National
Bestseller
A bank of
clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer
Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that
"suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong.
The storm, which claimed five lives and left countless more--including
Krakauer's--in guilt-ridden disarray, would also provide the impetus for Into
Thin Air, Krakauer's epic account of the May 1996 disaster.
By writing
Into Thin Air, Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons and
lay to rest some of the painful questions that still surround the event. He
takes great pains to provide a balanced picture of the people and events he
witnessed and gives due credit to the tireless and dedicated Sherpas. He also
avoids blasting easy targets such as Sandy Pittman, the wealthy socialite who
brought an espresso maker along on the expedition. Krakauer's highly personal
inquiry into the catastrophe provides a great deal of insight into what went
wrong. But for Krakauer himself, further interviews and investigations only
lead him to the conclusion that his perceived failures were directly
responsible for a fellow climber's death. Clearly, Krakauer remains haunted by
the disaster, and although he relates a number of incidents in which he acted
selflessly and even heroically, he seems unable to view those instances
objectively. In the end, despite his evenhanded and even generous assessment of
others' actions, he reserves a full measure of vitriol for himself.
This
updated trade paperback edition of Into Thin Air includes an extensive new
postscript that sheds fascinating light on the acrimonious debate that flared
between Krakauer and Everest guide Anatoli Boukreev in the wake of the tragedy. "I have no doubt that Boukreev's
intentions were good on summit day," writes Krakauer in the postscript,
dated August 1999. "What disturbs me, though, was Boukreev's refusal to
acknowledge the possibility that he made even a single poor decision. Never did
he indicate that perhaps it wasn't the best choice to climb without gas or go
down ahead of his clients." As usual, Krakauer supports his points with
dogged research and a good dose of humility. But rather than continue the
heated discourse that has raged since Into Thin Air's denouncement of guide
Boukreev, Krakauer's tone is conciliatory; he points most of his criticism at
G. Weston De Walt, who coauthored The Climb, Boukreev's version of events. And
in a touching conclusion, Krakauer recounts his last conversation with the late
Boukreev, in which the two weathered climbers agreed to disagree about certain
points. Krakauer had great hopes to patch things up with Boukreev, but the
Russian later died in an avalanche on another Himalayan peak, Annapurna I.
In 1999,
Krakauer received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of
Arts and Letters--a prestigious prize intended "to honor writers of
exceptional accomplishment."
According to the Academy's citation, "Krakauer combines the
tenacity and courage of the finest tradition of investigative journalism with
the stylish subtlety and profound insight of the born writer. His account of an ascent of Mount Everest has
led to a general reevaluation of climbing and of the commercialization of what
was once a romantic, solitary sport; while his account of the life and death of
Christopher McCandless, who died of starvation after challenging the Alaskan
wilderness, delves even more deeply and disturbingly into the fascination of
nature and the devastating effects of its lure on a young and curious
mind."
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