...
Show More
On May 10, 1996, it seemed like the best day to reach the summit of the world's highest mountain, or so thought the members of the expeditions that had been preparing for weeks. However, a sudden storm isolated several mountaineers, resulting in twelve deaths.
This story has left a huge mark on me and has had me absorbed and almost obsessed with the topic.
Even without being a mountaineering enthusiast, anyone can come to feel, in an idealized and utopian way, the magnetism that thinking about reaching the top of Everest can imply. Rationally speaking, the main reason I wanted to read this account was another: what could drive a person aware of the risks involved in climbing Everest to accept pushing their body to the limit?
Krakauer, who belonged to one of the expeditions, was sent as a journalist to chronicle what it meant to reach the summit of the mountain, although the report turned out to be very different from what he expected... In this book, he attempts to explore in detail what could have gone wrong, systematically analyzing the steps that were taken to try to find the chain of possible bad decisions that, combined with the bad luck of the storm, ended in tragedy.
The book exudes the shock that that experience caused in the author, the agony and the guilt of having survived, the doubt of whether he could have done more to save his companions, in extremely harsh conditions where neither the body nor the mind can function as they should.
The horror of seeing the extremely difficult decisions that had to be made in those critical hours (such as leaving companions alive on the slope but writing them off as lost causes in order to save oneself) is something that still accompanies those who survived that day.
I have given it the highest score for the experience I had while reading the account, but I am very aware that Krakauer's point of view is personal and subjective. Many of the people mentioned died on that tragic day, and it is therefore impossible to clarify some of the controversies that have arisen over the years as a result of the author's point of view.
This story has left a huge mark on me and has had me absorbed and almost obsessed with the topic.
Even without being a mountaineering enthusiast, anyone can come to feel, in an idealized and utopian way, the magnetism that thinking about reaching the top of Everest can imply. Rationally speaking, the main reason I wanted to read this account was another: what could drive a person aware of the risks involved in climbing Everest to accept pushing their body to the limit?
Krakauer, who belonged to one of the expeditions, was sent as a journalist to chronicle what it meant to reach the summit of the mountain, although the report turned out to be very different from what he expected... In this book, he attempts to explore in detail what could have gone wrong, systematically analyzing the steps that were taken to try to find the chain of possible bad decisions that, combined with the bad luck of the storm, ended in tragedy.
The book exudes the shock that that experience caused in the author, the agony and the guilt of having survived, the doubt of whether he could have done more to save his companions, in extremely harsh conditions where neither the body nor the mind can function as they should.
The horror of seeing the extremely difficult decisions that had to be made in those critical hours (such as leaving companions alive on the slope but writing them off as lost causes in order to save oneself) is something that still accompanies those who survived that day.
I have given it the highest score for the experience I had while reading the account, but I am very aware that Krakauer's point of view is personal and subjective. Many of the people mentioned died on that tragic day, and it is therefore impossible to clarify some of the controversies that have arisen over the years as a result of the author's point of view.
