Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: A Slender Thread: Escaping Disaster in the Himalayas (Adrenaline Series) by Stephen Venables, Clint Willis ISBN: 1-56025-298-7 Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press Pub. Date: 30 January, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 1.89 (9 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Raises troubling questions
Comment: On one level 'A Slender Thread: Escaping Disaster in the Himalayas' is a standard mountain expedition book, with the focus on Steven Venables' own experience. But throughout there is a dark undercurrent of premonition and doubt. Venables has a bad feeling about the expedition from the start : "there was a sense of unease, even doom when I set off for India". There is also a sense of futility, that the golden age of mountain exploration is long past, as he implicitly compares past expeditions to the area (the Panch Chuli group near the border of India and Nepal) with the one he is on. Gone is the conviction of purpose and the "gentlemanly camaraderie" of earlier times. In fact Venables shows himself to be anything but gentlemanly on this trip. Often out of sorts, half-wishing he were back home with his wife and child, Venables indulges in tantrums and verbally attacks Chris Bonington, the team leader, when Bonington suggests retreat..
As for the accident, it is the breaking of the Slender Thread that all mountaineers depend on at many time during a climb. A well-tested anchor pulls out below the top of Panch Chuli V, sending Venables on a steep fall that breaks both his legs and which he is lucky just to survive. This combination of bad and good luck, and his utter dependence on his companions for making it down the mountain, is the real story of this expedition for Venables as he recognizes that in climbing he is gambling with more than just his own life.
This is my least favorite of the three book by Venables I've read, though I did enjoy it. There is little of the excitement and freshness of 'Painted Mountains' or the combination of great accomplishment and fascinating route finding in 'Everest: Alone at the Summit'. However, it raises troubling questions about mountain climbing and faces them directly, and these questions, along with the detailed description of a remote and rarely climbed range, make this a book worth reading.
Rating: 1
Summary: Yawn yarn
Comment: I was looking forward to reading this book, as some of Venable's previous books have been pretty funny. Somewhere along the line, he seems to have lost his sense of humor, and without that, this story of his misadventures up high reads hollow and rather sad. If you're going to mess up while climbing with a team, and need to get rescued all the time (the other reviewers are right;Venables seems to have created a genre for his own "help, save me!" tales on mountains)you better be funny about it. However, this book is far too serious and self-righteous for its own good. In fact it reads more like a teenager's diary than a climbing tale--right down to the nasty things Venables prints about the very people who rescued him! The 300-foot fall in the beginning is the only interesting part in the whole book, and then it's literally, downhill from there. I'm sorry to say that this book reveals the author as more of a poor sport and poor writer than his previous books.
Rating: 1
Summary: The Decline of British Mountaineering
Comment: As I read Stephen Venables story of folly in the remote Himalayas I couldn't but help feel a certain contempt, if not sadness at the decline of British mountaineering. From Edward Whymper to Sir Christopher Bonington (a far better climber than Venables who nevertheless gets stabbed in the back by the author after he saved his life) the British climbing establishment was world renowned for good sportsmanship, positive attitude, and grace under pressure. Now, British alpinism seems to have been taken over, like so many other things in British society, by a yob mentality. This book is a case in point: It would not have been too long ago that a similar collection of whiney tales of questionable heroism where one's own mistakes are palmed off on one's teammates would have been met with scorn from the fair-minded British climbing establishment. No longer. This book actually got decent reviews in some UK climbing magazines (though, to be sure, a few "outed" Venable's inconsistencies with the facts). Future climbing historians, when examining how Britain ceded its leadership role in mountaineering, will be tempted to cite Venable's contemptible attempt at self-glorification by denigrating other climbers and celebrating his own mountaineering foibles as a milestone in poor attitude and even poorer taste.
 |
Title: Everest: Alone at the Summit (Adrenaline Classics Series) by Stephen Venables, Clint Willis ISBN: 1560252898 Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press Pub. Date: 15 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
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 |
 |
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 |
 |
Title: 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz ISBN: 0761104844 Publisher: Workman Publishing Company Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
