One wonderful recent read isJon Krakauer's Eiger Dreams. It is a compilation of his late 80s and early 90s articles for magazines like Outside and National Geographic. It also features an early version of "The Devil's Thumb" essay from Into the Wild, where Krakauer compares his own youthful exuberance with Christopher McCandless ill-fated adventure.
Krakauer could write a book about dryer lint and I would read it. Actually, I implore Mr. Krakauer to write another book. About anything! Canned mushrooms packed in brine. The history of folding chairs. Electrician's tape. Anything! Krakauer is the literary version of Chuck Norris.
Behind Krakauer's beard is nothing, but another turn of phrase!
Krakauer does not write books. He renders them from the granite under his boots.
No one edits Krakauer's books. He presents them carved in the stones of Everest.
Seriously bossKrakauer possesses a lovely verbiage. "Sheldon's career coincided with the mushrooming popularity of mountaineering on McKinley," reads one sentence from "The Flyboys of Talkeetna." His choice of words does not originate from the obscure end of the thesaurus, but the forgotten verbs swept away by "to be" variations. I read Krakauer to challenge my own writing skills. Reading him, you can appreciates his knack for journalism and in conversation and research. A real common piece of writing advice is Mountaineering lends an entire list of dynamic and interesting words. I try to insert the word bivouac into everyday conversations, but find I have little opportunity to reference a temporary encampment. Caribiner, crampons, ice axes, glacial airstrip and then there are the locations names like Denali, Chamoix, or K2.
Krakauer does not answer why people climb mountains. But in The Devil's Thumb he mentions how mountain scapes have an almost pornographic feel. In staring at a picture of the eponymous mountain in Alaska, Krakauer says, "How would it feel, I wondered over and over, to be on that thumb nail-thin summit ridge, worrying over the storm clouds building on the horizon, hunched against the wind and dunning cold, contemplating the horrible drop on either side?"
I get the same feeling when looking at pictures of tiny islands. Veteran readers might remember my obsession with these bits of obscure geography. Krakauer's bit on mountaineering verbalizes the sames feelings I have on these spits of land. How would anyone survive if stuck there? How would you deal with the isolation? Would you pace the island from end to end, dominating your city block sized empire?
My favorite piece in the book is "On Being Tentbound," an essay where Krakauer narrates how to live in a phone booth sized fabric envelope for days. Or even weeks. The sense of isolation speaks well to the aforementioned dangerous wonder. Mountain climbers have attempted to recreate Monopoly sets from memory and studied the back of food packages. Since he wrote this in the late 80s, Krakauer just touches on the nascent handheld video games and Walkmans of the time. I would bring my PSP up Everest so I could play GTA: Liberty City Stories in the storm! Woo! Books are important, but you can only bring so many. I would bring all four of Krakauer's as they always offer something new.
Peace
Krakauer does not answer why people climb mountains. But in The Devil's Thumb he mentions how mountain scapes have an almost pornographic feel. In staring at a picture of the eponymous mountain in Alaska, Krakauer says, "How would it feel, I wondered over and over, to be on that thumb nail-thin summit ridge, worrying over the storm clouds building on the horizon, hunched against the wind and dunning cold, contemplating the horrible drop on either side?"
I get the same feeling when looking at pictures of tiny islands. Veteran readers might remember my obsession with these bits of obscure geography. Krakauer's bit on mountaineering verbalizes the sames feelings I have on these spits of land. How would anyone survive if stuck there? How would you deal with the isolation? Would you pace the island from end to end, dominating your city block sized empire?
My favorite piece in the book is "On Being Tentbound," an essay where Krakauer narrates how to live in a phone booth sized fabric envelope for days. Or even weeks. The sense of isolation speaks well to the aforementioned dangerous wonder. Mountain climbers have attempted to recreate Monopoly sets from memory and studied the back of food packages. Since he wrote this in the late 80s, Krakauer just touches on the nascent handheld video games and Walkmans of the time. I would bring my PSP up Everest so I could play GTA: Liberty City Stories in the storm! Woo! Books are important, but you can only bring so many. I would bring all four of Krakauer's as they always offer something new.
Peace
