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Title: In the Ghost Country : A Lifetime Spent on the Edge by Peter Hillary, John Elder ISBN: 0-7432-4369-2 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 14 January, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.23 (35 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A very moody and compelling read
Comment: On this strange and affecting adventure story that goes to the bottom of the world, Peter Hillary uses the iron will that got him to the top of the world and other tough places to hunker down from the confronting fact that his two team mates have little time for him. They just want to the get to the South Pole, and go about it with a very business like attitude while Hillary wants companionship. He tries to get a social club going in the tent at night, and when they show no interest he increasingly retreats into memory and takes one of the biggest journeys of his life, a rich and harrowing journey into the mind. For a very driven man it's interesting and inspiring that he's more interested in how he makes the journey than bagging the trophy. He's been very generous with this book in the way he's put himself out there.
Rating: 5
Summary: Moving, inspiring and very entertaining. What a survivor!
Comment: It seemed that every five or six pages I'd look up and say to my wife: ``Just listen to this.'' It's a bad habit of mine, and it usually drives her nuts. But with In The Ghost Country, she became as captivated as I did. The relevations are sobering and surprising, the writing is seductive and dreamy, some scenes are almost trippy in their cumulative power. I've seen Peter Hillary as a motivational speaker, and he puts on a pretty good show, with a good sense of humor, but you don't see just how much this man has been through. There's a lot of death in this book (and even dark thoughts of murder), and a lot of wonder and amazement too. But in the end Hillary chooses life, and has made the right choices under the most perilous circumstances to stay alive. He's survived where so many of his friends have not. I actually shed tears when I came to a small scene in part four, where Hillary has inched across the ice shelf and is moving up the glacier. He's been out there for about seven weeks and virtually been alone the whole time because he's estranged from his two team mates and there's only been the company of his ghosts, which is the worst kind of loneliness. On the glacier, at minus-20 degrees, he finds a tiny patch of algae miraculously growing on a rock. He writes: ``That is was so beautiful to behold had everything to do with place and time, where it was, where we were, how long it had been, how long it had been since we'd seen something fresh and green... it was like we'd discovered life on Mars.'' I suspect for Hillary it was like an affirmation of hope and a reminder to just keep going. After sharing his journeys through seven kinds of hell, I found it very moving and weird to say but a kind of consolation for my own lonely moments in the dark. We all have them.
Rating: 5
Summary: Howling in the face of of the abyss
Comment: Man oh man. Two journeys -- one a lonely haul to the South Pole, the other a haunting visitation to the past, as ghosts rise up to keep Hillary company. It's a thrilling concept, made more exciting that this is how the brain works under the pressures of social isolation and sensual deprivation. The son of Sir Edmund has certainly spilt his guts here. But the writing is so poetic and evocative much of what could have sunk this book is transcended. Nowhere have I read a better exploration of the interior life -- the mind -- of an adventuring man, or of any man for that matter. Hillary's partner Elder is obviouskly the genius here, not to take anything away from Hillary who has become a surprisingly more forthright writer than he was in his youth -- but it's Elder who has clearly taken the reigns here and through using two voices -- his and Hillary's -- has crafted a masterpiece of form and revelation. Certainly blows the mystique.
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Title: Swimming to Antarctica : Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer by LYNNE COX ISBN: 0375415076 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 13 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival by Dean King ISBN: 0316835145 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow : The Dark Side of Extreme Adventure by Maria Coffey ISBN: 0312290659 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 11 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: The Darkest Jungle : The True Story of the Darien Expedition and America's Ill-Fated Raceto Connect the Seas by TODD BALF ISBN: 0609609890 Publisher: Crown Pub. Date: 30 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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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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