The Sound of Mountains
7 9 2024
The Sound of Mountains

The trail of Erri De Luca’s memories and thoughts on the mountains

Life follows a simple movement: from down to up. This simple motion resembles beauty for the writer and alpinist Erri De Luca. As a seed underground always moves toward the surface, so does the sap that allows the tree to grow. But for the author the best example of this vital push is visible in the mountains, thrown towards the sky from the deepest oceans. In the evocative Palazzo San Sebastiano, De Luca shares anecdotes and memories from his time spent in the heights. Since their rise, the mountains became the second physical border of this world, says the writer, and we, as humans, can only comply with this reality.

In many of his novels (Il peso della farfalla/The weight of a butterfly) De Luca describes the magnificent crests and landscapes of the Dolomites. Those mountains, a popular tourist destination nowadays, not so long time ago were explored only by Italian poachers. The advent of alpinism in the 20th century brought foreign climbers to Italy, and the poachers found another job: leading those foreigners to the summit. The summit, not a finish line but just a turning point for De Luca. As he says, a mountain is truly climbed when you return to the starting point.

The silence, the sensation of emptiness, the wind. All elements that for the author make the mountains a unique place, free from any private property. The space gained step after step and the cool mountain air are trusted travel companions for De Luca. There, between a crevasse and a stone wall, he feels safer than anywhere else. There, as written in Discorso per un amico, he found, and tragically lost, a friend to whom he was deeply bonded to. With this book, De Luca remembers his friend and time spent together listening to the sounds of the mountains.