January 18, 2022 by Amy

Blunt Book Review: Into Thin Air

I’m trying a new thing here: book reviews. Yeah, I know you can read all kinds of actual book reviews by actual book reviewers and critics in the New York Times and on Goodreads, but, get this: I’m not necessarily reviewing new books. No, no, friends. I’ll review whatever I happen to be reading, which could mean something newer or a work published decades ago. Could be fiction or non-fiction or short-story or science fiction. Whatever. It’s all fair game. I’m an eclectic reader and this is how I roll. 

For this first book review, I present Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer. The book was first published in 1997, the year I got married. I vaguely remember this (the hubbub about the book, that is, not the wedding…I remember all of that) but it didn’t really pop into consciousness until the last school where I worked, where it was required summer reading for seventh or eighth graders. Based on the discussion group I sat in once the school year began, these boys could not have cared less. I added it to the “to be read” list, where it quickly got buried under book club selections, recommendations by good friends, and books I discovered through author interviews. Then, a couple weeks ago, my writer friend insisted that I yank it back up to the top. And since I had just started slogging through Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace which is best consumed in small chunks because it’s 1,079 pages, I needed something else. 

Let’s dive in, shall we?

Premise: Krakauer is a paid journalist who joins the climbing expedition of Rob Hall, a noted Australian Alpinist who had proven an ability to get clients to the summit of Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.

Synopsis: What the absolute fuck. Are these people insane?

Jon Krakuer, in this critically-acclaimed national bestseller that has wound up on the required reading list of high schools across the country, tries and fails to explain why anyone of sound mind would risk life and limb to climb a big rock. The writing is clear, precise, and engaging, and does nothing to convince the reader that any of the people—himself, his guides, his fellow climbers—had any sort of sense to begin with.

“Hey, look, there’s a mountain higher than some airplanes fly.” 

“Cool! Let’s go climb it!”

There is snow and ice and rocks, all of which can come crashing down the mountain at any time to kill you, if you manage to not slip and fall off it first, which would also kill you. There is extreme cold and, because of the thin atmosphere, radiation poisoning from our friend, the sun, who looks down and says, “Wow, I don’t usually see stupid humans this close.” The air is so thin that most folks need supplemental oxygen* to reach the summit, which, according to Krakauer, is typically referred to as “the summit assault.” Honestly, any time you have to “assault” something in the name of fun or adventure, you should stop and think about it first. Huge red flag.

*Note: there are people even more dumb who insist that using supplemental oxygen to climb Everest is cheating. Cheating. As if climbing the damn thing without parachuting onto it isn’t an unbelievable physical feat.

If you don’t lose your life, you’ll at least lose muscle mass, subcutaneous fat, and brain cells (which you are clearly short of to begin with, to attempt this). You’ll lose the ability to think clearly and make rational decisions. You even lose the ability to notice when others are in harm’s way, something Krakauer notes several times and will have to live with the consequences of for the rest of his life. Although maybe the money he made off this book and the accompanying made-for-TV-movie helps assuage some of the guilt.

The premise of the entire book is, “I climbed this mountain with some people I just met and lo, many of the people died. But I made it so I’m going to tell the story.” Which, to me, serves best as a warning guide to anyone else foolish enough to consider this.

The guy got all the way to the top and was so fucked up from the lack of oxygen that, basically, he didn’t enjoy it. Tell me again what the point of that is? To come back down and say you did it? The only people you’re impressing are people just as stupid as you who also think this is a good idea. The rest of us sit on our couch with a glass of wine, watch movies, and live nice, comfortable lives that don’t involve scaring the shit out of our spouses or risk orphaning our children. Maybe we go snowshoeing, but that’s really just a day or two on the mountain split up by forays into local microbreweries, shopping, and playing Cards Against Humanity while drunk.

It’s a good read, though, as it reaffirms that I have made good, sound choices that respect the life I have been given while providing insight into the insanity of other people.

My rating: 1 Mountain. But it’s a big fucking mountain so that’s like five stars. Recommend.

#book review