Skiing in Literature

To Heaven's Heights: An Anthology of Skiing in Literature, by Ingrid Christophersen

Skiing has produced its share of good literature. The sport owes its worldwide popularity in great part to the writing skills of Fritdjof Nansen and Arnold Lunn. Novelists who wrote about skiing, either occasionally or only once, include Arthur Conan Doyle, Ernest Hemingway, Irwin Shaw, Romain Gary, Thomas Mann, D.H. Lawrence, Graham Greene, John Cheever, John Updike, James Salter, Gay Talese, Oakley Hall and Leon Uris. Thrillers often toss in a ski chase, a few of them believable. Now and then a magazine of literary quality—The New Yorker or Harper’s for example—picks up a lengthy bit of journalism. Not a few “real” lifelong skiers have produced lyrical work.

The last time some gems of skiing literature were gathered together in English was the 1982 anthology The Ski Book, edited by Morten Lund, Bob Gillen and Michael Bartlett. Now Ingrid Christophersen offers her favorite selections in To Heaven’s Heights: An Anthology of Skiing in Literature.

Christophersen retired in 2019 after a lifetime of racing, teaching and coaching. She was a FIS delegate and coached five decades for Britain’s Downhill Only Ski Club, traditional rival to the Kandahar Ski Club. Born in Norway, Christophersen has the advantage of fluency in some half a dozen languages.

And that is her book’s strength. It draws equally from Scandinavian and English-language sources. Many of the Norwegian excerpts, comprising about half the content, Christophersen translated specifically for this book, and are therefore available in English for the first time. I found delightful surprises amongst these authors, many of whom wrote about adventures in childhood, or as young adults. But there’s a lengthy passage from the Kalevala, the Finnish folk epic, a revelation.

Many of the excerpts run just a page or two, and I often wanted more. Christophersen has given me a new list of books I want to read in full. I therefore wished for publishing details on the books from which the excerpts are drawn, so I could find them without resorting to much internet searching.

To Heaven’s Heights grabbed me, and I wound up reading its 70-odd chapters in two days. 

To Heaven’s Heights: An Anthology of Skiing in Literature. Compiled by Ingrid Christophersen, MBE. London: Unicorn Publishing Group (unicornpublishing.org), 2021. 336 pages, hardbound. $45 (Kindle edition available).

Ski Life