Up A Mountain, and Down Some

Jon Krakauer is a writer I just came across, but I have devoured his short list of books. I do not tend to like specific books, instead focusing on specific writers, and its is a lot easier to pack away Krakauer than Sherman Alexie or Kurt Vonnegut.

I cried after reading Into the Wild. I do not plan on watching the recent movie about it because this is the first book ever where I don't want my imagery influenced by a directors, even if it's Sean Penn. Good books leave concrete images in your head. If they leave amorphous shapes that you need a movie to shape up then something was lost in translation. Don't take that as my stance against Hollywood or people making movies out of books. It just was a damn fine story to begin with, regardless of medium.

Looking back at lists of books I have read, I am amazed at how I have forgotten entire details from certain books. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, which I just read last year, is lost to me. I remember liking the book, but I guess not enough to really enjoy it. However, Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven will always stay with me. The mix of gumshoe reporting and honest analysis of America's homegrown religion, Mormonism, is signature of Krakauer's style. All his books are honest, no spin, which is why those involved in them sometimes get pissed at him. He deals in very personal subject. The death of a lone boy in the Alaskan wilderness. A warped faith fueled double murder in rural Utah. Or a disaster on Mount Everest. I have to sympathize for all those families because Krakauer has the wonderful ability to craft final moments to his readers. In Into Thin Air, the subject of this post, he relates the final moments of an experienced Everest guide, Rob Hall, as he is trapped at the top of the mountain in a freak storm. Krakauer presents the time through a series of radio snippets that Hall shared with a camp lower on the summit. They eventually patch him through to his wife back in New Zealand where his last words to her are: "I love you. Sleep well, my sweetheart. Please don't worry too much." Remember, Hall is at THE TOP OF THE WORLD IN A HURRICANE-FORCE SNOWSTORM! The preceding conversation with his wife was rather cheerful, with both dismissing the fact that the had no hope. His wife, also an experienced climber, was later quoted as saying anyone stuck up there might as well be on the moon.

Krakauer makes it feel like he is there in the radio tent exchanging the dispatches. However, he is actually at another camp, trying to save his own life after stumbling off the summit in the early throes of the storm. However, his journalistic integrity shines through and he creates a highly involved narrative of the events from his research.

Krakauer also writes, gut-wrenchingly, that while he lay in his tent, another climber stumbled in. Being in better shape, this climber tried to rouse Krakauer and tell him to come out and shine lights and bang pots around the camp. His hope was to create a makeshift beacon for those trying to escape the whiteout. Krakauer, fighting off exhaustion and frost bite decides to stay, later learning that only 350 yards away there were survivors trying to find there way back in. During his research back in the states, Krakauer discovers that once he did go out into the storm to search for survivors he thought he saw Andy Harris, another climber that perished on the mountain. For months, Krakauer's report was considered the official report of Harris' death. That Krakauer saw him, but in the whiteout and scramble for human lives, though he was OK for the momemnt. It was assumed Harris died of exposure and his body never recovered. Krakauer later discovers, during a routine interview, that he mistook another survivor for Harris. He later had to tell the authorities and Harris's family that he was wrong and that no one exactly knew what had happened to Harris. Some later reports believe he took a wrong step in the storm and fell of a ridge and the face of the mountain.

As readers, we all find this interesting, but we need to remember this all happened recently and in our lifetimes. These aren't stories of the Titanic or Mt. Vesuvius. These are people whose families could read this very blog and critique what I have to say. Writing from the comfort of safe haven, Krakauer, justifiably, presents, the climbers that day as archetypes we are familiar with. A posh Manhattan socialite that drags accessories and portable TVs up the mountain. A Japanese housewife trying to defy the gender roles in her country. Rival climbers trying to beat each other to the top. Of course, all these people are not that simple, but we need to create instant bonds with them, if not, then the book is lost. And because Krakauer wrote the book (He first wrote a magazine article about the piece) as a form of catharsis, the entire plot is framed as his way of handling the events. Being that the book is cathartic*, even Krakuer admits it is not his best, and it does feel a little weaker then his others, a little bit more jumbled at first before it all becomes clear. With the other books he had the distance of an investigative reporter with no investments in the stories he chronicled. Of course, it is still a great book, only diminished by the fact that Krakauer is trying to fight off personal demons at the same time. Others have critiqued his narrative saying he ignored certain stories (particularly about his own climbing slip-ups) and did not interview everyone involved. To many, including myself, he is the official voice of that tragedy, but everyone has a story and everyone wants to make sense of the event in their own way. His just happened to gain the most attention because he is an amazing journalist!

Peace!

*In the introduction to the book Krakauer says, "I agree that readers are often poorly served when an author writes as an act of catharsis, as I have done here." That is a sharp piece of writing advice. Most of the posts on this blog are cathartic, if not masturbatory, and you can judge the quality of them. Must be the whole writing for an audience of one:yourself. However, like Krakauer, I hope to pull something from all this.