The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest by Anatoli Boukreev, G. Weston DeWalt Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest
Book Review: A Nit-Picking, Profit-engineering diatribe
Summary: 1 Stars
This add-book by deWalt attempts to stir up more money by scraping the bottom of the barrel to bring up transcripts of altittude-addled interviews. Worse, the Salon sword-crossing with Jon Krakauer is so phony that deWalt appears mostly to be clutching at straws to defend a man whose biggest mistake wasnt that he did not fulfil his guiding duties - but rather the inability to admit a mistake. And the Salon excerpts do go on interminably.Boukreev is a flawed hero but a hero nonetheless.
Krakauer's own compelling version of the events bear testimony to this. And as for the sniping by deWalt, has he donated even a dollar of his profits to various mountaineering causes or organisations?
The very silence on this issue begs the question whether or not such a book should ever have come out.
I suggest all armchair climber thinking of buying this spend their money on World Mountaineering by Audrey Salkeld instead
Book Review: A Must if you have read Into Thin Air by Krakauer
Summary: 4 Stars
After reading Into Thin Air, I was hooked and began trying to read as much as I could about this fateful season. I was particularly interested in Boukreev's The Climb because Krakauer is so critical of Boukreev. The book did not disappoint. While it of course is written to justify his role in the disaster, it did shed more light on the events and appeared to be an honest and heart-felt account. I thought it too was a page turner and well worth reading.
For other books that I found gripping and well worth reading, see my other reviews or my listmania list. I am an avid reader of true adventure and/or survival stories.
Book Review: A WARNING CALL
Summary: 4 Stars
Read it. It has its flaws, but it gets you behind the glitz and hype, and it takes you to the core of the needless tragedy of Everest. There is a warning offered in this tale: If you are going on a high-risk expedition, ask if any journalists are on the roster. If there are, stay home! Better yet, sign on with an expedition that has its priorities straight. This book is spoken in a true voice. I regret that its author is no longer with us. Mountains NOT media!Book Review: A botched opportunity
Summary: 2 Stars
This could have been, and should have been, an amazing book. Boukreev was one of the world's best high-altitude climbers. As "The Climb" repeats over and over again, he was also the main hero of the 1996 Everest tragedy. But Boukreev made a really bad choice when he teamed up with G. DeWalt to tell his story. Part of the problem is that DeWalt is simply an awful writer, prone to rely on clichés and overstatement. The book is too often a chore to plod through, due to DeWalt's amateurish prose and smug tone of voice. But a greater problem is that DeWalt baldly manipulates facts in an attempt to make Boukreev appear to totally beyond fault, and to make it look like Krakauer wrote "Into Thin Air" to intentinally slander Boukreev. Boukreev acted courageously, but he also made some poor decisions, and it was a mistake for DeWalt to try to claim otherwise. DeWalt's insistence that Boukreev was a perfect saint, and a victim of a smear campaign by Krakauer, made me question his credibility in a major way. The thing that convinced me that DeWalt is not trustworthy was reading the latest paperback edition of "Into Thin Air" (I'd read the hardback when it first came out in 1997). The new edition of Krakauer's book has a fresh postscript that provides an extremely convincing rebuttal to "The Climb." There is no question that DeWalt twisted key facts to make his points, and to drum up controversy. I got the distinct feeling that by invoking Krakauer's name at every opportunity (Krakauer's name even appears on the cover of "The Climb"!), DeWalt and his publsiher were shamelessly trying to cash-in on the success of "Into Thin Air." DeWalt's shady tactics no doubt garnered attention for "The Climb," but it revealed him to be a writer of questionable ethics, and tainted Boukreev by association.
It's worth nothing that the publisher of "The Climb" is St. Martin's Press, a company with a well-deserved reputation for publishing books of dubious credibility. For example, St. Martin's recently published a sensational biography of George W. Bush to much fan-fare, and then had to recall and destroy 70,000 copies after it was revealed that the author was a convicted murderer who fabricated what he wrote. "The Climb," in my view, should be read with this in mind.
There is some very interesting material in this book, nevertheless. For people like me who are fascinated by the moral dimensions of the Everest disaster, it is a must-read. But don't take it as the literal truth. And be sure to read the new edition of "Into Thin Air" as a companion volume. Bear in mind that aach book is simply one man's version of a very complex event. Both books no doubt get things wrong, and both books work to present their respective authors in the best possible light. But it is obvious that Krakauer is a much more careful, much more even-handed, much more believable journalist than DeWalt. The sad thing is, Boukreev didn't need someone like DeWalt to twist the truth for him. He didn't need this book to be so defensive. Boukreev, may he rest in peace, did nothing to be ashamed of. He saved lives. He had an astonishing story to tell. It is most unfortunate that he didn't choose a more capable writer to tell his story for him.
Book Review: A certain must read
Summary: 5 Stars
Hard to say whether "The Climb" is best read before or after Krakauer's "Into Thin Air." Both contain their valuable interpretations and descriptions of the events during and leading up to the tragedy on May, 1996.While Krakauer's book has an air of self-importance, "The Climb" rings more authentic. I found the reading more palatable and simply more interesting.
I'd recommend readin both, but certainly "The Climb" were I to choose one.
A great book.