BrokenTune

With every journey to Tibet, I moved further and further away from the popular concept of the yeti. And with every year the scorn of the yetologists grew.

People sent me caricatures. There were jokes about my being unable to capture the yeti on film. Questions about my abominable snowman were now inevitable at readings and conferences. My most severe critics were the ones who confused the yeti of their imagination with the real thing and would only accept as conclusive evidence photographs reflecting their vision of the yeti. But how could I fulfill their fantasies?

I continued my quest, ignoring the scientists who found me amusing and the fantasists for whom I unlocked secret aspirations. It wasn't my job to confirm or refute what millions imagined the yeti to be.

I'm a bit further on now and am really liking the book. Maybe it is in reaction to our recent reading of The Science of Discworld, or rather, a reaction to some of the arrogance displayed by two of the authors of TSoDW, but it appears that "narrativium" is alive and well on "Roundworld" and that includes its scientific community. 

What is becoming very clear is that Messner does try to collect the legends and follow these up against what we (think) know about the facts of geography, ecology, biology, anthropology, etc. of the region. He's not pushing the claim that there is or is not a "yeti" - he is just trying to figure out what he's seen - without letting the narrativium take over, i.e. without being swayed by the legends or tales of what he might have seen.