Let Laughter from the Mountains Echo

Fresh from the printing press, the collection of mountaineering humoresques Laughter from the Mountains by the masterful pen of Dušan Škodič will delight mountain lovers, with entertaining stories complemented by illustrations by Milan Plužarev. The diverse mountaineering tales take the reader back to the times of bus rides to the trailhead and encounters with Yugoslav border guards, they speak of current experiences with mountain bikers or searching for a companion on a mountaineering forum, about revelry in mountain huts, encounters with shy female hikers ... In them, we wittily follow the mountaineering maturation of an established mountaineering publicist who knows how to poke fun at himself and uses imagination as the main spice of his writing. Let Laughter from the Mountains echo!







"Not only now, when we are facing something we didn't know and fear and distress are driving us into psychosis - we need joy and laughter all the time. Life is a serious matter that doesn't run smoothly for anyone from beginning to end. Good cheer is the magic of those moments when we forget about transience," emphasizes Dušan Škodič on the release of the collection of entertaining mountaineering stories Laughter from the Mountains. His mountaineering tales take the reader back to the time when one had to take a bus to the trailhead or when a border guard caught you at the state border and sent you back to the valley, they speak of current experiences with mountain bikers or searching for a companion on a mountaineering forum, but the main part deals with evergreen mountaineering themes such as revelry in mountain huts, tender mountain encounters, introduction to the ranks of trail markers and self-proclaimed mountaineering experts, above all, it places diverse humor-spiced stories, mishaps and adventures from the mountain world between the book covers.







The entertaining stories have accumulated over time, at least thirty years have passed between the first and the last. "When we go to the mountains, many cheerful and funny things happen to us. Many events stay in our memory because they once brightened our day or entertained the mountaineering company. Why not share them with others? I always say that no one goes to the mountain world just because they like the gray color of the rocks so much. Perhaps for experiencing aesthetics, but certainly not enough for laughter and joy. Stane Belak - Šrauf once said: Stories are important, the rest is not. That's what will remain for us when we once look at the mountains from the valley. Stories are serious or entertaining - and these are a collection of those at which we once held our bellies. Since the previous book People in the Mountains was serious and touched more on tragedy, Laughter from the Mountains was a logical consequence. Nevertheless, the reader will feel already from reading the first story that this is humor that is not the same as valley humor," says Škodič, who a few years ago enthused with the collection of historical stories People in the Mountains, and explores history vividly also as a member of the editorial board of the magazine Planinski vestnik, for which among other things he revived Jakob Aljaž's dreams of a cog railway to Triglav and plans for a meteorological observatory on Slovenia's eye-tooth.







In the new collection Laughter from the Mountains, published by Planinska založba of the Alpine Association of Slovenia, edited by Vladimir Habjan, Škodič knows how to poke fun at himself well, which is a special art: "I realized long ago that people most readily accept jokes where the writer accuses no one or makes fun of someone. Anyway, there is always the possibility that a mirror is set in some story that reminds us that we don't always behave as smartly as we think. Because of this realization, I easily admit my mistakes. Whoever has some self-criticism can easily come to terms with it. All beautiful and without flaws exist only in fairy tales, marriage ads, or on web forums."







"The book has seventeen entertaining stories and I can calmly say that no two are alike. There are infinite situations that life offers us, the writer just has to decide which one is worth reviving and breathing soul into it. For example, I described the time and events when we used to take the bus to the mountains every Saturday, almost regardless of the current weather, which led to interesting entanglements. Bivouacking in the winter Trnovski gozd also once stemmed from that. At that time we weren't laughing at all, it was a pretty tough experience, and at the same time very instructive. They didn't know about it at home until I wrote it down. But we laughed about it for years," recalls the Gorenjec: "I also describe memories of border Yugoslav border guards, my generation and older ones remember what crazy entanglements there used to be with them. You could hike all day and run into a patrol on the saddle that would turn you around and you had to descend to the valley you came from, without anyone caring that it was Sunday and that in the evening from Logarska dolina there would be no bus connection so you could go to work on Monday. But there are also more time-neutral themes. For example, how it can turn out if you lock your keys, phone and everything else in the car at a mountain parking lot and remain empty-handed in a bind from which you have to extricate yourself. I also describe adventures that befall many a mountain hut keeper, or those more tender matters on encounters in the mountains, random ones, but also completely calculated ones, supported by social networks. There aren't few of those either."







Škodič started going to the mountains with his parents, as a high school student he completed a course for a youth mountaineering guide, later also an exam for a trail marker and mountain warden, as an instructor he participated in courses for youth guides and engaged in alpinism for a few years. In the stylistically masterfully written stories, we in a way follow his mountaineering growing up or maturation, the author drew the bulk from autobiographical adventures, adding a pinch of imagination: "The first stories date back to the time when I had just become a youth mountaineering guide, an apprentice trail marker and attending an alpinism course, which I consciously did not complete. I took it only as gathering knowledge for carefree trips on pathless terrain, in which I found the most hill freedom. Maturation and accumulated experience are also evident in the continuation. More than three quarters of the stories are autobiographical, the others arose based on stories from acquaintances or observing the surroundings. To make a story good, it must be packaged in a form that will draw the reader in and experience it through their own eyes. There are also big differences among narrators. Someone will tell the same event so vividly that they will listen with open mouths, another without tail or head. Joža Čop was such a master. If we read about his legendary jokes and inventions, it soon becomes clear that he knew how to turn a small mischief into a masterpiece at which everyone present writhed with laughter. Writing is similar, only the main spice is the writer's imagination."







Škodič's stories are complemented by excellent illustrations by Milan Plužarev, with whom they are already a well-tuned duo, both in the book People in the Mountains and in creating Planinski vestnik. Dušan appreciates in Milan above all the ability, based on his description and some photo representing a specific mountain location, to make just what he wants with minimal adjustments - above all, that he takes it as fun relaxation from established creation. At the edge of Laughter from the Mountains, literary historian Miran Hladnik outlined Slovenian mountaineering humor through a literary-historical prism, and about Škodič's writing he wrote: "With the exception of individual tales where the situation itself evokes laughter, in the book we laugh at the character traits of the protagonists and the way people, situations and events are described: with images that we attribute to the author's originality, after we have vainly tried to find foreign models. The author does not scribble from life that would be funny in itself, but finds an opportunity for humorous detached perspective on the world even where at first glance there is not much fun: such an ability of the writer is especially appreciated by more demanding readers. Here let me just round off my reading experience in a homey way: Škodič really knows how to write well. And make you smile on top."







The Alpine Association of Slovenia has set up an online library With a Book to the Mountains to maintain contact with the mountains during the new coronavirus epidemic, to which it adds some free book or video content or an article from Planinski vestnik every day, in the online classroom Little School of Mountaineering small and large can learn mountaineering knots, refresh their knowledge or master some other skill for safer visits to the mountains.