I recently read Into Thin Air, a nonfiction novel by Jon Krakauer about the 1996 May 10-11 Mt. Everest expedition. In the recent years, the book has also been known to be a required reading book for many the 8th and 9th graders. 
Personally, I found the book is a riveting tale of self-preservation and greed present while climbing the world’s tallest mountain.
When I first read the back cover summary of the book and then the first few pages inside, I started to form this image of the stereotypical Man vs. Wild adventure story. I didn’t actually know the full details of the 1996 disaster, not being old enough to even know what Mt. Everest even was. Via hints from my mom and ravings online, I gathered that it was an account about some expedition that had some importance and moral standing.
However, despite my first impressions, I soon began to be enveloped in Krakauer’s story. The descriptions of the landscape and the Hillary Step left me lost and befuzzled (an emotion thatI would experience many times while trying to formulate the images of the rock and ice faces of Everest). But by the end of the first chapter, the reader (more specifically, I) was left wondering what all led up to the fateful moment. Itching to know more, I was drawn into the brilliant descriptions of the personalities of the team members of Adventure Consultants (and other expeditions at Base Camp). I grew attached to the likes of Andy Harris and Rob Hall, the junior and head guide of Adventure Consultants, respectively. Then from there, the illustration of the Sherpa community and their smattered English. Base Camp soon grew and enveloped my own mind. The people that were introduced all had real backgrounds and personalities. Not one was a Mary Sue (one who is infallible). They all had real histories to them, that made me all the more attracted to them. But in the back of my head, I heard my conscience continually remind me that (by then I had figured out what happened via Wikipedia) many were fated to die.
Before reading the book, I had in my head this preconception that mountaineering was something for the outdoorsy fellow who spent his entire childhood shooting grizzlies in his backyard and cooking rabbit stew over a campfire. To shed light on the sport, Krakauer also noted how flawed these notions were. His descriptions of the actual process of climbing up to Camp 1 or the bottleneck at the Hillary Step. Not only was I introduced to the real process of reaching what many call the “roof of the world,” I realized how misplaced my ideas were.
As I started to read the ascent portion of the book, I stopped to think. In the two day span of reading the book, not only had I familiarized myself with Hall and Harris, but even the weaker Pittman and arrogant Russian Boukreev were familiar to me. The previous chapters highlighting the woes of the oxygen depriving altitudes were menacing and the fatigue and injuries that Krakauer suffered seemed to foreshadow that what was to come.
The scenes about the Everest squall were so vivid. I could literally see (or not see, depending on which way you put it) into the blizzard that the Adventure Consultants went through. On the other hand, the blinding cold and mental and physical exhaustion that the mountaineers described is beyond me. I cannot imagine what it was like to climb the tallest mountain in the world and come back through blazing winds and ice. As I read the book, it was like, I was watching the whole action sequence play out in a 360 degree theater. I could see everything that was happening and seemingly understood the standpoints of Krakauer as he battled through those two fateful days, but I was unable to actually comprehend what he was talking about. It was like…a surrealistic trance I was in. I suppose that it was a good thing that happened, as putting the reader inside the book is what an author’s job is.
Overall, I would rate this book very high. Not many nonfiction stories can draw me into its grasps. The accounts that Krakauer revealed were inspiring yet shocking. In the end, I was left with a true sense of awe, revulsion, and sympathy. Bravo!
