L'ascensione del Monte Bianco

«Dear Ludovic, I will take you to the top of Mont Blanc!» The adventure begins like this, on an evening at the end of October washed down with chablis: Ludovic has just confided to a friend that he is going through a difficult period, his wife wants a divorce, he feels he has failed in everything. The friend is the writer Sylvain Tesson, an expert climber, famous for his books and crazy exploits at all latitudes. For him, proposing climbing Mont Blanc as a relief for his friend's sorrows is the most natural thing in the world! But the undertaking is truly "an impossible undertaking", or at least so it appears, because Ludovic is a sedentary type, a city animal, an avid smoker, a tenacious drinker, a slave to drugs. And then, he's afraid. Fear of heights. Ludovic - who is also an editor: a category notoriously unaccustomed to summits - does not possess even an inch of the makings of a mountaineer... except, perhaps, the recklessness that pushes him to say yes. Departure is scheduled for the end of June. Months of hard preparation followed, marked by aching knees, training up and down the stairs of the publishing house, vain attempts to cut out the vices. The guide Daniel du Lac and the writer and friend Jean-Christophe Rufin, also an expert mountaineer, will join the duo. To reach the roof of Europe, Ludovic arms himself with a pair of shoes of the wrong size, supplies of Xanax and an unexpected dose of courage. Between anxiety attacks and breathtaking landscapes, disabling dizziness and impervious routes, Ludovic reaches the top of Mont Blanc with his friends. From here the perspective will prove to be completely different: however challenging (and dangerous!) the path that leads to the summit is dotted with those discoveries capable of changing the course of an existence. The ascent of Mont Blanc is a true story, with a truly happy ending. A mountain adventure and friendship, of absurd dangers and courage, but also a shocking reflection on our way of facing life and the concrete possibility of changing it.