Mysterium

June 1, 2018
Froderberg (Old Border Road, 2010) lays on the spiritual symbolism in this novel set on a fictional mountain in India named for an actual Hindu goddess of knowledge, learning, art, and music.Sarasvati Troy's namesake mountain was first scaled the day of her birth in 1956. As Sara's 25th birthday approaches in 1980, she and her father, a mountain-climbing philosophy professor, set out to scale Sarasvati with a hand-picked company of climbers: Professor Troy's friend Dr. Arun Reddy and his son, Devin; Virgil Adams, who reached the summit during the 1956 expedition, and his wife, Hillary (a name with its own climbing associations); driven climber Wilder Carson and his wife, Vida, who teaches yoga. Also along, at least in spirit, is Sara's mother, who died in a climbing accident when Sara was 7 but has remained a guiding presence in her daughter's life. Scaling Sarasvati demands grueling, sometimes literally impossible expenditures of spiritual and physical resources. Readers are drawn into the pain, danger, and mental exhaustion the characters face, but despite (or perhaps due to a surfeit of) lyrical prose, readers may also share the boredom--as similar scenarios are repeated, even the danger of avalanches becomes less compelling. So does Sara's unearthly goodness despite her predictable romance with sensitive Devin. Fortunately, the other climbers are less perfect and therefore more interesting. When Hillary is injured and goes home before reaching base camp, Adams' longing for her and their domestic comfort overwhelms his drive to climb. Long-time philanderer Reddy had a brief affair with Vida before his wife's death, and sparks still fly between them despite Vida's hope that Sarasvati will reignite her marriage with her seemingly oblivious husband. Coming across as a macho jerk, Wilder is secretly tortured by grief and guilt over the climbing accident that killed his twin brother."The poetry was in the climbing," Froderberg writes, but the drama here is in the muddle humans make of their lives.

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June 18, 2018
Froderberg’s austere adventure story is set in the early 1980s on Mt. Sarasvati, a fictional mountain in the Himalayas, and follows a group of climbers as they attempt a peak that hasn’t been climbed for 25 years. Instigating the climb is Sara, named for the mountain, which was in turn named for the goddess Sarasvati, and which is called Mysterium by Westerners. Sara wants to climb the mountain to honor her mother, who died when Sara was seven. She and her father, a philosophy professor and avid climber, are joined by six other friends ranging in age from their 20s to their 60s, all with their own ghosts and issues. On the gradual ascent, which takes months, they are accompanied by various porters and Sherpas, who believe, evidently with some justification, that the mountain is unhappy with those attempting to conquer her. Froderberg (Old Border Road) has a firm grasp on the technical aspects of climbing, as well as its many dangers, but her formal and sometimes oracular vocabulary, which routinely includes words like “curmurring” and “orogeny,” is likely to send readers to the dictionary. References to literary classics, including Dante’s Divine Comedy and Melville’s Moby-Dick also abound. The book offers the unusual combination of an intellectual challenge coupled with a brutal but ecstatic story.

July 1, 2018

Sara Troy was named after the frozen peaks that took her mother's life, and Mount Sarasvati in the Indian Himalayas has beckoned ever since. Now, she and her father have planned an expedition to summit Mysterium together, accompanied by several experienced mountaineers. But from their first organizational meetings, the disparate group is plagued by tension as each team member seems focused more on furthering a personal agenda than working with others. Froderberg (Old Border Road) makes it crystal clear that there is nothing romantic about mountain climbing, though sexual tensions abound. In excruciating detail, likely calling upon her background in nursing, the author makes palpable the unrelenting pain and discomfort of oxygen-deprived mania, extreme cold, snow blindness, and suffocation by avalanche. Still, Sara's optimism and beatific visage spur the climbers on despite the reservations of the more experienced Sherpas. Why, the author asks, would anyone wan to be challenged in this way? The answers are as complex and individual as the characters themselves. VERDICT This gripping novel will mesmerize readers who delight in lyrical prose but should also appeal to fans of nonfiction adventure stories such as Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air.--Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2018
The Himalayas, the world's tallest mountain range, are intimidating enough, but Sarasvati is the most daunting of them all. Surrounded by sheer icy vertical drops and nearly insurmountable passes, the peak has shaken even the most persistent climbers. But the mountaineers in this brisk story are more persistent. The motley crew features Sara Troy, named after the peak; her father, Professor Troy; her father's friend, Dr. Andrew Reddy, and his son; and a set of other climbers who all have their own emotional baggage to carry as they attempt Mission Impossible. Froderberg (Old Border Road, 2010) peppers the novel with vibrant descriptions of the Indian subcontinent and weaves them in with contemplative takeaways about the sport of climbing. The casual enthusiast might find it arduous to hang on amid the clutter of climbing jargon. After a while, the language becomes as esoteric and almost as difficult to process as the thin mountain air. Nevertheless, the harrowing adventure is ultimately suspenseful and nerve-racking, and the shifting emotional dynamics between the various members of the group efficiently spin a compelling story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)