The Ascent of Rum Doodle — novel #254

The Ascent of Rum Doodle — To climb Mount Blanc is one thing; to climb Rum Doodle is quite another. ~ O. Totter 

• by W. E. Bowman
• Comic Novel, British Literature
• Published: 1956
• My edition: Pimlico paperback, 2001 with an introduction by Bill Bryson (not pictured)
• Setting: The slopes of Rum Doodle
• Title #23 of 50 for The Classics Club Challenge – Round IV

 

In the 1950s an eminent group intrepid adventurers sets out to climb the world’s highest peak: Rum Doodle, 40,000 and a half feet, in remote Yogistan. I don’t believe the book ever states it explicitly, but I had the distinct impression this was a British expedition. Who else could ever be described as intrepid? The expedition consists of the standard group of experts:

 

Burley – supplies

Wish – scientist

Shute – photographer

Jungle – radio expert and pathfinder

Constant – linguist

Prone – doctor

Binder – expedition leader and unreliable narrator

 

That’s the last serious thing I can say about this book, and in truth, even the names are subtle puns. The cast of characters is completed by several thousand, yes thousand, Yogistani porters, and the cook Pong, who has supernatural ability to make any food stuffs unrecognizable and inedible.

 

As I say, it’s a comic novel and nothing goes as planned. All of the experts are astonishingly inept. Burley is lazy, Wish is just silly, Shute always misses the shot, Jungle is lost in his own tent, Constant makes disastrous Yogistani translations and Prone is perpetually sick. There are gags, puns, ironies, and pratfalls on every page, but the funniest gimmick was the Yogistani porters. They would routinely be sent up and down the mountain on errands, a duty they accomplished with ease, all in support of the historic feats of the august adventurers.

 

Another bit I liked was the oft repeated saying of the enigmatic mountaineer O. Totter. At various points of impasse, someone would quote Totter’s sage surmise that…

To climb Mount Blanc is one thing; to climb Rum Doodle is quite another.

At this the adventurers would, Ah! and Yes! and Indeed! and be visibly revived by Totter’s wisdom

 

Rum Doodle feels like the story Jerome K. Jerome would write, if he were to write a mountain climbing adventure. Indeed, one of the porters is seen reading a Yogistani translation of Three Men in a Boat.

 

I envied him, because that book was more entertaining than this book. Rum Doodle is often described as hilarious, laugh-a-minute, or as the cover of my version says: One of the funniest books you will ever read.

 

For me, not so much. It may not have aged well, and the subject matter is rather esoteric. I understand that in mountaineering circles it is a cult classic and widely celebrated. There are numerous Rum Doodle namesakes worldwide including Rumdoodle Peak in Antarctica (official) and Rum Doodle Ridge of Pike’s Peak (unofficial).

 

My rating 3 of 5 stars

 

  

I learned a new phrase from this book. When mountain climbers are pondering a particular peak, and their chance of conquering it, they are apt to ask…

Will it go?

 

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