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A review by emcfeely
High Crimes: the Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed by Michael Kodas
3.0
This book is mainly comprised of retellings of two different Everest expeditions: Kodas' own disastrous climb with a team from Connecticut, and a decidedly more tragic account of an older Bolivian-American doctor tackling the mountain. When Kodas is talking about the doctor, Nils Antezana, he is good - almost great. When he's talking about the Connecticut team, he is, well. Whiny. I'm not out to discredit the guy; he has plenty of evidence to back up his own claims, and the crew he was climbing with seem like genuine assholes, but it didn't make for great reading.
When he's not talking about his own problems, Kodas is good. Corrupt oxygen dealers, human rights violations, falsified guiding credentials, life-threatening theft on a regular basis. I knew Everest was screwed up, but I didn't know quite how badly.
Mostly, this book was depressing. Maybe it isn't fair to compare this book to [b:Into Thin Air|1898|Into Thin Air A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster|Jon Krakauer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1158966247s/1898.jpg|1816662], but the blurb on the cover did it first, so I feel okay about it. Michael Kodas is not Jon Krakauer, but my love for Krakauer is deep and abiding, and I think pretty much anyone writing about mountains is going to suffer in comparison. I think Kodas wanted to strip away the romance of Everest and make it perfectly clear how money and traffic and a never-ending list of records to be set (first one-armed Korean with astigmatism to summit!) have affected high-altitude climbing. And he did. But at times, that just left me wondering whether he even likes climbing, which is something I never wonder when I'm reading Krakauer.
When he's not talking about his own problems, Kodas is good. Corrupt oxygen dealers, human rights violations, falsified guiding credentials, life-threatening theft on a regular basis. I knew Everest was screwed up, but I didn't know quite how badly.
Mostly, this book was depressing. Maybe it isn't fair to compare this book to [b:Into Thin Air|1898|Into Thin Air A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster|Jon Krakauer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1158966247s/1898.jpg|1816662], but the blurb on the cover did it first, so I feel okay about it. Michael Kodas is not Jon Krakauer, but my love for Krakauer is deep and abiding, and I think pretty much anyone writing about mountains is going to suffer in comparison. I think Kodas wanted to strip away the romance of Everest and make it perfectly clear how money and traffic and a never-ending list of records to be set (first one-armed Korean with astigmatism to summit!) have affected high-altitude climbing. And he did. But at times, that just left me wondering whether he even likes climbing, which is something I never wonder when I'm reading Krakauer.