Into Thin Air

Rating:
Summary: Surviving The Green Zone
Review: It's official there are now two climbers with confirmed agents John Krakuer and Sandy Hill Pittman. After reading this book and surviving the avalanche of Krakauer self-promotion I believe this book is less about 'journalism' and much more about bank accounts and lecture circuits. Good lord, not even climbing is safe anymore!! The book, by the way, is a good read anyway.

Rating:
Summary: Into Cold Cash
Review: First,this book is well-written and generally an interesting glimpse into the high risk game of mountaineering. However, I would have found it more authoritative and credible if the author had examined his own role in the events as clearly as he seems to have done with other participants. A few of the problems I have with Krakauer's approach include the following. The author is lightning quick to cast criticism on Ms. Pittman and others for creating media distractions and the consequent competitive atmosphere to reach the top. Unfortunately,he fails to mention that all present were well aware that Krakauer's presence ensured an Outside magazine cover and book deal which promised considerable more exposure than Pittman's satelite phone and web sites could ever muster. Why doesn't he recognize the fact that he is most guilty of commercializing Everest last spring. A trend that he is most critical of in this book. Is the author having his cake and eating it too? Perhaps most disturbing of all is the information which is now emerging from survivor Beck Weathers, a teammate of Mr. Krakauer's. Mr. Weathers spoke this week in his hometown of Dallas and filled in a few more blanks in the story. Beck relates that after waiting all day on the Balcony,due to failing eyesight,Krakauer was one of the first to reach him after summiting. Beck says that he asked Krakauer to help him down to camp and that he replied simply "Hey,I'm no guide" and then descended without him. Beck waited another 30 minutes ormore for the next climbers, Mike Groom and Yasuko Namba, to arrive who then helped him down to within a few hundred yards of camp when the storm broke over them, and initiated their night out in the open. This thirty minutes turned out to be critical. While Krakauer is quick to criticize Fischer's sherpa for short-ropping Pittman and thus slowing the entire summit effort,he totally ignores this incident and even claimed that Beck told him to go ahead without him. Also, because Groom had to short-rope Beck down to the south col this also held up Yasuko which resulted in her exposure and consequent death. If Krakauer, who consistently characterizes himself as a "very experienced" climber had met Becks' request would Beck and Ms. Namba both had made it back to camp prior to the storm?? But most disturbing of all Beck's reflections is that once he made it back to high camp, Mr. Krakauer nor Mr. Groom offered him anything to eat or drink for almost another 24 hours. The following morning after spending a night alone in a tent, Krakauer reportedly stuck his head in the tent to inform Beck that he was descending from the south col and bade him goodbye. Again no assistance was offered nor rendered. If Krakauer can be so critical of others na dtheir decisions why has he not examined his own role in the tragic outcome of these events? The book is a good one, but due to the fact that the author seems to have made some serious ommissions and distortions it may not stand the test of time to become what it could have been - a classic.

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Summary: Worth reading - business management classic
Review: Into Thin Air was to reading what a bad car wreck is to driving. I couldn't put the book down. Its been 12 hours since I finished it and I am still chilled. I was reminded of Evan S. Connell's observation in Son of the Morning Star, when he noted that Custer shared a trait with many people who appear to be in the grip of destiny. We tend to do what has been successful in the past, even though it is irrational. The story of the Everest climbing season in 1996, how people died and how they lived, would be gripping without the author's honesty and insight. What J.K. brings to the story - his realizations months later that many of the things he believed were in fact a misunderstanding or even the effects of semi-suffocation on his brain - is a brutal account of how people live and die motivated by needs that don't necessarily make any sense. People management, seduction of desire, competition, physical hardship, and the creepy feeling that I am probably just like all the human beings that survived the trip to the summit - I'd step over another person to get there, and feel their hand sliding across my bicep as I walked away from them - this is a truth no one likes to admit. J.K.'s story may not be 100% accurate but I suspect its very, very true.

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Summary: What a book!
Review: I saw Jon Krakauer last weekend in town (Bellingham, Washington) with a slide presentation and discussion for Into Thin Air. I hadn't read the book yet, but quickly became captured with his account of the experience. He said that he had written this novel to get it out of his head since it was obsessing his thoughts. He knew it was soon to write it, and acknowledged that because of this it is a raw reaction to the horrors he had just months prior experienced. At the presentation I purchased the book for my father, for fathers day, and had Jon sign it. I couldn't help myself from starting to read it a few days later, and finished it last night because I couldn't put it down to go to sleep. It was far too enthralling. I felt like I was there beside Jon, gasping for breath, anxiously turning each page. I was suppose to be reading my college text books all week, but I couldn't. I even tried to hide it from sight so I could get my homework done, but it didn't work. This book is a wonderfully written, honest, and exposed account of a tragedy due to altitude exposure, human error, greed, and an often disrespectful level of contempt for the vastness and power of the "Goddess of the sky". I highly recommend reading this book

Rating:
Summary: Best read at sea level...
Review: I tore through Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" in what was, for me, record pace. Ironically, my reading took place at an altitude of over 30,000 feet on United 805 from San Francisco to Chicago. When Krakauer mentions that the summit of Everest sits at a height approximately equivalent to the cruising altitude of a commercial airline, I looked out the window and down, and felt small. When Krakauer details the effects of the thin air at such a height, I noticed my breathing in the cabin becoming more labored. All told, he creates a vivid world for the reader to experience the May 10, 1996 and the events that lead up to it. I've spoken with a number of other readers of "Air," and all have agreed: it makes you never want to go to Everest, and want to hire a guide and book airfare to Kathmandu tomorrow.

Strangely enough, any negative feelings I have towards the book started to materialize after I had actually finished the story. I expected the Author's Note section at the back of the book to provide more detail as to what's happened since. Instead, Krakauer proceeds to acknowledge a massive list of contributors to the book, including his agent. As a subscriber to Outside Magazine, I then read Krakauer's interview with the magazine's editor-in-chief. It spends a good deal of time rationalizing the profit which he yielded as a direct result of the experience. Lastly, just today I logged on to Amazon.com and noticed that an audio cassette of "Into Thin Air" has been added to the offering. All in all, I suppose it was simply a little more than I wanted to know. When I initially finished reading "Into Thin Air" I immediately wished I could have a chance to share a quiet cup of coffee and some conversation with Jon Krakauer. If I ever have that chance, after all the talk of agents, profits, and movie deals, I know I'd be fairly comfortable with him picking up the tab.

Don't get me wrong, though, I'd still have that cup of coffee. Since releasing "Into Thin Air," Krakauer has been tarred and feathered both in conventional publications and on the Web. While the book provides a rich picture of Everest as a desolate and fearsome place, it also reveals more than a hint of Krakauer's conscience. While he does identify faulty judgement, he also points out that even good judgement can be worthless above 27,000 feet. And while he does point the finger at guides, at other expeditions, and at teammates, he also points it more often than not at himself.

In the final analysis, though, Krakauer has skillfully crafted a picture of a place I'll likely never be, an event I'll never come close to experiencing. Regardless of any profit motives, any fault finding, and the rights and wrongs of the situation, "Into Thin Air" expanded my horizons, and that made it worth reading

Rating:
Summary: Redefining the term "page-turner"
Review: Krakauer's exceptionally well-written account of the fulfillment of his lifelong dream of climbing Everest and the tragic circumstances that shrouded the expedition is the best book I have read in years. He is frank, descriptive and minces no words. He comes down hard (too hard?) on himself and the others on the mountain that day for their role in the deaths of his fellow climbers. What drives a man to climb the world's highest peak in spite of the physical, mental and emotional trauma it has wrought on those who have attempted it before him? Krakauer's account explores this issue and answers some of those questions in a way even those of us who have never climbed a mountain can understand. As I read, I felt as if I were with Krakauer and his fellows as they scaled some of the most difficult terrain on the planet, all the while enduring winds, snow and wind chill of 100 below zero. I highly recommend the book.

Rating:
Summary: Tremendous story!
Review: As a non-mountain climber, I have never had any interest in the sport, other than to note that its practitioners were mad. "Into Thin Air" has not changed my mind, but it has put a very human, and tragic, face on mountaineering. Note to Libertarians: Krakauer would like to see climbing with bottled gas on Everest restricted. Read this book to get your dander up. Seriously though, apparently both this book and the Outside magazine article that preceeded it were received with much anger by the friends and families of the late Everest guides Scott Fischer and Rob Hall, who died on Everest May 10-11, 1996 during a storm. As someone who had not heard of either man before May 1996, I don't think Krakauer has been as harsh on the two team leaders as has been alleged. Both Hall and Fischer come across as able, warm and highly competant guides who were nevertheless extremely competitive with each other and absolutely driven to summit Everest on May 10, 1996. In the end, this drive cost each man his life. I think the moral of the story is, don't ever entrust your life to someone whose judgment may depend on an abundance of bottled oxygen. Read this book. It's an incredible story

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Summary: 'Into Thin Air' whispers 'what would YOU have done?'
Review: How many of us have thought.. "If I go down this path, I'm doomed, but I've made my point clear to others and to rescind now would be a cowardice act"? In business, war and health, this is a common scenario that often leads to tragic results, and Everest Quest 1996 was no exception.

Krakouer takes us on the Everest journey from his perspective, but continues to question the acts of himself and others throughout the terrible ordeal - leaving the reader consumed with thoughts of, "what would I have done differently?". It is this constant self-evaluation that is the true appeal of "Into Thin Air". More than a classic adventure novel, here is acute adventure teamed with psycology... massively entertaining and educational, and most importantly, unique.

Bravo! Krakauer shows the world that Nature makes the rules, but people interpret the rules - and depending on how they see themselves and others - the interpretation can be tragically flawed.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating story, skilled storyteller make book a classic
Review: As he did in "Into the Wild," Jon Krakauer begins with a riveting story and uses his impressive skills as a researcher and writer - and observer - to turn "Into Thin Air" into a great read. Unlike most writers, Krakauer doesn't let his style and his words interfere with the story by trying to elicit this emotion or that emotion from the reader. This is difficult with a book like "Into Thin Air," mostly because the story of the Everest disaster is so well-known by now, and was told so wonderfully in Krakauer's article in Outside magazine. If you were moved by the article, or by the recent "Turning Point" broadcast about the events of last May 10, you'll want this book

Rating:
Summary: It will upset your stomach ... and heart.
Review: The mind-wrenching story of Sagarmatha '96 has sadly become a cottage industry in '97. And it is Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air that, no doubt, will become the fulcrum for discussion and second-guessers for decades to come. And for good reason. The work is a superb, powerful and hauntingly engaging book...not just for the alpine crowd, but mainstream America. Just as it was for those who went to the summit a year ago, it's impossible to turn back once you've started. The book joins a long list of epic mountaineering books such as K2, Anapurna, The Freedom of the Hills, The Conquest of Everest, Seven Summits, etc. as an adventure classic. Only Into Thin Air may be the best ever, not just because of the magnitude of the mountain or the disaster, but because of the reporting skills of his author, participant. Certainly, the other "classics" were captivating, but were penned by those whose primary function in life was something other than journalism. Krakauer, as he proved in Into the Wild, is the Rob Hall/Scott Fischer of Outback Journalism. Without question, it is a grand account, with details that will upset your stomach as well as your heart. However, it fails to properly address the many ironies that drip from this story. Krakauer was sent to Everest by Outside Magazine to report on the commercialization of the mountain, yet this tragedy, as stated, has become a cottage industry. There are web sites while Outside and Men's Journal still compete for the latest updates. A year ago Life Magazine shocked us with a decaying corpse and there are movies (IMAX and Cinemax?) currently in the works. And when does the 29-city book tour begin, Jon? But interestingly, the biggest irony of all is that the one person who was vilified as the biggest media hog, is the one now who has tastefully decided to remain quiet. I respect Sandy Pittman for her silence while the media machine throws six figures and starbeams at the other survivors. And although I greatly admire Krakauer for his journalistic skill, which is so apparent in this book, I also see him as a hypocrit. Why is he trying so hard to sell this story and at the same time trying so hard to sell us that he remains so haunted by it. He complains that a day doesn't go by when he isn't troubled by the events of a year ago...but frankly, a day doesn't go by when he isn't talking about it somewhere. Nobody forced him to write the book, nobody forced him to be on ABC's "Turning Point," nobody forced him to be the cover story for "Outside." Jon, I suspect that if you're having trouble forgetting Everest, it's because you're having trouble not selling the story. Don't get me wrong, I am GLAD you chose to share the story with us in all the ways you have. And, certainly, I don't begrudge the fact you are making a tidy sum for it...just don't complain about it, spare us the righteous re-cycled puppychow. If you are still troubled, simply do as Sandy Pittman: SHUT UP ALREADY. One or two final comments: Where were the Krakauer photos? Finally, Krakauer writes, "Traditionalists were offended that the world's highest summit was being sold to rich parvenus--some of who, if denied the services of guides, would probably have difficulty making it to the top of a peak as modest as Mount Rainier." Christ, Jon! Talk about hypocrisy. Pages earlier you talked about how it had become fashionable to "denigrate" Everest as a "slag heap." Wasn't it your point that one must respect the mountains, that at any one point they can kill you? Isn't ironic how Krakauer also denitgrates a mountain in his own backyard; The Mountain where one of his own mentors (Willi Unsoeld) died? And a mountain which was the site of this country's single-worst disaster? Jon, let me remind you it was "modest" Mount Rainier in 1981 where 11 persons died in a single accident. Check my math, but I believe that is three more than Sagarmatha in '96. And besides nobody turned it in to a cottage industry, either