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Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival (Paperback)
by Joe Simpson
| Category:
Mountainerring, Outdoors, Nature, Adventure |
| Market price: ¥ 168.00
MSL price:
¥ 158.00
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
An awe-inspiring and uplifting story of the man's ability for survival against all the odds, this book vividly praises the robustness of human spirit. |
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Author: Joe Simpson
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks; Revised edition
Pub. in: January, 2004
ISBN: 0060730552
Pages: 224
Measurements: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00674
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0060730550
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Rate this product:
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- Awards & Credential -
An adventure classic, now in a major motion picture. |
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- MSL Picks -
A Riveting, captivating, and intense story of luck, survival, and clever thought keeping the reader glued too the book until it is finished. Here are my thoughts: 1. The climb to the summit is dangerous, but the descent to the bottom is more deadly. 2. The dream of reaching the summit invokes massive adrenalin surges and intense God-like visions of grandeur. Joe and Simon got caught up in the moment of glory at the top causing them to dream of more daring feats and adventures. The day-dream was potential distractive because it detoured them from realizing they need to start focusing and preparing for the descent down. 3. Joe and Simon were equally fit and Joe envied Simon climbing skill and pose in danger. Joe and Simon both experience near fatal slides through snowy powder, collision with falling rocks, floods of small avalanche snow slides, and intense fear relating to the possibility of step into the void and falling 4,500 onto the glacier below. 4. Joe and Simon narrative include discussion of how they control strong emotional fear perceptions by returning to rationale and objective thought. Thought and belief lead to action. Action practiced and understood through years of experience climbing mountains. However, action often leads to failure, but as long as the failure was not fatal, the climbers learned and kept moving. 5. Action required life and death decisions by Simon. Simon and Jeo reach the west side of the mountain which is a safer descent down and this gives them hope they will get off the mountain. Simon sits on a seat cut out in the snow and lowers Joe and Joe then builds the next seat as Simon climbs down to the next seat; they repeat the process rapidly until Joe falls over an ice cliff hundreds of feet above the glacier bottom. Simon can't hold the weight and Simon must cut the rope holding Joe suspending in a crevice. Simon thinks he has killed Joe. Simon had to act and if Simon didn't cut the rope, he believed he too would be pulled over the ice cliff.
Success through failure is the central theme of this book. Both Joe and Simon had to act and too not act meant freezing to death on the mountain. Acting meant possible falling through the snow into the void, but the failures were usually mitigated by the equipment and safety procedures preventing fatal failure. Miscalculation seems to have been the cause of the serious judgments in error: 1. Joe admits too the lack of study about the path for descent 2. Joe removes the safety line and then the accident occurs, an accident that leaves his leg useless, pain filled, and jeopardizes his chances of survival. 3. Joe and Simon miscalculate the amount of petro they needed for the descent down. They didn't carry tents and reduce weight, but they did carry extra oxygen for the climb to the top and both Jeo and Simon's focus was on reaching the summit and not on getting back to base camp. 4. Simon could have abandon Jeo after his accident. Jeo realized any attempt to save him could mean death for both of them. Simon failure of not abandoning Jeo turned into a success, as he managed to lower Jeo over 3,000 feet, 150 feet at a time. Jeo and Simon defied odds and turn the odds in their favor giving them increased confidence to survive.
Luck favored Jeo. Jeo managed to lowered himself on a snow crust at the bottom of the crevice and navigate himself to the surface into the sunlight. The element of luck seemed to favor Jeo. Jeo reflected on the death of two Japanese climbers, whose line failed them and they fell to their deaths, as they crashed and slide down the glacier 4,500 feet below. Jeo commented how they seemed to defy the odds of failure that did not spare the Japanese climbers.
(From quoting D. Nishimoto, USA)
Target readers:
People who love mountaineering, outdoors, backpacking, nature, adventure and exploring, or readers who enjoy reading these topics.
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Joe Simpson is the author of several bestselling books, of which the first, Touching the Void, won both the NCR Award and the Boardman Tasker Award. His later books are This Game of Ghosts, Storms of Silence, Dark Shadows Falling, The Beckoning Silence and a novel, The Water People.
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From Publisher
Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, had just reached the top of a 21,000-foot peak in the Andes when disaster struck. Simpson plunged off the vertical face of an ice ledge, breaking his leg. In the hours that followed, darkness fell and a blizzard raged as Yates tried to lower his friend to safety. Finally, Yates was forced to cut the rope, moments before he would have been pulled to his own death.
The next three days were an impossibly grueling ordeal for both men. Yates, certain that Simpson was dead, returned to base camp consumed with grief and guilt over abandoning him. Miraculously, Simpson had survived the fall, but crippled, starving, and severely frostbitten was trapped in a deep crevasse. Summoning vast reserves of physical and spiritual strength, Simpson crawled over the cliffs and canyons of the Andes, reaching base camp hours before Yates had planned to leave.
How both men overcame the torments of those harrowing days is an epic tale of fear, suffering, and survival, and a poignant testament to unshakable courage and friendship.
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| View all 9 comments |
New York Newsday (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-08 00:00>
Told with lyrical quality and stunning immediacy, Touching the Void transcends its genre and becomes accessible to readers who have never had any desire to climb a glacier. |
Los Angles Times (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-08 00:00>
Simpson touches a nerve of the mountaineering community and the hearts of others. |
Philip French (The Observer) (MSL quote), UK
<2007-02-08 00:00>
One of the great stories of survival eloquently described. |
D. Stuart (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-08 00:00>
This is a true story of a mountain expedition in the Andes where two British partners take risks acceptable to experienced and fit climbers. But here they draw a spectacularly bad hand - first with Joe having a terrible bone crunching accident that leaves him scarcely able to move, and then with rapidly deteriorating weather. Partner Simon attempts the impossible and begins an inventive, courageous one-man rescue operation, but half way down the mountain he is forced to make a ghastly choice: stay roped to Joe and both will perish, or cut the rope and make a desperate bid to reach the bottom.
Simon chooses the latter, and the result is horrifying: with Joe plunging into a deep crevasse with no way of climbing up the sheer ice.
But of course this memoir is written by Joe so we know that somehow, against all odds, our author will also get himself to safety. How he does so, and how he skirts around the very edges of death provides the book with its extremely powerful human resonance.
I read this after seeing the excellent movie, and Joe's reflections, at the end of this book about the experience of helping make the film and reliving the horror (he and Simon are played by actors in wide shot, but the climbers provided all the close-up technical shots)- provides additional and unexpected depth and humanity.
There's another reviewer below who was bored by this book. They must have been having a really bad day because Joe's writing takes you right into the heart of his ordeal. This is a stunning story. Five stars aren't enough.
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