Stephanie Sanders interviewed the star and author of the international best selling novel Touching the Void, Joe Simpson.

Interview first published on www.ntlworld.com.

How do you feel about winning the BAFTA for Touching the Void?

It’s amazing really. I thought the funniest thing was that just before Christmas, Jonathan Ross picked Touching the Void for an Oscar alongside Master and Commander and The Lord of the Rings. I nearly fell off my sofa. When that happened I thought there is something going on here, but it did this with the book. It sold slowly and then after four years it won the NCR award and beat Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. The same thing seems to be happening with the film.

So has Touching the Void outsold Bowling for Columbine yet?

We blew that film out of the water after less than 2 months and Box Office receipts are now 60% higher.

Why do you think this film has had such a huge impact on people’s lives?

For the same reason as the book. I wrote the book primarily because everyone had got the story wrong and it became the classic case of Chinese whispers. There are a couple of elements. A good book or film is first and foremost a good story. Void is an amazing story. If there had been three of us and one had died there it just wouldn’t have been the same. It is an extraordinary story which helps. On another level, people like to be told stories. I do these talks to businesses all over the world such as JP Morgan, Pfizer and I’m thinking why do these guys in suits want to listen to stories? They are not just men in suits, they are human beings and they can relate to the story.

When I started, I wrote 40,000 words of rubbish which was basically a formal expedition book about how we got our money together etc., and then threw it all away. I suddenly realised this wasn’t the story I wanted to tell. The story is not about climbing, it is about what happened to Simon Yates and I and the psychological trauma. I rewrote the book in seven weeks and again there was lots of publicity about cutting the rope. Inadvertently I seem to have written an everyman story which is not about mountaineering. That is just the stage that the story is written in, it could be set in a desert or a jungle or something like that and what it deals with are the big questions of loneliness, death, pain, friendship, betrayal and trust. It deals with someone being taken right to the very limit of their life and the way they are physically reduced to nothing. It also deals with metaphysics, in that it tells the story of facing death, for me in a Godless universe.

Why did you call it Touching the Void?

I spent ages with stupid titles and then I wrote things down like loneliness, fear, pain and emptiness. I wrote the word “Void” down and it just summed something up. “Void” has all sorts of nuances beyond blackness, emptiness and it is about being totally alone.

The overwhelming recollection of the experience is an appalling sense of abandonment; it is about dying alone and we are all actually going to do that at some point. I don’t see the film the way other people do, they see their own story; what they are doing is appropriating it to themselves. I get letters from people who have gone through bad experiences. What everyone thinks is could I do that? Would I be strong enough, weak enough - most people say ‘no’. That is what I would have said if you had asked me if I could do that plus I would have laughed my head off.

One of the things I do at the end of the talk is to tell everyone that in the same situation they would do exactly what I did. They wouldn’t survive necessarily because they are not mountaineers, they couldn’t make the right decisions but they would try. Human beings don’t die easily.

Do you feel you have had a second chance at life then?

Climbers are a very pragmatic bunch, we are used to doing things under a lot of stress and strain and used to a level of toughness. Everyone thinks that what happened in Peru was the most significant thing that happened to us. However it wasn’t, the most significant thing that happened to me was the success of the book.

That materially changed my life and it changed Simon’s life but in terms of mountaineering, what happened in Peru was a screw-up that we got away with. In the last 20 years, I have lost many friends who were killed in the mountains, including five friends who I don’t stop thinking about. No one died in Peru but we have been on many expeditions over the last 18 years, some of which ended tragically and some of which were great successes. People see the story and seem to think it’s bigger than everything else in my life.

Why did you go climbing?

Because it was fun, it was always fun. We never went to get hurt or scared stupid. We don’t have death wishes otherwise we would all be dead. Climbers are more scared of heights than non-climbers. It’s about changing your perspective on living. It makes you feel more alive.

Is there anything you would have done differently if you had the chance to film it again?

Well I’m not a filmmaker, so not really. I didn’t enjoy the experience and Simon didn’t like the director. Simon got within an ace of head butting him because he felt Kevin MacDonald wasn’t treating the crew safely. He thought that because he wasn’t employed by the film company he could stand up to them but he just did it a bit too aggressively. Simon was judging Kevin MacDonald by climbing standards, which is very unfair because Kevin MacDonald is a film director with a Hugh Grant hairstyle from London. The only ice he had seen in his life was in a Gin and Tonic, suddenly he is staggering around at 18,000ft trying to make a film. I was saying to Simon, just respect him for that, you couldn’t make a film mate, so don’t criticise him because he is doing his best.

Have you spoken to Kevin since?

I didn’t fall out with Kevin in Peru, but he should have thanked the people who enabled him to get a BAFTA. He will never meet me again anyway, so he doesn’t care about my opinion, but by my code of manners, it was unforgivable. A lot of people made this film without whom, he couldn’t have gone to collect his BAFTA. I would like to see him get down into a crevasse without Brian Hall and the rest of the safety team.

Was revisiting the Suila Grande a positive or negative experience?

Having to go and reconstruct things resulted in me being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder when I got back. Consequently it created a great deal of emotional strain. Making a film is the most boring thing you can do, it’s like watching paint dry, you sit there while a director and a cameraman spend five hours p*ssing around with their camera and then they do a four minute shot. That was really irritating, but anyway going back to Peru was not cathartic

You said on the DVD, you were worried that your life would go badly after going back to Peru – I take it it hasn’t?

Well I didn’t say how long the circle was going to be, don’t bring this up! The same with the book, the film started becoming more and more successful and starting making me famous in a world that made me feel very uncomfortable, and I had just managed after 17 years and six books to get a handle on it. Then this bl**dy film comes along and does it all over again. Suddenly you are in this topsy-turvy world where you are thinking s*** what’s happening? On one level it’s great because my corporate speaking is going mad and everything is brilliant but I tend to get very wary when things are going well. Life tends to go up and down, when you are at the top you always know that you could go screaming back down.

You said you felt like you were suffering from “imposter syndrome” regarding your writing? Is that still the case?

I believe I am a good writer now but I never intended to be a writer. I wanted to be a mountaineer and climb the world, which I did, but I became well known as a writer within and outside the climbing world, which made me feel very uncomfortable because I always judged myself as a mountaineer. I wasn’t the best but I was far from the worst and that is how you judge yourself. When I won the biggest book prize in the country, I was thinking “I only did it by accident!”

How is your new book coming along?

I was halfway through writing a novel and then the film came out. I have written five books of non-fiction and one novel. I also do a lot of corporate speaking, primarily to earn enough to be able to write with financial security. Plus when I have corrective surgery on my knee/ankle I want to be able to have the money to say, ‘Right I am going to France and get this done immediately’. I have seen friends of mine who are crippled with injuries waiting for months and months.

I find this life of traveling and talking very isolating because although you meet a lot of great people, you rarely get to know them, you live on your own in planes and in the same way writing is quite an isolating thing to do. I love it but I hate it as well because it makes you feel very vulnerable. When its published it’s like you have thrown yourself to the dogs hoping they have been fed recently, but when you climb you never do it for anyone else’s approval.

Do you think you would have dreamt of becoming a writer if you hadn’t had this experience in Peru?

No, I had no desire to become a writer, but I had done a degree in English Literature and Philosophy.

You never finished it?

No I did go back eventually. I was doing a Masters degree in English and specialising in World Drama. I had done my dissertation which was on “existentialism as a form of literary criticism”. I don’t know why I chose that at all. Then I was involved in an avalanche in the summer before my final year. I got a head injury and wasn’t able to complete the course. When I came back a year later the syllabus had changed and I couldn’t complete the Masters, so I did a course in Philosophy.

Who are your inspirations author-wise?

They always change. At one point I was really into D. H. Lawrence, then I got really into Hardy and things like that. I hated Jane Austen and I couldn’t stand Dickens but I studied them all. In modern times I love Hemingway. I still don’t like his misogyny and his macho attitudes, but I love his writing - I love the way he writes. You go through periods of liking one writer, one day I will read Louis de Bernèries and the next day I will read Wilbur Smith. This comes a lot from expeditions when you spend a lot of time sitting in tents while it’s snowing. In one trip we spent 11 days snowbound, just sat in our bl**dy tents!

What would happen on expeditions is that you would bring two books each between eight of you, so you would end up with 16 books altogether. You’d read your books and then you’d have to borrow someone else’s. So you would have to read what other people brought, someone else might have brought War and Peace. One guy, a mate of mine on a seven-week expedition, brought War and Peace and the Old Testament, actually he was daft as a brush. Sometimes, you read a book and you think ‘Oh My God’ it’s a biography of Picasso (which I would never normally read). You start to read it and you think that’s amazing.

What do you dislike more - the film or book industry?

I dislike pretention and I think the book and film industry can be stuffed full of it, but at the same time I really like seeing good actors and good authors. I heard Philip Pullman talk about his work and I think that man has got his head screwed on. In recent years, I have really liked books by Louis de Bernèries, not just Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – but The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman, Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord, The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts - they are extraordinary books. Plus you read Isabel Allende and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and think wow, how can they write in our language with such beauty and then you go off them and read Wilbur Smith. I don’t actually read his books but I would like to make as much money as he does!

I notice you are donating some of your profits to the Free Tibet campaign?

Long story to that, Storms of Silence is all about Tibet, also I used to do a lot of work for Greenpeace.

Are you still doing that?

No not really, we got arrested too many times. I think we got arrested 17 times and we eventually got charged with breach of the peace. We can’t keep breaking the law otherwise you get put in prison. We did about 18 direct actions including climbing Nelson’s Column.

It must have been quite dangerous?

Yes it’s quite alarming. In one action we boarded a ship in the North Sea in a gale trying to stop it from pouring acid and heavy metal into the North Sea and we got charged with piracy initially.

Piracy?

Then they worked out we couldn’t be pirates because you have to show violence and be armed so they charged us with stowing away. Our bloody lawyer pleaded guilty and we were saying don’t plead guilty because we did the opposite of stowing away. To stow away, you board the ship at port without the captain’s permission with the intention of sailing away. We boarded the ship at sea, with the intention of making him sail home which is the opposite. If we had won on the technicality we could have boarded any ship in the North Sea and created a precedent but our lawyer pleaded guilty, so we got done for stowing away.

Do you find your public speaking scary?

Well I had spoken a lot before I started this corporate speaking. I probably spent about 12 years giving a slide show of Touching the Void to the general public and the climbing world. I did this all over the world and I sort of honed my speaking talents and I’m half-Irish so it helps. When I started to do the corporate work I actually had a talk prepared but I had to reduce it from 1 1/2 hours to 50 mins. I found it intimidating because at least when I spoke to the climbing world I knew they had read my books, so I knew they were on my side. It’s great because if it wasn’t intimidating and challenging, I would be really bored by now. I think the moment I stop feeling nervous, I will stop talking because it means you are bored. I’m not bored yet.

Are you still keen on climbing the Eiger?

Yes, me and Ray keep trying. I know one climber who spent 20 years trying to climb it. He just kept getting the conditions wrong. We could have done it but when these guys died in front of us, we didn’t really want to do it anymore and when we went back the following year and it snowed for three weeks. We went back the year before last and got about 2000 ft up, got caught in a storm and sat there getting very wet on a tiny ledge bitching at each other. We were saying what are we doing here? We are 40, we shouldn’t be doing this, so we came back down again. We couldn’t go last year because it was the hottest summer for many years and parts of the Matterhorn were just banned from climbing for the first time in its history because it was so dangerous. Then Ray came up with this brilliant, cunning plan to do it in winter because the weather is more stable and there isn’t so much rockfall, plus it is cold and dry. I was thinking, great plan except it takes about 6-7 days and its about -20ºc. Our temporary plan at the moment is that we are going next winter.

Is your knee going to be alright by then?

My knee is OK now, it just hurts, but that isn’t a reason for not doing it. It’s fine going up, it’s going downhill with a big rucksack on your back that hurts.

I can see us at 73 staggering up to the foot of the Eiger on zimmerframes.

Why do you like climbing with Ray so much?

He’s a great mate and we are like an old married couple. I never just use to climb with the same person but a lot of my closest mountaineering friends have gone. Plus a lot of people have stopped climbing - gone to other things, a lot of friends have taken up paragliding. I did a lot of paragliding for a while.

Are you still doing that?

I haven’t done it for a few years. I am currently more into saltwater fly-fishing. My favourite thing to do is to go to Kerry in Southern Ireland, where my mother came from and where our family lived. I stay at an idyllic cottage on a small river where you go fly-fishing for salmon or trout. When I got back from America I was losing it, so I went straight to Ireland and spent three days dressed in rubber standing in a river. I just turned the phone off and didn’t talk to anyone.

Are there any dangerous sports you wouldn’t try?

No, you are getting this wrong. I don’t do things because they are dangerous - there is a great misconception about dangerous sports.

However they are not what the average person would do in their everyday life…

I don’t particularly care what the average person does. If he spends all his time watching Big Brother he can have it really. Dangerous sports are a misconception – if you do something that is supposedly dangerous you tend to be far more aware of the risks – the most dangerous thing people do in this country is DIY. The biggest number of household accidents are DIY, every Easter A&E is stuffed full of people. If you put a man on a ladder with a powertool and beer inside him it is likely he will cut his arm off before he knows what he is doing. When you climb the North Face of the Eiger you are bloody aware its dangers and you spend all your time trying not to get hurt so you tend to be safer.

You say you are an expert at work avoidance – what is your latest plan to avoid doing your novel?

Actually I have done everything – I hate decorating and I have decorated a house from top to bottom.

Do you read all the posts on your website?

I studiously ignored most of it for a long time then people started saying it’s a good website, so now I am starting to have a look at it. People ask when is the film coming out, when’s the book coming out? Eventually I started reading all the different forums and suddenly you are confronted with your fan base which is a bit worrying. Then I thought hang on, they are really nice people and every now and then you read a bunch of them.

I also get a lot of letters and e-mails from people: they are normally lovely, moving letters which are about someone who has been through a bad time; and if I am in the country, I try to reply to as many as possible.

© Stephanie Sanders