“This incredible story did several things for me. The easy ones are: it made me in no way want to take up something like mountain climbing, it made me understand how someone can easily be left for dead (intentionally or unintentionally) on a mountain like Everest, and it made me desperately ant to learn more about Everest, the region surrounding the mountain, and the people who live there. Like Under the Banner of Heaven, Krakauer got me. He pulled me in and made me want to read until I couldn't stay awake. There was even a part in this when I felt like I was short of breath, just like he was as he went up the mountain.
Climbing Everest takes a certain selfishness and a certain insanity. Why would anyone want to spend that amount of time in misery--short of breath, tired, unable to move, and even teetering on the edge of death? I certainly wouldn't. But every year, more people give it a shot. in 1996, when Krakauer's story takes place, 12 people gave their lives to the mountain. A series of bad judgments and miscalculations led to a big tragedy. It had to have been horrible to be there, and even in a hypoxic stupor, Krakauer seemed to understand the predicament he and his team were in. All the training, all the preparation, and all the effort didn't matter when a storm stranded 19 climbers in the open atop the mountain. It seems so wasted.
Luckily for us, down here where it's much safer, Krakauer lived to tell the story to the best of his ability, and hopefully his story will be a warning to others that it might not be all it's cracked up to be on Everest.”
mrjerz wrote this review Monday, September 17 2007.
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