Touching Mountains: The Imagination and Surrounding Country, by J. A. Appleyard SJ
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Touching Mountains: The Imagination and Surrounding Country, by J. A. Appleyard SJ
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Growing into adulthood, how do we construct our self-understanding, envision the roles we might play in the world, shape our beliefs? This book tests the idea that imagination plays a key part in forming possible pictures of ourselves and our worlds, which we test for validity by putting them into action—by performing them—assessing the results, and then incorporating them into our growing sense of self and world. On a sabbatical from teaching literature at Boston College, the author, a Jesuit priest, envisioned writing a book about the imagination, but he first spent twenty-three days on an Outward Bound program in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado, thinking he might learn something about being a better teacher and about how his students’ used their imaginations to construct their presence in the world. The journal of that intensive experience with a small group of young men the age of his own students—130 miles of hiking in rugged alpine wilderness, peak climbs, river crossings, three days of silent meditation, and a variety of other physical and psychological challenges—became the basis for this book, exploring how the imagination contributes to—in Kierkegaard’s interesting phrase—making the real possible.
Touching Mountains: The Imagination and Surrounding Country, by J. A. Appleyard SJ- Amazon Sales Rank: #3215322 in Books
- Published on: 2015-06-24
- Original language: English
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .54" w x 6.00" l,
- Binding: Paperback
- 236 pages
About the Author J. A. Appleyard, a Jesuit priest, has taught English literature and held various administrative positions at Boston College. He is the author of Coleridge’s Philosophy of Literature (Harvard) and Becoming a Reader: The Experience of Fiction from Childhood to Adulthood (Cambridge).
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. You'll love this book blending adventures in Colorado wilderness with insights into how imagination helps us grow and change. By Classics Lover Please do yourself a favor and check out “Touching Mountains: The Imagination and Surrounding Country,” by J.A. Appleyard. This book succeeds spectacularly in both entertaining and enlightening the reader.“Touching Mountains” is a compelling story of adventures in Colorado mountains – but it’s much more than that. The narrative is blended with original insights into how imagination helps us meet new challenges. The book features vivid characters and anecdotes. It also offers an optimistic vision of how we confront immediate experience with imaginative responses to become our better selves. Ultimately the book is exhilarating, funny, provocative, profound, and life-affirming.Touching Mountains traces the adventures of a 40-ish literature professor who signs up for an intense Outward Bound course as part of a sabbatical away from campus in the 1970s. During his 23-day journey with other men through Colorado’s rugged San Juan mountains, the author confronts tough challenges, while observing and reflecting on how he and others gain new skills, confidence, and maturity.The author combines absorbing accounts of his and the group’s experiences and interesting mountain lore with insights into how we learn, discover new images, and change for the better. Along the journey, he contemplates the uniqueness of hands-on experience, the power of imagining new ways of living, our ability to act out new roles as if on a stage, the excitement of expanding our limits, and the satisfaction of discovering new capabilities and realities.Appleyard skillfully portrays unforgettable characters such as a comic clown who learns nothing from experience and wallows in self pity; a shadowy course director who intentionally articulates only vague goals for the course; an enigmatic instructor who has done it all from rock climbing and sailing to cowboying and helping an Indian tribe rediscover a sacred site; a tough kid from the inner city who chose Outward Bound over reform school; a shy kid who had never spent a night away from home but blossoms during the course; and many other intriguing personalities.Appleyard also recognizes that every book necessarily paints a self-portrait of its author, and gradually unveils his own likeable visage as a learned, funny, and analytical teacher who thinks hard about what he sees but doesn’t take himself too seriously.A few of the absorbing scenes described in the book include a frigid Outward Bound initiation in a roaring river, comic efforts to build a ramshackle shelter from a small tarp, comically elaborate map and compass charting, a close encounter with hypothermia, a harrowing overhanging rappel, technical rock climbing, sliding on snowfields with ice axes, building a makeshift sauna, crossing slippery logs over river gorges, climbing 14,000 foot peaks, fishing in high altitude lakes, leading through adversity and exhaustion, and navigating untried routes through high rock spires.These scenes are effectively interwoven with profound reflections about discovery versus invention, maps versus reality, belief versus conviction, direct and indirect learning, art and illusion, how expectations shape experience, the power of new paradigms, the limits of human imagination, the gift and meaning of tomorrow, God’s power over the natural world, lessons learned from journeys and fiction, the value of limits transcended, images as recipes or instructions, the excitement of firsthand experience in learning, and many other intriguing topics.Don’t miss this great new book.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. More than an adventure story By Studiodog I know two people in my life who have completed the three week Outward Bound course, one who was twenty and did the same Colorado experience (only with skis) and the second person, who was 16 who finished the Utah course amidst the heat and the rock. Like the author, these two individuals signed on with the intention of learning more about themselves through the experiential lens of a physical challenge. I believe they accomplished this goal, although over the years, I have noticed, the stories increase and their understanding has deepened. So I wonder, why is that?Having read the book, I have an inkling as to why this is true. One, I am struck by the author's effort to complete the course in his 40s. It wasn't the physical challenge--he seemed more than capable (even though some of the descriptions of near hypothermia and rock climbing are harrowing) but more the state-of-mind of someone who has been on this earth more than twenty years more than his compatriots. To top that off, the book is written some 40 years after the experience! As much as I enjoyed the descriptions of the San Juans and his fellow hiking buddies, (I am a sucker for climbing/adventure stories) I looked eagerly for the moments of contemplation.For that reason, I think this book is perfect for the person in their second half of life who finds him or herself pondering life-- as the author quotes Jung "The integration of the Self, taken in its profoundest sense, is a matter for the second half of life." For me this book highlights how much we can't know of our life as lived until much later --as he says in his preface from 1974 "you can find out only so much about the terrain from studying maps beforehand. The reality is always surprising."
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. A descriptive reflection that leaves one pondering important questions. By Chris P. OConnell Set in the mountains of Colorado the author's cleverly written narrative hooked me right away. His interesting writing style and intricately crafted passages transported me from the couch on which I sat while reading, to the rocky ridges and starlit nights he so beautifully described.To say this book is about a man's adventures in the Outward bound program would be a brief, but fairly inaccurate description of the authors intentions. The author undertook the Outward Bound challenge hoping to better understand how the imagination is formed. I found myself fascinated by some of the metaphors used to describe imagination, particularly those involving perspective.I have spent a lot of time pondering what the author walked away from the Outward Bound course with. Did the course help him understand how his own imagination formed? These questions led me to wonder, how has my imagination been formed? Is it crafted with just one of many possible perspectives? How does my imagination fit into my everyday life? How does it contribute to my behaviors?This is a cleverly written book, and will probably strongly appeal to those with a background in literature. The book appealed to me because I like the great outdoors and appreciated a chance to both escape and use my mind at the same time.
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