Into Thin Air

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was lucky enough to read the illustrated edition from my mom's library, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to read this book, whether for the first or subsequent time.

It was crammed full of photos--each person mentioned in Krakauer's narrative was featured in at least one photo, giving a valuable face to the name in the text. Nearly every page had a stunning photo of Everest or the mountains around it, many taken by Krakauer himself. Also included were historical photos of early Everest climbers and diagrams of different routes up the mountain.

While Krakauer's writing is, as always, detailed, vivid and precise, it helped enormously to be able to see the photos of the people and places he was writing about. One difficulty I had getting through the book was just the huge number of people involved in the events Krakauer documents. There were so many, it was hard to keep track of who was who. The photos helped, obviously. And they also gave me an increased sense of the reality of the story he tells--there they are in the photos, those people who were on the mountain with him.

As for the narrative, I can see why this book made Krakauer famous. I won't say too much about it, other than I'm very glad I read it finally. It was incredibly thought-provoking and raised many important questions about mountaineering. Who should be up on Everest? Should climbing Everest be more regulated? Should climbers use bottled oxygen routinely? How should professional guides and clients behave toward each other? How should competing guiding companies act toward each other?

Krakauer is a journalist of the highest caliber and I respect his willingness to write on controversial subjects and put himself on the line with what he writes. Apparently he faced massive criticism from his fellow climbers after this book came out, and the illustrated edition I read had afterwords and epilogues added to the end to address some of these concerns.

It was interesting, and sad, to read about all the personal squabbling. Ultimately, many lives were lost on the mountain, and no one person was to blame. It makes me admire Krakauer all the more for doing what he does and standing up for his words.

To make a living as a writer is to invite never-ending criticism. I'm not sure I could do it.

View all my reviews >>

Under the Banner of Heaven

Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

What an amazing piece of journalism. Krakauer’s writing is sensationalistic no matter how much he protests to the contrary--but the result is an immensely riveting interwoven narrative:

Mormon history, fundamentalism, murder, polygamy, inbreeding, religious revelation, and the American West. How much better does it get! All the good elements for a fantastically juicy story.

Andy and I started this book on our road trip through Utah in spring last year. It was a fantastic setting for reading about the bizarre underworld of Mormon fundamentalism. We had to stop in Salt Lake City on our way back from Moab. We were properly in awe at the temple visitors center filled with squeaky young white families, minimum four kids, looking at the wax-figure Mormon history displays, and the smiling dark-haired international converts with tour-guide badges.

It wouldn’t do to get Mormonism and fundamentalist Mormonism mixed up in talking about this book--Krakauer focuses his story on the latter. But one sort of springs from the other, doesn’t it? I mean, fundamentalist Christianity wouldn’t exist if Christianity didn’t exist. Or maybe it would.

Krakauer implies that some people are going to be extremist about something, and there’s not much we can do about it. If we can encourage them to be extremist about being concert pianists rather than religious fanatics, so much the better.

But it was so intriguing to learn that one of the basic tenets of Mormonism, as I understand, is that religious revelation is open to pretty much anybody at any time. So, it just opens the way for everyone to hear God telling them what to do--which in some cases might not be such a good thing.

I just love the way the fundamentalist Mormon guys in this book always hear God telling them to do things that are in their own interest to do. I mean, it’s remarkable that God would have the same interests, almost invariably.

For example, God usually insists that they have sex with lots of virgins, the younger the better. The reluctant ones are convinced to submit by the threats of hell and damnation they’ll suffer if they don’t.

I can’t help but notice that this bears a striking resemblance to the story of David Koresh of the Branch Davidians who also was apparently ordered (or asked nicely) by God to rape large numbers of pre-pubescent girls--I mean, like 10-year-olds. OK.

God, this is great. Anyway, I’m getting a little carried away, but this is an absolutely incredible book that will keep you up at night wondering how on earth all this can be still going on! It’s no huge secret--whole towns that are polygamous, etc.--though I didn’t know anything about it until I read this book.

I have tremendous respect for Krakauer, especially in the way he talked to so many people on all sides of the fundamentalism issue and in lots of different communities. The research is awe-inspiring. Read it if you’re at all curious about the history and evolution of Mormonism and the persistence of fundamentalism in America.

View all my reviews >>