Into Thin Air

Starred review from April 21, 1997
What set out to be a magazine article on top-of-the-line tours that promise safe ascents of Mt. Everest to amateur climbers has become a gripping story of a 1996 expedition gone awry and of the ensuing disaster that killed two top guides, a sherpa and several clients. "Climbing Everest was primarily about enduring pain," writes Krakauer (Into the Wild). "And in subjecting ourselves to week after week of toil, tedium and suffering... most of us were probably seeking, above all else, something like a state of grace." High-altitude climbers are an eccentric breed--Olympian idealists, dreamers, consummate sportsmen, egomaniacs and thrill-seekers. Excerpts from the writings of several of the best-known of them, including Sir Edmund Hillary, kick off Krakauer's intense reports on each leg of the ill-fated expedition. His own descriptions of the splendid landscape are exhilarating. Survival on Mt. Everest in the "Dead Zone" above 25,000 feet demands incredible self-reliance, responsible guides, supplemental oxygen and ideal weather conditions. The margin of error is nil and marketplace priorities can lead to disaster; and so Krakauer criticizes the commercialization of mountaineering. But while his reports of guides' bad judgments are disturbing, they evoke in him and in the reader more compassion than wrath, for, in the Dead Zone, experts lose their wits nearly as easily as novices. The intensity of the tragedy is haunting, and Krakauer's graphic writing drives it home: one survivor's face "was hideously swollen; splotches of deep, ink-black frostbite covered his nose and cheeks." On the sacred mountain Sagarmatha, the Nepalese name for Everest, the frozen corpses of fallen climbers spot the windswept routes; they will never be buried, but in this superb adventure tale they have found a fitting monument. Author tour.

January 1, 1997
Krakauer, a rising authority on all things wild (e.g., Into the Wild, LJ 11/15/95), here tells of a harrowing climb on Mount Everest, during which eight people died.

December 1, 1997
Heroism and sacrifice triumph over foolishness, fatal error, and human frailty in this bone-chilling narrative in which the author recounts his experiences on last year's ill-fated, deadly climb. Thrilling armchair reading. (Nov.)

Starred review from April 1, 1997
A handful of people have stood atop Everest, and Krakauer is one of them. Sent to Nepal in May_ 1996 after his success with "Into the Wild" (1995), he was to report on the commercialization of ascents of the mountain but was instead compelled to tell an icy story of survival and death. As an inquiry into the outer limits of human strength and into the inner turmoil of survivor's guilt, Krakauer's narrative leaves a reader virtually breathless, sweating as he sweats, gasping as he gasps, crying as he cries over dying friends. The disaster made worldwide headlines last year, and its immediate cause was natural--a freak blizzard caught dozens of people near the summit. But the enabling condition was the mere presence at Everest of amateurs, some with minimal mountaineering skill. Guides, Sherpas, and $65,000 was all one needed to make the attempt. At the summit, the pressures of the guide-client relationship were immense, even overwhelming the imperative to flee the storm that overwhelmed the victims. Krakauer's eyewitness to the unfolding tragedy makes a transfixing drama of hubris, responsibility, and sacrificial heroism, which will mark the memory of all who read it. ((Reviewed April 1, 1997)) (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1997, American Library Association.)

November 1, 1997
YA-Krakauer's story is one of foolishness and fatal error, heroism and sacrifice, triumph over adversity and human frailty. What started out as an assignment for Outside magazine on "commercial" expeditions to Mt. Everest suddenly turned into a bone-chilling tale of man against nature when a hurricane-strength blizzard battered the slopes, trapping four expeditions on the mountain. The high-altitude conditions, which can be deadly in the best of times, when combined with the intensity of the blizzard resulted in nine deaths, five from New Zealander Rob Hall's expedition of which Krakauer was a member. The author intertwines his spellbinding account with the history of those who previously tackled Mt. Everest's formidable 29,028 feet. This tense, harrowing story is as mesmerizing and hard to put down as any well-written adventure novel. An excellent addition for school and public libraries, especially those needing adventure/survival or journalism materials.-John Lawson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

Starred review from April 1, 1997
On May 19, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay achieved the impossible, becoming the first men to stand on top of Mount Everest. But by May 10, 1996, climbing the 29,000-foot "goddess of the sky" had become almost routine; commercial expeditions now littered Everest's flanks. Accepting an assignment from Outside magazine to investigate whether it was safe for wealthy amateur climbers to tackle the mountain, Krakauer (Into the Wild, LJ 11/15/95) joined an expedition guided by New Zealander Rob Hall. But Krakauer got more than he bargained for when on summit day a blinding snowstorm caught four groups on the mountain's peaks. While Krakauer made it back to camp, eight others died, including Scott Fischer and Hall, two of the world's best mountaineers. Devastated by the disaster, Krakauer has written this compelling and harrowing account (expanded from his Outside article) as a cathartic act, hoping it "might purge Everest from [his] life." But after finishing this raw, emotionally intense book, readers will be haunted, as Krakauer was, by the tragedy. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/97; two other survivors, Sandy Hill Pittman and guide Anatoli Boukreev, are publishing their own accounts.--Ed.]--Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"

Copyright 1997 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.