Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ication,” Mazeaud was quoted. “I succeeded in getting to page 16. But when I saw that
he had not a single word for poor Lachenal, I couldn't get any further.”
According to Benoît Heimermann of
L'Equipe,
a principal motivation for Herzog in
writing his memoir was his desire to enter the Académie Française, that august body
of luminaries that elects a new candidate only on the death of a standing member. Re-
cent publication is required for consideration, and indeed,
L'Autre Annapurna
won a
prize offered by the Académie. Yet in June 1999, when an election was held, Herzog
garnered only three votes, far short of the seventeen that enshrined novelist René de
Obaldia.
With the publication of the memoir came a whole new raft of interviews. During
the two years he had stewed over the controversy, Herzog, now seventy-nine, had
grown petulant toward his detractors. Now he was inclined to see a conspiracy to dis-
credit
Annapurna.
To Jean-Michel Asselin, of
Vertical,
he said, “This ridiculous polem-
ic was set on fire and stirred higher by so-called alpinists who aren't really climbers.
It was born of commercial motives. It had to do with selling books that had just ap-
peared.”
In his irritation, Herzog now both condescended toward Lachenal, as he always had,
and derogated him as he never had before. Explaining the “censorship” of the
Carnets
one more time to Benoît Heimermann, Herzog said, “[Lachenal's] was an excessive
temperament, an overflowing imagination. . . . This excessive side of his character, Lu-
cien Devies and I hoped to temper, in saying, 'There, that word is too strong.' We did
him a service; there would have been attacks and defamation. It had nothing to do with
'censoring' him. . . . Lucien Devies, especially, but also I, played the role of godfather.
We calmed him down a bit.”
To the sympathetic interviewer for
Le Figaro,
Herzog contrasted Lachenal and him-
self on the summit day on Annapurna:
I thought of the ladder of St. Theresa of Avila, he thought—mountain guide that he
was—of the dangers we were running. I thought of France, of the little flag that we were go-
ing to plant on the summit. He thought that a mountain course was simply a mountain
course.
To the same interviewer, Herzog elaborated, “We had been trussed up [in the war],
France had suffered. Our exploit ought to be that of the whole nation. We couldn't
think just about ourselves; we climbed the icy slopes with thoughts in our hearts of the
country and all the youth of France that we represented.”
To Jean-Michel Asselin of
Vertical,
Herzog confided, “I believe that Lachenal had a
will to make things banal.” Startled, Asselin asked him what he meant. “I don't know,”
