Everest

The IMAX team, led by David Breashears and Ed Viesturs, is mentioned several times in both Krakauer's Into Thin Air and Boukreev's The Climb. They had many goals - make Araceli Segarra the first Spanish woman to summit Everest, bring GPS gear up the mountain for geologist Roger Bilham to get information on the formation and movement of the mountains, and film the ascent to give the world the first 360° view from the summit.

I know the team hadn't set out expecting the worst tragedy in Everest history to occur, so I wondered how they'd handle it in this documentary. Would the film be a product of their original intent? Or would they edit it somehow to involve the events on the mountain?

Everest was a pleasing and emotional combination of both. The film starts just as it intended - with introductions to the climbers who were part of the IMAX expedition, a trip to Kathmandu and coverage of the Sherpa's spiritual attention to the mountain,  and familiarizing the audience with the different aspects of the climb, from Base Camp to the treacherous Icefall. For someone who has only read about these things, they were amazing to see - even if just via film.

Araceli Segarra crossing a crevasse in the Icefall

Because the intent was to cover their own team's ascent up the mountain, not much is mentioned of the other teams on the climb in the beginning. The exception is a picture that is shown of Rob Hall and Ed Viesturs, old friends. Later, though, when the unfortunate events begin to unfold, the documentary changes directions. Though unnamed, you see several climbers making their way back slowly, stiffly, through the raging storm. You see Beck Weathers' - a climber in Rob Hall's expedition who was assumed dead - miraculous return to Camp, skin blackened with frostbite. The IMAX team had decided not to summit on the same day as the other teams and spent the night at a lower camp to await their bid. When they heard that Beck Weathers was in serious need of medical attention, the team climbed up to bring him down, saving his life. 

And you hear Rob Hall. Rob, who somehow survived the night of the storm on the Hilary Step had managed to radio down to the IMAX camp. There is a scene in the documentary where Viesturs pleads with Rob Hall to just keep moving. In the background you can hear Hall's croaking, frozen responses. Later, though it isn't shown, Viesturs finds Hall's body on his own summit bid and stops to pay tribute to his fallen friend. 

In the end, the IMAX team makes it. Araceli Segarra becomes the first Spanish woman to summit. Jamling Tenzing Norgay, son of the one of the first two men to climb Everest, summits with her and leaves behind a tribute to his father. The first 360° view of the mountain is captured. 

Is it silly to feel this emotionally attached to a mountain I'll never visit and people I don't know, nor will ever meet? I can't help it.

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Book Sleuth - High Exposure

Oh no. Here we go again. Into Thin Air led me to The Climb which has led me to this book, written by David Breashears, the leader of the IMAX Expedition that was on Everest in '96 during that fateful storm. I've got his movie queued up on my Netflix as well. If I thought The Climb was the end for me - I was wrong. Something about this story has a fierce grip on my heart - as all of the authors probably intended. 

From Amazon: 

Breashears has no lack of good material. We follow him through the stunning backdrops of Yosemite, Europe, Nepal, and Tibet, brushing up against triumphs and tragedies along the way. And while the nuts and bolts of his adventures are entertainment enough, his knack for building suspense and employing understated drama makes his autobiography read like a novel: "The morning was sunny and calm, and Rob looked as though he'd lain down on his side and fallen asleep. Around him the undisturbed snow sparkled in the sun. I stared at his bare left hand ... I wondered what a mountaineer with Rob's experience was doing without a glove."

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The Climb - Anatoli Boukreev

Rating: 5 stars

Despite the contrary opinions of most other reviewers, I exited Krakauer's Into Thin Air with a brave and stoic impression of Anatoli Boukreev. And it is true - the Anatoli Boukreev represented in Jon's novel is a less villian-y rendition of the Boukreev first represented in Krakauer's article for Outside, published shortly after the '96 Everest excursion. Still, the fear remained for Boukreev and many who knew him that Krakauer's telling of events ruined forever the reputation of an expert climber and hero.

The Climb is Anatoli Boukreev's - with the help of G. Weston DeWalt - version of the events surrounding the Everest tragedy. My first impression of the differences between both accounts was this: Krakauer is a hobby climber who writes extremely well; Boukreev is a professional, well established mountaineer. If Krakauer manages to give readers the emotional aspect of the mountain in '96, Boukreev gives the factual, the carefully considered, the professional view of everything that went wrong that summit day. And Krakauer kind of comes off like a petulant jerk.

Still - there's a pleading note to Boukreev's book that checks my desire to whole-heartedly believe one account over the other. It's as if Boukreev is begging us to see that he made no mistakes at all - that he alone may have had all the answers in avoiding what happened to the people on that mountain. Both books do seem to acknowledge, however, that a series of small mistakes and/or misunderstandings led to the loss of lives. Despite this, the fact remains that because Boukreev descended before the other climbers (as he is criticized for doing in Into Thin Air), he was definitely in a position to go later out into that storm and rescue three people, by himself.

It was very difficult for me to start this book just five months after completing Into Thin Air. Reading again the climbers hopes and expectations prior to reaching Everest, yet already fully knowing the outcome, knowing I was subjecting myself to those emotions again was hard. But I'm really glad I did. I'll never climb Everest but I can keep these people alive in my memory because of men like Krakauer and Boukreev who took the time to make this story known.

Further Reading: Letters from Krakauer, Boukreev & Lopsang

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Book Sleuth - The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving

Found via: The Sunday Rumpus Interview

From Amazon: 

Benjamin Benjamin has lost virtually everything—his wife, his family, his home, his livelihood. With few options, Ben enrolls in a night class called The Fundamentals of Caregiving, where he is instructed in the art of inserting catheters and avoiding liability, about professionalism, and on how to keep physical and emotional distance between client and provider.

But when Ben is assigned to tyrannical nineteen-year-old Trevor, who is in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, he soon discovers that the endless mnemonics and service plan checklists have done little to prepare him for the reality of caring for a fiercely stubborn, sexually frustrated adolescent with an ax to grind with the world at large.

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Moll Flanders - Daniel DeFoe

Rating: 3 stars

I struggle between not liking this book at all, and liking it a lot. There's much to say about DeFoe's structure, theme and characterization. And what it's lacking (any consequence whatsoever for Moll's many marriages, children and life of crime) helps to bring about DeFoe's main theme - the juxtaposition of Christian morality with ethics and the struggle to survive - which seems pretty heavy and scandalous for the time period.

I loved Robinson Crusoe and so had pretty high hopes for Moll Flanders. What Crusoe and Flanders have in common is their resourcefulness - their ability to make the best of the worst situations and come out not only alive, but better off than before. And even though Moll does this by manipulating many, many people and leaving scores of children behind - you can't help but pity her for the terrible situations that come of her many attempts of "meaning well," and kind of respect her for trying and succeeding in the end.

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8/75

Book Sleuth - Straight: A Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality

It's been an incredibly long time since I've done a Book Sleuth. But I found this one via Reading Rambo (a great blog, bt-dubs) and it sounds so amazing, I had to let you all know about it.

Says RR:

So. You might think from the title that this is one of those liberal books by one of those liberal people trying out some new liberal concept of 'Oh, people were TOTES GAY for most of history. This thing we have now with gentlemen and ladies? Way new. I mean, does it even make SENSE? Have you seen men's bathroom habits? Nast." BUT NO. It is in fact exactly what it says: it's a history of the concept of heterosexuality.

Because who had to name it? It was normal. Everyone did it (*cough*orsotheythought*cough*). We don't need names for those things. She makes the excellent point that we have names like 'prude' and 'slut' but there isn't a name for someone who's into sex "a normal amount." And it's not like we have a scale, so those are arbitrary titles society can cast onto people. Someone's a slut because they're called a slut.

But you should really visit her blog to read the rest of the review. Because it's really thoughtful and thought provoking.

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