Krakouer's narrative, explanation and expiation are based on a very direct involvement in the events of May 1996. He was there. He was a player. He is a skilled climber and was capable of being bitten by summit madness and suffered the physical infirmities that come with exertion at altitudes too high for the human animal to think clearly even if it does survive.
I was interested in the sights, sounds and tastes of Nepal and in the description of a climb on the mountain god. Still, I was astounded by the lack of beauty in the great attempts to both reach the top and, perhaps harder, to come back alive.
These were not people who climb the mountain and revel in the views, the light and the emotional response to being at the top of the world. Instead we see driven men and women single-mindedly (often selfishly) pushing on to a goal without regard for others or for themselves and oblivious in determination and the severe physical demands of the trip to the exclusion of even registering the sights of the climb except in small bits. It is not to be enjoyed but endured, not to be learned from but to plod to the top, look around and hope to come down alive. In 1996 a large number of climbers, clients and Sherpas did not come back alive. The story is a raw, powerful, fascinating and, ultimately, sad one. We leave Krakouer still trying to figure out his role and his mistakes in the affair as more participant than observer for a magazine.
An extremely interesting thread and an evocative one that permeates more of Krakauer's book than I would have thought, is the history, culture and place of the Sherpas in Nepal, the region and on the mountain. This part is a taste only of their culture. It left me wanting more. But it still pleased me to read his respectful introduction to their lives. That would appear to be a new thread in the annals of the mountain's explorers. There was always gratitude to the Sherpas since (as my old World Book application put it):
Tenzing Norgay (1914-1986), a Sherpa guide from Nepal, became one of the first two people to reach the top of Mount Everest and return. On May 29, 1953, Tenzing and Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand reached the 29,035-foot (8,850-meter) top of the mountain. Their expedition had spent more than two months moving supplies and equipment up the mountain. The men spent 15 minutes at the summit. Tenzing had tried six times previously to reach the top of Everest.
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