This novella was sheer joy to read! A rediscovered masterpiece, Rum Doodle is a comic novel satirising men, their work and obsessions on an expedition to the Himalaya, first published in 1956, written by an unassuming structural engineer from Guildford, so Bill Bryson tells us in his intro to this edition. It wasn’t a huge success, but spawned an even lower-selling sequel and an unpublished third book featuring Bowman’s hero. However, the book did find a dedicated following amongst mountain climbers, for whom it became a sacred text in the way Monty Python’s ‘Parrot Sketch‘ is to many.
The mere mention of ‘men, their work and obsessions’ above will doubtless have got some of you thinking of Magnus Mills – my favourite modern comic author, and specifically Explorers of the New Century. Others may think of Michelle Paver’s Himalayan mountaineers in her second adult novel Thin Air. Well, if you combined Mill’s comic explorers with Paver’s Himalayan expedition minus most of the horrors, you’d be spot on. Let me tell you about the book.
In case you didn’t know, Rum Doodle is the highest peak in the Himalaya (*cough*) at 40,000 1/2 feet. Our narrator who is never named, except by his radio call-sign ‘Binder’ is the team leader, chosen by the Rum Doodle Committee to build a team to make an ascent on the mountain. The team comprises: Burley – in charge of the commissariat, strong but prone to ‘lassitudes’; Wish – team scientist, and Shute – team photographer, who hope to spot and capture the Abominable Snowman on film; Humphrey Jungle – radio expert and routefinder who always gets lost; Constant – in charge of the porters, a linguist; and Prone – doctor and oxygen expert. Most have climbed at some higher altitudes previously. They all meet in London to finish planning the expedition – minus Jungle who is lost…
Burley, although not at his best – he told me he was suffering from London lassitude – gave us a detailed picture of the transportation arrangements. […] In all, to transport tents and equipment, food, radio, scientific and photographic gear, personal effects, and so on, 3,000 porters and 375 boys would be required. […]
At this point the telephone bell rang. It was Jungle, who seemed in the best of spirits. He had, he said, definitely identified his whereabouts as Cockfosters. We congratulated him and said we would expect him shortly. […]
Wish then outlined the scientific programme. In addition to investigations into the hypographical and topnologival fossiferation of the area he hope to collect new data on the effect of biochronical disastrification of the geneospherical pandiculae on the exegesis of Wharton’s warple.
Those brief quotes give you a flavour of some of the climbers’ characters. You just know they’ll get into all kinds of trouble between them during the ascent, not to mention controlling all those Yogistani porters who are paid the princely sum of ‘bohees five (3 3/4d.)’ per diem! That said, the porters are, of course, broad, strong, indefatigable and fully acclimatised to the altitude, and as such are worth their weight in gold – all except Pong – the chef.
No matter what tempting delicacies he might extract from their tins the final result was an invariable and appalling dark-brown mess which had to be eaten with a strong spoon and contained the most revoltng lumps. That we survived his ministrations must be considered a triumph of spirit over matter, for we suffered considerably from indigestion. All attempts to turn him out of the kitchen failed. At the least hint that we were less than delighted with his disgusting concoctions he went into a kind of frnazy and threatened us with knives.
Pong’s antics will provide many horrors on their journey up the mountain. Burley will effect all kinds of lassitude, but also plays a practical joke on Wish with a porter-laid trail of footprints. Jungle will lead them round in circles – and eventually they reach base camp at about half way through the novella. It’s not until then that they managed to get the walkie-talkies working – which leads to some wonderfully arch conversations using all those radio conventions – roger, over, etc. but due to their range, also belaying the messages:
In view of certain youthful experiences at children’s parties I decided that some practice was advisable. I asked the party ro form a large circle over the whole width of the glacier, so that messages could be sent right round. At first I was quite unable to think of a message. Mu brain seemed to have frozen, and I stodd for some minutes feeling foolish. At last, I managed somehow to compose the first message: ‘How serene is Rum Doodle in the morning light.’
This came back as ‘Binder’s butter beans’.
After some thought I sent out the following: ‘Please pay very careful attention to this message.’ This too came back as ‘Binder’s butter beans.’
This was absurd. As an experiment I sent out: ‘Binder’s butter beans.’ This returned as: ‘The voice of the leader is sweet music in the ears of the followers.’
As the team splits up to scale the mountain to set up further camps, various members become ill – the prescription being to send bottles of champagne! Yes, they’d taken crates and crates of the nectar with them. It does seem to have some effect, *hic*!
The comedy goes on and on. But will they be able to scale the summit? Will they be able to ping Pong into touch? (Sorry, couldn’t resist!) Will they run out of champagne? You’ll have to discover the answers for yourself.
I can share that there are two picture sections included in this edition, to make it seem all the more like a proper memoir – they’re old-fashioned drawings and photographs from that golden age of heroic exploration in the first half of the 20thC – sadly there are no illustration credits given, but they’ve been used wonderfully to illustrate certain events in the book.
Bowman’s writing in the voice of the gentleman explorer Binder is simply wonderful, capturing all the team leader’s angst at whether he’s doing a good job of trying to control his team of mismatched adventurers. He simply wants to do the best by and for everyone, you really want him to succeed, even if its unlikely. Each of the characters is perfectly rendered and sustained. There’s a lot going on in just 171 pages, including a splendid running gag on the number 153.
I adored Rum Doodle. Magnus Mills (and Bill Bryson) fans will love it too, and anyone who likes 20thC comic novels. It’s great that Vintage have rescued this gem from obscurity. I gather that The Cruise of the Talking Fish – Rum Doodle‘s sequel – which spoofs the Kon-Tiki expedition rather repeats the plot of Rum Doodle on the oceanic horizontal – but if I ever spot a copy, I’ll be reading it.
Source: Own copy. Vintage paperback (2010), 171 pages + illus. BUY at Blackwell’s via my affiliate link.
Thank, I didn’t know this book
Thanks for reminding me I have this book, waiting for when the mood takes me! Curiously my copy –also from Vintage in 2019 – has no illustrations, but perhaps you have the 2010 edition or a more recent issue?
I also have a spoof story from 1983 by Ursula Le Guin called ‘The Ascent of the North Face’ – she calls it a joke, a silly story – which makes me wonder if she was aware of Bowman’s work: “is there anything deadlier than someone explaining a joke?” she asks, rhetorically.
My edition was the 2010. Shame if latter ones have ditched the illustrations, as how they were applied to the text is chucklesome.
This sounds brilliant! Adding to my list.
The Magnus Mills comparison has me convinced!
This sounds good fun!
Oh this does sound excellent, and well done on great progress with your 20 Books!
Looks like yu are going to finish early and I don’t think I’m going to make my paltry ten!