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February 27, 2026
On Not Climbing Mountains by Claire Thomas review
This ambitious novel follows a grieving woman who distracts herself with research on famous names who had connections to Switzerland
TL;DR
- The novel "On Not Climbing Mountains" by Claire Thomas is structured around a narrator's journey through Switzerland, exploring historical figures connected to the country.
- It draws from historical and literary sources, featuring figures like Mary Shelley, James Baldwin, and Charlie Chaplin, and highlights Swiss painter Jean-Frédéric Schnyder.
- The narrator's detachment is revealed to be grief over parental loss, with her research serving as a distraction.
- Stylistically, the book is a departure from Thomas' previous works, being slower and more subtle, focusing on association and resonance.
- The novel's style and themes, including melancholy, a solitary narrator, and the blurring of fact and fiction, are compared to W.G. Sebald.
- The reviewer found the book impressively intricate but too oblique, desiring more action and access to the narrator's interiority.
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