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Summary: Respect for the Godess and the Sherpas
Review: Not since reading Sir John Hunt's THE ASCENT OF EVEREST(formerly The Conquest of Everest)' have I read such a greatnon-fiction story of climbing to the top of the world. As a former trekking guide which included several trips to the Everest Region , reading this book helped me remember who we are and where as mere mortal humans we stand compared to the Goddess herself. I believe Krakauer will have great success at convincing the readers of this book how Climbing such a mountain as this deserves nothing but respect. He did an excellent job of illustrating the Sherpa people and their culture and giving them high recognition for the devoted efforts they give towards these expeditions. A book that is long overdue.
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Summary: Not just for mountaineers -- a story of the human condition
Review: Unlike the cast of this true story, I am not the daring, or even outdoorsy type. Yet I was completely captivated by this story. Rarely have I experienced a book that pulled me in so deeply -- I felt like I was there. Very well written, yet accessible for any reader. The book was loaned to me, but I enjoyed it so much I am buying a copy to loan to my friends
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Summary: Well worth reading but not without flaws
Review: Whether they are familiar with mountaineering or not, readersof "Into Thin Air" will be drawn into the dramatic andsometimes terrifying saga of the 1996 climbing disaster on Mount Everest. Jon Krakauer, who originally chronicled the tragedy for Outside Magazine, offers a first-hand account of a guided expedition's ascent of the Himalayan peak. Offering the details only an insider can serve up, Krakauer's tale keeps the reader engaged for chapter after chapter as the catastrophe unfolds. Step by step, through ice fields and snow, the author guides the reader to "The Death Zone" -- the area above 25,000 feet -- and back, all the while conveying his own struggles to survive the climb. But while Krakauer paints wonderful portraits of some expedition members, notably guides Rob Hall and Andy Harris, he fails to do justice to the women in the book. The reader learns virtually nothing about the Japanese woman who perished on the descent except she worked for Federal Express and ate noodles for breakfast each day. For all the shared tribulations, some characters are nothing more than cardboard cutouts, while others seem to take on a life of their own. The book also suffers from Krakauer's self-flagellation over his role in the disaster. Early on, he acknowledges the work is an effort to exorcise his demons stemming from the guilt he feels, but by the end of the story, his self-pity takes on a whiney tone that underscores the gulf between him and the more heroic expedition members. Unfortunately, his bleating also reminds us all that he is profiting from those deaths on a snowy precipice a world away.
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Summary: Questions our baseline human values
Review: Wow, what a book! The emotions you stir up are unbelievable;and they won't go away. One moment I'm saying to myself: they leftpoor Yasuko Namba to die ....The next I'm thinking, in our material world, where we ignore starving children on our streets while we're tucked away in our cozy, fortified homes (just like all those May 1996 expeditions up the North East route, where noone was in the appalling physical condition of Rob's and Scott's teams and yet scarely any effort was made to aid climbers in distress). Which brings me to only one conclusion, which I feel is the powerful essence of this saga. Unless you were there, experiencing firsthand the semi-suicidal drive to get to the top then back down, the exhaustion, the weirdo "commerce-cum-vanity" competition between the climbing leaders, the hellish conditions that besieged everybody on the top on that fateful May 10 1996, any comments or opinions we care to utter now from the comfort of our sitting-rooms at sea-level are meaningless and empty.
And so I ask myself: must I climb Mt. Everest to truly understand what Jon's talking about? I fear the answer is yes-but then the players will be different.
Thank you for a classic piece of gut-wrenching writing for each of us to judge. Perhaps most readers will try to judge themselves by it, not the narrator. In awe of the powers of the elements, David Lee-Warner
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Summary: A factual account of a heart wrenching tragedy
Review: My expectations of this book were high and it far exceededthem. I could barely put it down due to the increasing anxiety overwhat was to meet the mountaineers as they ascended to each new level of treachery on Everest. Although told in a factual manner with solid, non-emotional prose, you could not help but feel the frustration and agony in the final stages of the climb. That many died during the author's incredible journey is astounding, but that the majority survived this unbelievable event is almost more so. What posseses man to go to such lengths to satisfy their own ambition is enough to ponder well after you have finished this book. However, much time will also be spent wondering what it must be like to have your loved one left atop the mountain awaiting a rescue crew that will never reach them on the roof of the world.
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Summary: BE ON EVEREST w/o the COLD or THIN AIR (breathing optional)
Review: I've always found Jon Krakauer's writng style to be engagingand capable of putting you 'where the action is' and this book, evenafter reading all the other accounts on the Web, didn't dissappoint. An extraordinary account (I've read the book twice already) that, as an occasional climber in the Pacific Northwest, I found compelling me to look at this sport that I enjoy in a different way: ' What are my aspirations?' and are they worth the risk? In the end, I found myself wanting more, not that the book didn't provide enough, but that I wanted the book and the drama of the story to continue. Even my non-climbing wife found it to be an incredible read though it gives her little comfort to know, that at some level, this is what I do for recreation with all of its risks. She wanted those people rescued. Jon provided us the means to experience, through his writing, the thin air that characterized this climb, the challenges and determination, the cold, and the people. Through his eyes we see the strengths, the weaknesses, the best and the undesirable aspects of the people on the mountain in 1996. But overall we get to know the people who struggled and the magnitude of the struggle for survival in a way that most people who read this book don't have to consider on a day-to-day basis. Personally I am left with the following: All people die, its just a matter of where and when, but do we all really live? Clearly, no one described in the book went to Everest to die AND they were LIVING THEIR DREAM OF LIFE. But Jon's survival in the face of the death of some great people and how it has affected him is also haunting. Definitely a MUST READ for all aspiring climbers and those that love them.
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Summary: The book Michael Crichton wishes he could write
Review: Someday, if we are lucky, people will learn that money andequipment do not compensate for training and experience. If we areextremely lucky, we may even learn that not even expert training is a guarantee of success. Michael Crichton is obsessed with showing how experts make crucial mistakes, but I think that still gives too much credit to our ability to shape events. Reading this book makes me want to go back and read Steven Crane's "The Open Boat."
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Summary: A Curious Observation
Review: Interesting that, in a book which treats so much with death, there is so little mention of God
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Summary: Fascinating reading for anyone!
Review: This book is a page-turner. The information about climbing in high altitude is compelling, and the determination of these climbers to risk life and limb to climb to the top of the world causes me to examine my own goals.
When the expedition of Japanese climbers failed to help the Ladakhis because "over 8000 meters is not a place where you can afford morality" it turned my stomach. Yet numerous people were generous with their help for example the physicians, the Sherpas, the film crew donating their oxygen. This is what is fascinating about the book, good and evil in ordinary human beings.
Beck, or should I say Lazarus, is an extraordinary human being who should write a book! I am astounded that he is still alive. He has a will of iron. I hope he has been able to resume practicing medicine.
I plan to recommend this book to all of my friends and family, even the couch-potatoes, they will get some aerobic exersize from their racing heart
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Summary: Supplemental Oxygen Required
Review: I found myself holding my breath quite often while reading thisbook and the story/tragedy has stayed with me days after finishingthis book. An excellent, well written book! I find the piece of fiction I am reading now so trivial...
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