Calculated Risk

Publication Year: 1981.

Calculated Risk, by Dougal Haston. London: Diadem Books, 1979. 190 pages, glossary. Price £4.95.

Calculated Risk is the story of a Scottish climber, Jack McDonald who struggles continuously for understanding of himself, his friends, antagonists, and relationships with women through life on a fine edge. Calculated Risk is not just an affair with climbing. It enters into Jack’s whole life, leaving only room for those able to understand. It is here that the book achieves brilliance, for unlike any other climbing novel I am acquainted with, the reader is able to grasp the feeling of extreme commitment through one classic example after another.

I doubt that Calculated Risk will be appreciated except by those who are familiar with the situation of extreme commitment. The reader must occasionally read between the lines and be prepared for situations and characters that seemingly come from left field, but keeping in mind that its author, Dougal Haston, died in a skiing accident before completing a final draft, it comes closer to explaining the sensitivities and motivations of a man evolved in a continuous struggle. Jack McDonald, much like the author, could hardly accept the world as it is. He drives every aspect as he explores himself and others, and in the process he changes everything he comes into contact with.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and particularly the examples Dougal chose to write about.

Be sure to read the foreword by Dougal’s close friend and constant climbing companion, Doug Scott. Without the foreword the book would quickly fall by the wayside. As Scott suggests, Calculated Risk is a semiautobiography which uses real people and situations only slightly altered for the sake of the story, and on the real side it says more about Dougal than the adventures he chose for his autobiography, In High Places.

Michael Covington