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Streamlining would have made for a better read. Readers must wait 200 pages to get to the meat of this tale, the author's 'night out' atop Everest when he was left for dead. I wanted to know more about the frostbite because of the cover photo, but we never really see what happened afterward. Seemingly every random thought and event that entered the writer's head before, during and after are recounted here, leaving the reader a bit antsy. Pages of 'hallucinations' weigh things down. No photo. Still, in the genre of deadly Everest literature, this one is worth wading through the dross to reach the shining nuggets.
The author does not stray into the broader issues - environmental, social, political, economic, cultural, etc. Everest. This book complements, rather than competes with or overlaps, other descriptions of ascents on Mt. - of the commercialization of Everest. There is occasional superfluous detail, but it's easy to skim through. This is a very personal account of Hall's 2006 expedition. Unlike many other Everest climbers-turned-authors, Hall does express awe and wonder regarding the natural beauty of Everest and its surroundings. From this standpoint, I consider Hall to be operating on a higher plane of awareness than those climbers for whom an Everest summit attempt is just an exercise in self-aggrandizement.
I'm an avid reader and find especially interesting the personal accounts of extreme survival situations. Whoa, I struggled with much of the book, because it was/is so poorly written. Yes he survived an event that most people would not have and thus obviously has a story to tell, but his editor should have reined him in and kept his rambling under control. Lincoln Hall's ordeal is no exception. Buy. I do however take exception to how poorly this book is written. I am in awe of strength of the human spirit and the will to survive. He rambles and there are paragraphs of boring minutia, that not only don't reveal any insight into who he is, nothing of any real interest regarding the "story" is added.
Now I know not all and actually most people that do have these experiences aren't authors and so some forgiveness is required. But this guy.hmmmm he professes to be a writer. I say don't waste your money and check it out from a library rather than buy it. Touching the Void by Joe Simpson, instead.
Lincoln Hall's climb on Everest was supposed to be in support of a young Australian's attempt to be the youngest ever climber to reach the summit. And he had thought scaling Everest was going to be the real challenge.In this account, Hall speaks in real terms of his battle with his mind and body to get through the night on Everest- something that no-one else had done. When he was forced back, Hall took the opportunity for one last go at reaching the summit himself. In a year where a dozen climbers died on the mountain, Lincoln Hall was also left for dead just below the peak of Everest as night fell. A revealing tale of the human body's ability to overcome adversity and to come back from the warm comforting reach of death, the strength of a family's love and the connection with the natural world. This book is truly an inspiration read.
Hall seemed almost detached from the story he was penning", and I sensed that from the get-go, and couldn't even force myself halfway through the book. Sadly, I've noticed that many western Buddhists I've come across seem to miss the forest for the trees. One review I read said, "Mr. And I'm afraid this guy is among them. Being a connoisseur of human folly, I'm a fascinated spectator of high altitude mountaineering stories. being attached to a highly impractical diversion, claiming to oneself that it will bring some kind of fulfillment of happiness, when in reality it seems to be the epitome of needless suffering.But using religion to one's own purposes & for appearances, or being a religious hypocrite, is not something self-proclaimed Buddhists have a monopoly on, of course. And as for the author's professed religion. It's like he fails to really see & connect to other people completely.The humanity you find in the books by Krakauer & Kodas seem to be completely missing in this book.
And some actually seem to use their religion to justify what appears to be the exact opposite of right action. And then, what's the point.It's very disappointing, because by his interviews, and the fact that Andrew Brash calls him "friend", I'd assumed he had some measure of humility & gratitude about the importance of other people to him. And on a mountain that, by it's very nature, seems to attract an inordinate proportion of sociopaths & narcissists, I'm not really surprised when I realize some mountaineer I'm reading about is self-centered, emotionally immature, and/or lacking the normal social connections & human motivations most of us have. They're all hung up on the trappings of rituals and a facade, that they seem oblivious to their attachment to the most ridiculous desires that even most non-Buddhist materialistic people don't attach themselves to. That reviewer also said, more or less, that she was disappointed that he failed to describe his fellow climbers in any way that would give you a sense of who they were & what it was like to be on a team with them. But I guess not. And it's very ironic really - because it seems to me that the aspiration & commitment to climbing Mount Everest is by its very nature, the ultimate of what Buddhism teaches to stop. Seems that every religion has its share.
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