the faces, crests and peaks which he so often used to play on. For some years he had struggled to cope with the knowledge of their proximity, but now he was at peace with it. At least he had the memories.
While the mountains were unreachable in real life, in the virtual landscape you had full and immediate access to mountain ranges all over the world. You simply had to plug in to explore them, visit their every edifice, feel the cool breeze and appreciate the early light of a high-altitude morning – all from the allocated room in which you spent your non-working hours. ‘You can’t die in the mountains anymore…,’ the marketing spiel told him, ‘so everyone can be xtreme.’
‘X – fucking – treme.’ Malc knew the only way to be extreme these days was to not partake in any of it.
Did humanity deserve this way of living? He wasn’t always so sure about that. But it did mean the temperature was better controlled.
‘It’s just like a pinprick,’ Jo had told him, ‘and then the world is a better place.’
Yes, you’d still be living in this shithole, this human-wasted landscape, but you wouldn’t care about it anymore.
Through the decades people had succumbed increasingly to the machines. He’d done so himself to a degree, letting most of the cumbersome things he used to do for himself be carried out by the bots. He did, however, have his own standards and limits. Most of the population were more than happy to have the – optional – chip implant that enabled you to be in a continual state of virtual reality; those other worlds were far better, after all. Perpetual transcendence or complete mind and societal control, depending on which way you looked at it. There wasn’t much of a cause left to riot for, anyway.
After long consideration, Malc concluded that there was one cause remaining that he would forever fight for: access to his own imagination. It was the place he knew he could go to, wherever and whenever. His imagined places were different to the endless virtual realities made available by a chip implant. They were truer, more like the old times: honest, with the bad intermingled with the good, warts and all. None of those perfect sunrises or the best snow and ice every time; in his imagination things were authentic. Sometimes it rained, occasionally there were mundane but annoying creatures like mosquitoes, and often he scared himself fucking stupid. He was a shit climber, really. But that was the point – reality. He played his own mind games to keep fresh.
In a corner of the Old Town no longer wanted or needed but somehow so far managing to survive the Redevelopers, Malc found his place to escape from the climate-controlled dystopia that was his present and future home. Under the sandstone brick arches of the old railway viaduct that dated from industrial times, he would hang out at his re-created crag. Years ago, one of the artists had painted a mural of a mountain scene on the interior of the far archway. A cliché of snow-capped peaks, Alpine nostalgia for days long gone but attractive nonetheless. Despite fading a little and having some cynical graffiti scrawled in its lower corners, the mural was still more or less intact. Using some old cans of paint Malc had added his own work to it – a sunrise and the ensuing pink light on the snow, turning it into the Alpenglow of his memories and dreams.
As Malc climbed the brick-edges of the walls and arches of the viaduct, he imagined he was high on a mountainside, seeing a gleaming granite face of which he was in the middle, clinging to tenuous and sharp crystalline edges. He scaled the line thoughtfully and methodically, relishing beyond words the thrill, the furtive feelings of extreme excitement, and yet always on edge, desperately wanting to cling on.
But so far Malc had never climbed too high. A fall from the top of the wall would have as serious consequences as his fantasy buttress – probably worse as he wouldn’t die straightaway but would end up in one of the care facilities.
Malc knew the name ‘care facility’ was a contradiction in terms. Depopulation was a serious thing. The reason things had got so bad was the lack of it. Too many humans, not enough resources, and medical science had been too effective. Hard choices had to be made, and these choices were always made within the care facilities. So, climbing the brick work was a major risk. Was it worth it? Malc had been considering this question for years.
He knew imagining and taking risks was all part of living. Take them away and life is sterile without any interest, full of things you can fake with a dopamine-drip and virtual reality. Malc was fully aware of the futility of his rebellion, but had come to believe that it was more important than leaving everything to his imagination. In truth, doing so was slowly driving him mad.
After a long period of reflection, weighing up the risks of harm against the euphoria he knew he would be filled with as he topped out, Malc decided he needed to go for it, climb the whole length of his imagined buttress, reach the summit of the viaduct, top out and raise an imaginary flag in the name of humanity.
When he made the decision Malc experienced a strange kind of relief. Confident he would not change his mind, he felt empowered.
He knew he needed to practise and train more before his summit bid. Malc wanted the strength from his physique to ripple through his body, and intense self-belief to be the only thing on his mind.
Returning to his old training plans of weights and meditations, he shunned the myriad of virtual reality training programmes and endless mindfulness apps, instead training the traditional way. Malc knew he needed to experience the physicality of lifting actual dumbbells and the calm-inducing effects of sitting cross-legged on his old yoga mat, clearing out the clutter of his mind with deep breathing and a focus on emptiness.
Combining this training with his low traverses of the viaduct walls, he steadily felt himself becoming ready. When his chosen day finally came, Malc began in his usual place. His feet were clad in his precious old shoes. After rubbing their soles clean on the insides of his trouser legs, he initially followed his usual line, a rising traverse to around one-storey high. His body moved, crab-like, up the brickwork until he reached a familiar resting place on the opposite corner of the arch. Here he normally carefully downclimbed, but today he was going to carry on.
There was an incredibly illicit thrill to the adrenaline pumping through his veins. This was something Malc had not felt at such intense levels for years. The real deal, produced by his own endocrine system, not synthetic in any way. During his pause at the corner he allowed himself to relish the moment before refocussing on the moves above.
Edging upwards, making regular moves on the decorative brickwork that protruded from the walls, Malc steadily gained height. Soon he was at two storeys and still going strong. However, as he reached the height of his old house, nerves began to overcome him and he felt himself tire, his legs beginning to shake from continually weighting his toes. ‘Up or down?’ Malc asked himself, knowing the answer. Growing increasingly frantic, he began to down-climb – too quickly to stay in complete control. He was nearly back on the ground when his foot slipped on an unexpectedly small edge. He fell at the most three metres onto the pile of old rocks below.
As it was, it wasn’t a major injury, just something that with some stiches, a splint and a bit of antiseptic he could sort out for himself. But he knew that wasn’t the point. He was bleeding. Simply to get to the point of that these days marked you out.
Within the care facilities they were continually trying to work out how to depopulate in a caring way – to enable humanity to get back to the state of equilibrium with the rest of nature, something everyone so desperately wanted to reattain.
It was futile to try and get away, but Malc tried anyhow. He knew it would not take long for one of the constantly flying monitor drones to spot the anomaly of red marks in the street, made by the blood now flowing down his leg. He cursed that it wasn’t raining – the acrid liquid would soon have washed away the evidence of his injuries.
Behind Malc, the humming of a drone became louder. No point in even trying to walk anymore, let alone run. On his busted leg he wouldn’t get very far, but that was irrelevant now that the drone’s sensors had smelled Malc and were tracking him using his scent. Even blending into a crowd wouldn’t have worked, had there been one to blend into.
The gridded streets were empty. Everyone else would, by now, have finished their manual tasks for the day and be plugged into wherever they fancied heading for the evening. Though it was still early, he knew Jo would be out clubbing again, off her face on cider and black (‘Relax and enjoy yourself, drink it forever, all the goodness and fun with none of the hangover!’).
With hindsight, Malc wished he’d followed her advice and chosen the chip. He would never then have ended up in the gleaming white-walled room, lying between sterile sheets upon a bedframe of disinfected chrome, chains on his wrists glinting in the artificial light.
His desire to keep and explore his own imagination was what had brought him to this place. Now his imagination was running wild. As he lay there for what felt like hours, a thousand different scenarios of what would happen to him next played themselves out before him. None of them were good.
‘Just give me the fucking chip,’ Malc virtually screamed at the Carer, as she eventually approached him for triage.
She looked at him with numb eyes and an earnest expression. ‘This won’t hurt a bit.’
Endnotes
[i] Dacher Keltner’s Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life (New York: Penguin Press, 2023) depicts similar moments as encounters with “awe.” At such times, he suggests, confronted with “vast mysteries,” we can develop an awareness that we are “part of many things…much larger than the self,” webs of interconnected communities, ecosystems, and natural forces—a realization that can make us more empathetic people, better activists, and more imaginative writers. This description of climbing is based on my firsthand experience with ice climbing at night.
[ii] I have previously explored some of these ideas in two essays: “Through the Skin of the World,” a foreword to Jeff Long’s Too Close to God (Canmore, Alberta: Imaginary Mountain Surveyors, 2015) and “The Ice Mirror,” Alpinist 65 (Spring 2019).
[iii] Amitav Ghosh and Thomas Wharton both discuss the consequences of viewing humans as separate from the natural world, the problems of “realist” fiction that ignores the possibility of sentience in nonhuman beings, and the need for a more imaginative approach to literature in the Anthropocene in The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016) and “Cat Fox Neutrino,” Hazlitt.net, July 26, 2023, respectively. For more on the topic, see also Andreas Weber, The Biology of Wonder: Aliveness, Feeling and the Metamorphosis of Science (Gabriola, British Columbia: New Society Publishers, 2016) and Enlivenment: Toward a Poetics for the Anthropocene (Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 2019), cited in Wharton.
