Jon Krakauer was on Mount Everest in May of 1996 when
disaster struck his team and many others on the mountain that year. This is his personal account of what happened
on the mountain that year along with the research and interviews that he did in
the time following the disaster.
Krakauer starts his story well before he gets on the
mountain. He gives you the background on
the mountain: the people who have climbed it in the past, or failed to, the
politics of who can climb and which side they could climb, a small background
on all the people on the mountain with him.
I liked having a context to put his story into. And it is easier to care about the people you
are reading about if you know something about them. Of course, in this case, that might not be a
good thing. You follow all these people
as they climb and face all of the perils along the way. There are some gut wrenching moments when you
feel the dread of the moment. When you
feel the pull of the circumstances that they feel powerless to change. In many ways it is a horrible story because
you know it does not end well but it pulls you in and gets you involved and you
can’t look away. There are a lot of
people on the mountain, all with different groups, and Krakauer can’t leave
anyone out but it took me a while to sort everyone out and remember who was
who. And even though he talked to the
other people after the fact you do get a feel that it is a one sided story, you
don’t get the point of view of the other people involved but you also never
feel that Krakauer is being untruthful or deceitful in any way to make himself
look better or excuse decisions that were made.
I have never had any desire to climb a mountain myself but I kind of
understand why someone would. They were
pitting themselves against nature, proving something, accomplishing
something. But after having heard this
story, told so well it sometimes made me sick to my stomach, I really don’t
have any idea why someone would put themselves in that position.
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