Be first to climb the mountain and climb it alone

“Be first to climb the mountain and climb it alone” is a maxim about achievement joined to isolation, introduced as the refrain of a supposed shared memory between Barney Barnes and the Unnamed narrator. Its decisive significance is the contradiction that follows: the narrator denies ever singing it or sharing the experiences Barney recalls, turning a familiar-sounding lyric into evidence that the conversation rests on invented intimacy.

The Phrase and Its Supposed Memory

Barney Barnes recalls an old friend from Canada and a conversation about money spent in a bar on King Street in Toronto. He asks the Unnamed narrator to remember a song supposedly sung while drunk, then supplies the line: “Be first to climb the mountain and climb it alone”. The phrasing gives the alleged song the shape of a compact personal credo: reaching the summit is linked not to companionship but to doing so alone.

The recollection is embedded in easy, specific details. Barney Barnes mentions the old friend, the Toronto bar, and the narrator’s supposed habit of singing; he then moves toward the prospect of another night out and recalls drinks the pair supposedly named E-mc2. The maxim arrives within this cascade of apparent shared history, not as an abstract saying detached from a scene.

The Narrator’s Rebuttal

The Unnamed narrator initially answers Barney Barnes with repeated assent, appearing to recognize the lyric. The narration then reverses that response: the narrator says the supposed Toronto visit never happened, that the song was never sung, and that Barney Barnes probably did not know anyone named Goodrich. The apparently intimate recollection is thus exposed as false on several linked points, not merely mistaken about a lyric.

That reversal also destabilizes the narrator’s first response. The words “I sure do” momentarily confirm Barney Barnes’s story, but the narrator’s later account makes clear that the confirmation cannot be trusted as proof of a real shared past. The phrase becomes part of a scene in which conversational confidence and factual memory pull apart.

Narrative Function

The maxim’s emphasis on solitary achievement gains an added edge from the scene’s false fellowship: Barney Barnes presents it as something the narrator once sang among friends, while the narrator rejects the shared experience on which that claim depends. The text does not explain why Barney Barnes offers the fabricated recollection, so the phrase cannot be securely treated as a deliberate code or warning. Its supported function is more unsettling: a vivid personal detail makes the exchange sound credible, and the narrator’s correction reveals how completely that appearance can fail.