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3.27 AVERAGE
3.27 AVERAGE
I was disappointed with this book having read several other Everest related stories that really explained and explored what happened on the mountain. Given Beck's injuries and his supposed death and reawakening, I thought we would learn more about what happened to him on the mountain and his road to recovery. The background story of his marriage and familial relationships made me not like him as a person or character. And it didn't give me any insight into the crisis he experienced climbing Everest.
It’s a good book, but the title and summary are very misleading. The first bit is about Everest, but most of the book is the lead up to it, he goes all the way back to before he was born and just builds from there. Some of its interesting, but I know way more about the goings on of their marriage than I anticipated on when I picked this book up.
adventurous
dark
informative
tense
slow-paced
I haven't been taking the time to write a lot of reviews lately but I did want to say a few things about this one. The first time I heard about Beck Weathers was on a podcast and he seemed like the most badass guy I'd ever heard of. Then I read Into Thin Air and watched the movie Everest. Of those, Everest seems to draw the most from Beck's story. If all you've read is Krakauer's book, which is really, really, good, I still encourage you to read Left For Dead. Obviously Beck experienced things that Jon didn't and has a different perspective on what happened on that mountain. But he also talks a lot about the things in his life that drove him to be on Everest in the first place and shows a lot of vulnerability.
We also get to hear from his wife, Peach, his kids, and more about Madan KC, the pilot who helped bring Weathers down. I understood before that taking a helicopter up there was a risky endeavor but I hadn't quite realized why or even really how ludicrous an idea that is.
We also get to hear from his wife, Peach, his kids, and more about Madan KC, the pilot who helped bring Weathers down. I understood before that taking a helicopter up there was a risky endeavor but I hadn't quite realized why or even really how ludicrous an idea that is.
adventurous
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
It was pretty solid, providing pretty much what I thought I would be getting, despite that the title and subtitle are misleading. I thought it would be a longer, detailed account of his time at Everest and the immediate horrors of being left for dead, only to miraculously survive. However, only the first 120 pages are about that (and not in a lot of detail, either) and then the next 210 pages are the domestic drama in Beck and Peach Weathers' marriage before and after the trip to Everest.
Note: I did not read the middle section of the book on the author’s childhood and relationship.
reflective
medium-paced
This book wasn't bad, but I think the title, cover and description are misleading. I was disappointed because I was expecting the bulk of the book to be about Weather's 1996 Everest experience but by the end of the first 40% of the book it was over and the rest was about his marriage and family life. The writing was good and Weathers provides insight into his life and reflects on his actions that have impacted his family but that's not why I picked up the book. After all, the book is called Left for Dead: My journey Home From Everest and not How my Mountaineering Has Impacted my Marriage.
adventurous
medium-paced
The author and lead in this story is not loveable and pretty much everyone who has a voice in this agrees at some point. The books spends very little time actually talking about the trip up and descent from Everest and spends a lot of time talking about the guys personal life (how selfish and destructive he is).
I was disappointed with this book having read several other Everest related stories that really explained and explored what happened on the mountain. Given Beck's injuries and his supposed death and reawakening, I thought we would learn more about what happened to him on the mountain and his road to recovery. The background story of his marriage and familial relationships made me not like him as a person or character. And it didn't give me any insight into the crisis he experienced climbing Everest.
I didn't read the reviews of this book before I downloaded it, but I kind of wish I did because the title is just such a huge misnomer. This is not the story of a man's journey home from Everest and it's barely an account of his ordeal on Everest. Instead, it is merely an account of one unlikeable man's life story that his wife, children, brothers, inlaws, friends, business partner's and all their respective wives weigh in on. It became clear to me while reading that, although Beck Weathers has travelled the world, his autobiography is going nowhere fast.
The tale opens when Mr Weathers arrives in Kathmandu, Nepal, follows him up the mountain and then explains the events during the blizzard, a daring rescue attempt and his first few days of being disfigured and disabled by severe frostbite. This lasts approximately 7 (relatively short) chapters out of 27. Following these events, we flash back in time to his childhood, and are also regaled with the names, birthplaces, comings and goings, and general demeanour of his siblings and of what feels like 4,000 generations of his ancestors. (One of his grandfathers apparently looked 'resplendent' in his Confederate Army uniform. Because that matters, of course).
From this genealogic ramble, we then chart the course of his education and early career, and then his rather disastrous marriage to his wife, wherein neither of them are capable of holding an actual conversation, and decide instead to communicate via a series of bizarre feline imaginary friends/pets. At 48%, we get this little story about Baby and Muffin, the family cats:
Grammatically, these sentences make sense, but logically, I have no idea wtf Beck is talking about. He seems to have this innate need to tell us stories as if we are already privy to the ending or punchline. Why does it matter that the family pet thinks a lion is an 'itty-bitty toy in the TV box'? What does it mean when his wife, Peach, 'doesn't stop taking her birth control, but still plays 'russian roulette' with it? The book is scattered with little asides like this, and they're so annoying! Why are you telling me this, Beck?! Why can't you explain your stories properly?!
Another thing that really irked me about Beck is how disrespectful to the indigenous-occupied spaces he's invading in pursuit of being-macho-slash-avoiding-family. He'll travel thousands of miles to New Guinea, allow members of the Dani people to carry his mountaineering supplies through rugged juggle terrain so that he doesn't have to, but when an expedition is interrupted by a storm, he refuses an offer of shelter by the Dani people because....? They're not clothed? Because they eat raw meat when they come across it? He didn't seem so squeamish about such matters when he encountered a Norwegian man attempting to cross Antartica who relied mostly on a diet of raw bacon. Clearly ingesting raw meat is only, what? Weird and scary when brown people do it?
In all, this book is bad for several reasons, the main one being that it never does what Beck intends for it to do. In the Acknowledgements section after the epilogue, Beck writes:
But that's not what the book is about. It's only the last 10% of the book that deals with 'what happened when he got home' and the process of 'rebuilding' his life. All it really is is a couple's growing resentment for one another, and it struggles to even do that satisfactorily.
2* because I finished it in about 17 hours.
The tale opens when Mr Weathers arrives in Kathmandu, Nepal, follows him up the mountain and then explains the events during the blizzard, a daring rescue attempt and his first few days of being disfigured and disabled by severe frostbite. This lasts approximately 7 (relatively short) chapters out of 27. Following these events, we flash back in time to his childhood, and are also regaled with the names, birthplaces, comings and goings, and general demeanour of his siblings and of what feels like 4,000 generations of his ancestors. (One of his grandfathers apparently looked 'resplendent' in his Confederate Army uniform. Because that matters, of course).
From this genealogic ramble, we then chart the course of his education and early career, and then his rather disastrous marriage to his wife, wherein neither of them are capable of holding an actual conversation, and decide instead to communicate via a series of bizarre feline imaginary friends/pets. At 48%, we get this little story about Baby and Muffin, the family cats:
The situation was manageable until one day when Baby discovered Muffin’s book of spells. We figured that out because bad things started to happen. Remember, Muffin was widely read. Baby was sort of illiterate, mostly because he was lazy. He could do only a couple of things. One was eat and the other was sleep. Other than that, he was adored.
Then I began traveling, and Baby saw this as the opportunity of a lifetime. He got out Muffin’s book, and virtually every time I left he’d wreak havoc somewhere in the world. The problem was that Baby wasn’t bright enough to have any sense of proportion. His idea of a lion, for example, was an itty-bitty toy that lived in a TV box.
Nor could he grasp geography. He had no concept of space and distance. If I went to Tennessee to deliver a talk, for example, and a town was leveled in Florida, we knew it was because Baby had worked his evil magic.
Grammatically, these sentences make sense, but logically, I have no idea wtf Beck is talking about. He seems to have this innate need to tell us stories as if we are already privy to the ending or punchline. Why does it matter that the family pet thinks a lion is an 'itty-bitty toy in the TV box'? What does it mean when his wife, Peach, 'doesn't stop taking her birth control, but still plays 'russian roulette' with it? The book is scattered with little asides like this, and they're so annoying! Why are you telling me this, Beck?! Why can't you explain your stories properly?!
Another thing that really irked me about Beck is how disrespectful to the indigenous-occupied spaces he's invading in pursuit of being-macho-slash-avoiding-family. He'll travel thousands of miles to New Guinea, allow members of the Dani people to carry his mountaineering supplies through rugged juggle terrain so that he doesn't have to, but when an expedition is interrupted by a storm, he refuses an offer of shelter by the Dani people because....? They're not clothed? Because they eat raw meat when they come across it? He didn't seem so squeamish about such matters when he encountered a Norwegian man attempting to cross Antartica who relied mostly on a diet of raw bacon. Clearly ingesting raw meat is only, what? Weird and scary when brown people do it?
In all, this book is bad for several reasons, the main one being that it never does what Beck intends for it to do. In the Acknowledgements section after the epilogue, Beck writes:
While the story of what occurred during those few days on Everest clearly is of interest, the story of what happened when I got back home and had to rebuild my life—redefine who I was—became the story for me.
But that's not what the book is about. It's only the last 10% of the book that deals with 'what happened when he got home' and the process of 'rebuilding' his life. All it really is is a couple's growing resentment for one another, and it struggles to even do that satisfactorily.
2* because I finished it in about 17 hours.