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The Climb (Paperback)
by Anatoli Boukreev, G. Weston Dewalt
| Category:
Outdoors, Nature, Adventure, Everest |
| Market price: ¥ 168.00
MSL price:
¥ 158.00
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MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
A first-person account of the harrowing climbing experience in May 1996 on Mount Everest, a tragedy that resulted in the deaths of eight people. |
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Author: Anatoli Boukreev, G. Weston Dewalt
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Pub. in: July, 1999
ISBN: 0312206372
Pages: 416
Measurements: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00675
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0312206376
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- Awards & Credential -
National Bestseller in America including The New York Times Bestseller. |
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- MSL Picks -
The Climb's was written to tell Anatoli Boukreev's side of the tragic story that took place on Mt. Everest in 1996. Boukreev's claim is that, faced with harrowing blizzard, wind, and freezing conditions, he by himself saved his clients' lives. This was an act for which he received a mountaineering award. While no one denies his heroism, some people accuse him of exacerbating the suffering and loss of lives because of the fact that he was negligent in performing his duties before the blizzard hit. The Climb's main accuser is without question Jon Krakauer, who wrote the immensely popular book Into Thin Air.
The Climb, written as part rebuttal to Into Thin Air and part biography of Anatoli, justifies Antoli's reasons on summit day for not using oxygen and his reasoning for making an early and quick descent to Camp IV ahead of his clients before tragedy struck. One on hand, the fact that Anatoli had already descended to camp enabled him to muster the capacity needed later to save the climber-clients, and therefore he feels his actions vindicate him of any blame. On the other hand there is Krakauer's major point of contention, which is that since Anantoli had not used oxygen and that he in fact had descended to safety before everyone else he put the climbers' lives in jeopardy. Krakauer takes issue by raising the question: if Anatoli had stayed behind to help more before the blizzard struck, and if he had used oxygen, then might have the descending climbers faired better with him there and perhaps might have those who perished, even survived? While nobody can answer this, Krakauer remains torn and devastated, finding fault in Boukreev.
Although this review is not about Jon Krakauer's book, it's impossible to ignore it considering the accusations it makes against Anatoli Boukreev and the fact that The Climb itself devotes a lot of words discrediting Krakauer's opinions and accusations that were judgmental of Anatoli. Having read the two books, Into Thin Air overwhelmingly excels as the more gripping story about the tragedy. Compared to The Climb, it gives more information about the basics and rigors required of high-altitude mountain climbing. Into Thin Air makes you relive the human drama as if you were there, freezing in the cold with no air to breath on that eventful day; Krakauer reaches out to you for healing. Into Thin Air also gets so much more involved with the individuals and their personalities and it mentions behind-the-scenes politics and expedition rivalry too. And most interesting too, is when reading Into Thin Air you can hear the hissing and feel the claws dig deep, as Krakauer assails numerous individuals and organizations during his trip up and down the mountain. Simply put: it is an absolutely fantastic read from all angles. (See my review of Into Thin Air elsewhere.)
The Climb, in addressing the same tragedy, pales in comparison to the power-packed Krakauer book. While Into Thin Air's journalistic nature and Krakauer's bravado take you on an incredible journey to the highest summit and back, The Climb seems sterile, resembling an academic essay. In addition, I found the book to be antiseptic in its treatment of the many people who had their fingers in the pie of tragedy. In trying to please everybody, the book seemed overly cautious so as not to step on anyone's toes. For the sake of salvaging Anatoli's damaged reputation this probably was a wise call; however, it consequently made the book bland, as it is totally bare of the fortitude, guts, and gumption found in Krakauer's book. The Climb adopted a very different approach, but in doing so it gives readers a single scoop of plain vanilla while Krakauer's book delivers a triple-decker cone bursting with tutti frutti, raspberry swirl, and rocky road. After the publication of Into Thin Air, Anatoli had a ton of work cut out for himself to set the record straight about his character and actions. Against this backdrop of bickering with the Krakauer faction, The Climb was written but with a tone that definitely has a defensive quality about it.
If you are interested in this mountain climbing tragedy and want to learn more about the story and some of the finger pointing then I highly recommend you read this book in addition to several others, as a means of fitting the pieces of the puzzle together. However, if you want to read a totally gripping and captivating story about the tragedy, and at the same time learn about the rigors involved with climbing Everest and the politics involved too, then I suggest you skip this book and get your hands on a copy of Into Thin Air, which is an absolute brilliant piece-a must read. However, there is one caveat if you read it: keep an open mind.
This newest edition of the bestselling account of the 1996 Everest disaster now includes never before published transcripts of the climbers' debriefing from the Everest base camp. This new material is a must for all followers of the Everest story and includes the climbers first reactions to events.
(From quoting Ronold Pompeo, Japan and Publisher)
Target readers:
People who love outdoors, nature, mountaineering, adventure, exploring, and living the meaning of existence, or readers who enjoy reading these topics.
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Anatoli Boukreev was one of the world's foremost high-altitude mountaineers. Twenty-one times he went to the summit of the world's highest mountains. For his heroic actions on Mount Everest in May 1996, he was awarded the American Alpine Club's highest honor, the David A. Sowles Memorial Award. He died in an avalanche while climbing in Nepal on December 25,1997.
G. Weston Dewalt is a writer and a documentary filmmaker whose work has been aired on PBS. He divides his time between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and London.
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From Publisher
In May 1996 three expeditions attempted to climb Mount Everest on the Southeast Ridge route pioneered by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953. Crowded conditions slowed their progress. Late in the day twenty-three men and women-including expedition leaders Scott Fischer and Rob Hall-were caught in a ferocious blizzard. Disoriented and out of oxygen, climbers struggled to find their way down the mountain as darkness approached. Alone and climbing blind, Anatoli Boukreev brought climbers back from the edge of certain death. This new edition includes a transcript of the Mountain Madness expedition debriefing recorded five days after the tragedy, as well as G. Weston DeWalt's response to Into Thin Air author Jon Krakauer.
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Michael Parfit (The New York Times Book Review) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-08 00:00>
The Climb... is a breath of brisk, sometimes bitter clarity... It reads like an investigator's report, using uneven devices... The result is raw but powerful. |
Chicago Tribune (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-08 00:00>
Boukreev heroically rescued several climbers from certain death... [The Climb] gives an excellent account of the May 1996 disaster.
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Kirkus Reviews (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-08 00:00>
Mountain guide Boukreev tells his version of the events of the May 1996 Mt. Everest disaster, in which five climbers died, in an effort to clear his name of damning allegations made in Jon Krakauer's bestselling Into Thin Air. Boukreev is well known in climbing circles as a good, tough, experienced guide, not especially personable or given to pampering the clients, but utterly reliable, especially in tight situations. So it came as a shock when Krakauer called into question Boukreev's behavior on that fateful day: Why had the guide raced down the mountain before his clients? Was it because he was improperly dressed and climbing without supplemental oxygen? Was it true he "cut and ran" when needed most, as charged by a Boukreev client whom Krakauer quotes? Boukreev provides a detailed history of his team's expedition (the book is told as an alternating duet, with Boukreev doing the play-by-play and investigative filmmaker DeWalt handling long swaths of color commentary), of the things that went right on the climb and the many that went wrong, as well as a minute examination of his climbing philosophy. And he successfully parries Krakauer's accusations: He was appropriately dressed and has photos to prove it; he climbs without supplemental oxygen because he feels it makes him stronger, not weaker, especially in situations where oxygen runs out; and, indeed, oxygen was fast running out for his clients, which is why he hurried down, with the consent of his team's leader, to be prepared to ferry tanks back up if needed. Not that the book is without its own glitches, such as inconsistency ("You can receive a lot more information observing the clients' external appearance" and "Appearances meant nothing'"). Such a pall of anger and defensiveness hangs over Boukreev's account that only those with a personal interest in his reputation will find much solace in his story. |
L. Carol (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-08 00:00>
Following Jon Krakauer's gripping first-hand account in Into Thin Air, and his pointed accusatory remarks surrounding Anatoli Boukreev's role in the rescue event, I had to read Anatoli's The Climb back to back in a bid to suss out what actually happened in the 1996 Mt. Everest tragedy.
Anatoli's book did not disappoint. It is true that readers may not experience the same sense of urgency and readability in Anatoli's book vis-à-vis Jon's account, as Jon was indeed a very good story-teller (although his over-generous use of quotable quotes/excerpts were irksome). The Russian mountaineer's book, even with all the flaws of it being penned by a third party who never climbed the slopes of Everest, not least in a prose that lacked the same page-turning qualities as Jon's book, it was more than made up for by the refreshing rawness of Anatoli's candor. Reading about the event from Anatoli's perspective made you feel that you were amongst the party of the Mountain Madness team, unlike Jon's version where readers remained outsiders or mere voyeurs. Reading about Anatoli's recollection made Jon's words appeared fraught with sensationism and naiveté. While Jon oftentimes tried to justify his actions or views in what later proved to be clouded or colored (either by his lack of high altitude experience or his complex against paid clients of higher social/financial standing or a mixture of both), Anatoli cut to the chase and enriched readers in many facets: inevitability of why high-altitude mountaineers are driven into leading commercial expedition to finance their life-long passion of summiting higher and more dangerous peaks; what constitutes successful acclimatization and the use/safety of supplemental oxygen; his heroic act of selflessness when he saved three lives in his team under what was no less than near-hell circumstances.
Anatoli's book is also a formidable rebuttal to Jon's comments in Into Thin Air which might have been biased and unfeeling at best and slanderous at worst. To any dedicated high-altitude climber, reputation is of paramount importance - and having read Jon's highly addictive best-seller, I totally understand why Anatoli had to put his story in print to debunk some of the myths/errors present in Jon's account. At the end of Anatoli's book, our views of what had happened on May 10th, 1996 would be less one-sided and our unfavorable views on Anatoli take an abrupt about-turn. This is an important process for readers seeking a more well-rounded view of what really happened on that fateful day. After all, one undisputed fact remains: no paid clients on the 1996 Mountain Madness' team perished, and mostly, if not entirely, to Anatoli's credit. |
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