My Rating - 9.5/10
The first page left me in an utter state of horror. The last page left me in tears.
I had been urged to take up this book by a very dear friend of mine, who was on his way to his Basic Mountaineering Course. He plans to scale the highest mountain of the planet some day. He wanted me to read it so that I get a glimpse into his life-to-be.
The first page chilled me to the marrows. I put down the book almost as soon as I had taken it up. I could not read through and imagine such horror for my dear friend!
This was way back in April. The movie 'Everest' was released this month, and I had to watch the movie even though I could not read the book. The movie left me craving for the book. It left so much unsaid. I opened the book after a gap of 5 long months, and this time I could not put it down. Maybe the movie had hardened me against the dread that the book had caused me the first time; or perhaps simply my mood had changed. This time I could not rest until I had finished the book.
Krakauer gives a first-hand account of the disaster that killed 12 climbers on the Everest in the season of 1996. Krakauer had himself joined a guided expedition under Adventure Consultants, a company belonging to Rob Hall, one of the Himalayan veterans of those times. Hall had been a seven summiteer (climbing all the tallest mountains in every continent), as well as having climbed six of the fourteen 8000-ers (mountains having heights above 8000m - all in the Himalayan range). He had already led three successful guided attempts to the Everest in the previous three years, thus gaining his company its well-deserved fame. Hall himself perished in the 1996 attempt, along with his other two guides, and two of his clients. The mighty Everest took the life of several other mountaineers from different other expeditions that same year. Krakauer was one of the lucky few from Hall's team who summitted the mountain that year and came back to tell the story.
The account published by Krakauer is a very candid yet intriguing account of the entire climb. After reading this book, I was actually disappointed in the movie produced after this book. The movie is too dramatized, focusing more on the relationships of the veterans who died (and who were saved), rather than the climb or the disaster itself.
When you read the story, however, Krakauer's fluent hand lets you live through the experiences of the climbers. It is as if you experience the events first-hand. The utter exhaustion of the climb, the decisions taken by the climbers (that sometimes seem immoral, but can only be justified or censured when one lives through such disasters), the friendship and camaraderie developed among the fellow climbers, the emotions (or lack thereof) of the mountaineers - it all becomes suddenly clear to the compassionate reader. The misfortunes that befall some of the protagonists in the book, left me with a cold sweat running down my spine. When a member of the expedition took the decision to leave behind another, barely alive, in order to save his own life, it seemed immoral. But somehow all these made me realize the real value of a life, you own life, that stands above everything else. The sacrifices made by some of those who lost their lives, tugged at my very heartstrings. Through it all, I spent a couple of sleepless nights - it seems only a minimal homage that I could pay to these mountaineers for whom sleep seemed like a distant dream.
A few chapters through, I had the feeling that I was reading a piece of fiction. The pace of the story set that quality to it. It has been put forth in such a way, that it seems like a story. I had to reconsider once in a while that this actually happened, that these were real people. A well-written book makes you cry when the characters you love are killed. I cannot explain to you the feeling of reading about these real people, these really awesome people, dying on a mountain slope, dying to fulfill their dreams. The lure of the tallest mountain on earth is too great for the adventurer soul. And at such great heights, where the oxygen concentration is as low as a third of that at sea level, the brain stops functioning. Millions of brain (and body) cells die off every minute. In Krakauer's words, even with supplementary oxygen,
"At 29,028 feet up in the troposphere, so little oxygen was reaching my brain that my mental capacity was that of a slow child."
I could not really blame anyone for the deaths. They all made mistakes, some grave enough to cost them their lives. Some turned their backs on their teammates to save their own lives. That seems so selfish from the comfort of our homes. However, decisions made when your lives are really at stake cannot and should not be judged by someone who has never faced such dilemmas in their lives.
Throughout the book, Krakauer presents various anecdotes that make the book more interesting. They range from the stories of his fellow climbers, to the stories of other successful and failed attempts on the mountain. The readers connect more to the characters in the book. They become more acquainted with the perils suffered in such a mighty adventure.
I am not a huge fan of non-fiction. Maybe I loved this book so much because of its style of presentation - it almost reads like a fiction. It is even possible that I connected more with the book because of the interest shared by some of my very close friends. I have heard so much about mountaineering and the perils it brings, I found the book closer to my heart. But considering the read it presented, and the way it was presented, I would recommend this book to every reader who yearns for a little adventure in her heart. This book is going to keep you awake and turning its pages till you finish it teary-eyed, wishing for them all to be alive.
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