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alongapath 's review for:
Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest
by Beck Weathers
Beck Weathers reached instant celebrity status during his descent of Mt Everest in 1996, during a storm which took the lives of 8 mountaineers. Having been truly left for dead in a hypothermic coma on the South Col, Beck woke up almost a full day later and walked himself back to the safety of the tents at High Camp. Beck's recounting of this sphincter-clenching ordeal is told in the first 66 pages - a terrifying account that resulted in the loss of both his hands and his nose.
The remaining 220 pages are the dull transcripts of a completely dysfunctional marriage in counselling. Reading this was like watching paint dry - but the paint was on a side of a plane as it crashed, making it difficult to turn away.
Coming from a childhood of true white privilege, Beck has had every opportunity placed before him. He comes through it all with a quiet humility and a drive for perfection. Beck's sarcastic humour comes through thinly in his passages, usually by making belittling put-downs or sweepingly insulting generalizations. That said, Beck only sees good in the people around him. Throughout his life, he has had a wide range of interests and hobbies which he pursues with ferocity, mountaineering being only one of them, which are actually his way of dealing with his sometimes paralysing depression.
Peach', his wife, tarries back and forth with Beck through this narrative. She is a nest of vipers who is shuffling through life under her self-made black cloud. She is unable to make herself happy and expects Beck to sit around at home creating her happiness for her. She refuses to go places without air-conditioning or places that are cold and wouldn't participate in his previous interests of sailing or motor-sports. She is so uninteresting and only sees her potential for happiness being squandered by Beck. Blind to his decades-long depression, she needles him endlessly between bouts of silent-treatment. It is a sad display of non-communication and is one of those examples where staying together 'for the kids' was probably the worst thing possible for the kids.
Perhaps I was supposed to come away with the feeling that this family pulled together during a crisis but instead I am so sad that Beck is now trapped at home with this woman and unable to escape to the mountains any longer.
I hope he takes up sailing once again. I hope that his next book is about waking up from a marriage-induced coma and realising his long-time dream of sailing solo around the world.
The remaining 220 pages are the dull transcripts of a completely dysfunctional marriage in counselling. Reading this was like watching paint dry - but the paint was on a side of a plane as it crashed, making it difficult to turn away.
Coming from a childhood of true white privilege, Beck has had every opportunity placed before him. He comes through it all with a quiet humility and a drive for perfection. Beck's sarcastic humour comes through thinly in his passages, usually by making belittling put-downs or sweepingly insulting generalizations. That said, Beck only sees good in the people around him. Throughout his life, he has had a wide range of interests and hobbies which he pursues with ferocity, mountaineering being only one of them, which are actually his way of dealing with his sometimes paralysing depression.
Peach', his wife, tarries back and forth with Beck through this narrative. She is a nest of vipers who is shuffling through life under her self-made black cloud. She is unable to make herself happy and expects Beck to sit around at home creating her happiness for her. She refuses to go places without air-conditioning or places that are cold and wouldn't participate in his previous interests of sailing or motor-sports. She is so uninteresting and only sees her potential for happiness being squandered by Beck. Blind to his decades-long depression, she needles him endlessly between bouts of silent-treatment. It is a sad display of non-communication and is one of those examples where staying together 'for the kids' was probably the worst thing possible for the kids.
Perhaps I was supposed to come away with the feeling that this family pulled together during a crisis but instead I am so sad that Beck is now trapped at home with this woman and unable to escape to the mountains any longer.
I hope he takes up sailing once again. I hope that his next book is about waking up from a marriage-induced coma and realising his long-time dream of sailing solo around the world.