Jon Krakauer: Into Thin Air: a personal account of the Mt. Everest Disaster.
At first, I was fascinated with this book. I knew nothing about mountaineering before reading it, and was horrified to learn about the various effects that climbing at high altitude can induce. Other than frostbite, I never realised that such endeavours could lead to the life-threatening conditions HACE and HAPE. The descriptions of both are gripping, though at times I had to stop reading and pull myself together before continuing.
The writing style is adequate but I became confused occasionally due to the number of climbers involved in the incident and the complexity of the events as they unfolded. Also, Krakauer dispenses with the chronological narrative at times, flitting back and forth between thought, action, and background and historical information. This did nothing to help the flow of the book.
As I have said, at first I ‘enjoyed’ this book. However, I became angry as things started to go very badly wrong. The loss of life seemed so pointless. I cannot go in to any detail here, as I may spoil the book for others. Also, I became annoyed with Krakauer’s descriptions of his personal anguish over the events. In the Epilogue of the book, Krakauer shares with us words of admonishment in the form of an extract of a letter from a relative of one of the dead. I have to say that I personally agree wholeheartedly with these sentiments.
In the Author’s Note, Krakauer expresses his regret at having upset some of the friends and relatives of some of the Everest victims by writing an account of the disaster in Outside magazine. He explains the reason for writing the article – and the book itself - by expressing his desire to give an honest account of what happened on the mountain. He also states that he believed the story needed to be told but does not fully explain why. I cannot help but think that the book is partly an exercise in catharsis, and that perhaps it would have been better to let the whole sorry affair remain untold.
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