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Title: Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow : The Dark Side of Extreme Adventure by Maria Coffey ISBN: 0-312-29065-9 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 11 November, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.89 (9 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Darwin rules
Comment: I loved this book, but probably not for the reasons of most other readers. It reminded me of the Darwin Rules website and books celebrating the ways in which people find to remove themselves from the gene pool.
Surely this applies to mountaineers! This is my conclusion after reading Maria Coffey's engaging book. She relates harrowing tale after harrowing tale in which these absurd risk takers try again and again to kill themselves. Eventually they all seem to succeded.
It becomes hilarious after about the fourth chapter.
Coffey does not try to make us feel sorry for those left behind. This is a wise ploy as it would only soften the impact of what she has to say, which is that these people cannot be helped, but perhaps understood.
Rating: 5
Summary: Asks all the right questions
Comment: A terrific successor to Fragile Edge by the same author. That book was a personal journey - a quest for answers - followed by the author after the death of her famous mountain climber boyfriend on the slopes of Everest.
This book looks at the effect of following this most dangerous of passions on the partners left behind and some who sometimes accompany their loved ones. Even more interestingly, Maria Coffey looks at the point of views of those who have no choice in their relationships with those whose addiction seems as self-serving and as inevitable as any other addiction - parents and children.
I really liked Coffey's earlier book, and I recommend this one as much. I believe she has matured as a writer as well. She has the knack of addressing very large picture issues yet not losing sight of the personal and 'small moments'.
Some of the personal testimonies about coming to terms with loss and dealing with grief are true not only for losses under such circumstances, but there are some universal truths particularly for anyone who has had to deal with death and the "loss of a future", rather than a mere celebration of a life fulfilled (as many older person funerals have become in my culture in recent years).
An understated but important subtext for me is what this has to say about gender relations. It is no accident that most of those off risking their lives, and the fur=tures of those around them are male. Ms Coffey does touch on this, and especially the unusual circumstance of women with children who still pursue the apex of whatever mass of rock and ice they have their heart set on. However, she never table thumps an agenda . . . you are lft to ponder your own conclusions.
A remarkable achievement.That Ms Coffey has the confidence of so many associated with the pursuit is a testament to her insight and empathy.
I rate this alongside Ed Douglas's book "Chomolungma Sings The Blues" as my favourite books discussing ethical and spititual concerns about mountaineering.
Rating: 5
Summary: powerful thoughts on unanswerable questions
Comment: Losing a friend or loved one is never an easy process, but it becomes even more tangled when they leave for a mountain adventure and never return. I first experienced this in the early 70's when 3 close friends were killed while attempting Mt. Elias in Canada. Maria Coffey examines how climbers and their families and friends cope with the devastating losses that shadow this sport.
She begins with a search for why people climb in the first place, and in particular why they continue after close calls; without becoming banal, she quotes Jim Wickwire, "One of the addictive aspects of climbing is that it allows you to be in the present moment in ways that are impossible in ordinary life". Similar thoughts come from Csikszentmihalyi's concept of 'flow' - which finds that the "enjoyment of risk comes not from the danger itself but from managing it, from the sense of exercising control in difficult situations." And then, there's the ultimate mountaineering existential futility of Camus' Sisyphus facing an "unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing... Each atom of that stone , each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart".
The bulk of this powerful book interviews the survivors and comrades of lost climbers. At times, its difficult to read, but the feelings expressed range from acceptance to anger and denial. In most cases, there is a community of shared experience and values. Whether you're an active climber or arm chair mountaineer this book gives a much needed balance to the hyberbolic tales of expedition climbing. And for those of us who have lost people to the mountains it offers, not comfort, but a stoic acceptance.
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Title: Fragile Edge: A Personal Portrait of Loss on Everest by Maria Coffey, Chris Bonington ISBN: 0898867371 Publisher: Mountaineers Books Pub. Date: September, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Beckoning Silence by Joe Simpson ISBN: 0898869412 Publisher: Mountaineers Books Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: The Naked Mountain by Reinhold Messner, Tim Carruthers ISBN: 0898869595 Publisher: Mountaineers Books Pub. Date: November, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: In the Ghost Country : A Lifetime Spent on the Edge by Peter Hillary, John Elder ISBN: 0743243692 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 14 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival by Joe Simpson ISBN: 0060730552 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: January, 2004 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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