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A review by contsai
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account Of The Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
3.0
3.5 rounding down to 3 / i've been trying to read more nonfiction and nily bought me this book for christmas :) i did not "dislike" reading this and thought it was well written and enjoyable even though every minute of it made me think "this could not be me."
i feel like krakauer sometimes wants his cake and to eat it too, in that he wants to present his story as a listing of facts (as best as he can remember them under the stressors of climbing everest), but when he occasionally makes conjectures, that he doesn't want to be necessarily judged/disagreed with for those conjectures? imo telling a story from your own perspective will always involve conjecture, that's the point of your perspective. people will disagree with you on whether or not your interpretation of events is "correct," even if those people weren't there. i don't think that's anything that a writer has to defend themselves against. you just gotta live with it. (i do think krakauer is in the right re: his postscript defense against the dewalt book though. i don't think we could ever really know what boukreev was thinking because i don't think you can know what anyone was thinking at that time due to the fact that high altitudes scramble your brain. another reason why i will not be climbing everest)
i feel like krakauer sometimes wants his cake and to eat it too, in that he wants to present his story as a listing of facts (as best as he can remember them under the stressors of climbing everest), but when he occasionally makes conjectures, that he doesn't want to be necessarily judged/disagreed with for those conjectures? imo telling a story from your own perspective will always involve conjecture, that's the point of your perspective. people will disagree with you on whether or not your interpretation of events is "correct," even if those people weren't there. i don't think that's anything that a writer has to defend themselves against. you just gotta live with it. (i do think krakauer is in the right re: his postscript defense against the dewalt book though. i don't think we could ever really know what boukreev was thinking because i don't think you can know what anyone was thinking at that time due to the fact that high altitudes scramble your brain. another reason why i will not be climbing everest)