The Crystal Horizon: Everest-The First Solo Ascent
List Price: $24.95 Our Price: $16.47 You Save: $8.48 (34%) Availability: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
Spotlight Customer Reviews:
Summary:
Excellent book
|
Comment:
This is an excellent book. I have not read another book about mountain
climbing with such an interest. Messner is very good at describing his emotions. Translation is not the best one. I read this book in both Russian and English translations. I liked Russian translation a lot more.
|
Summary:
Plenty Of Skipping Needed
|
Comment:
This ought to be a great book. The first man to climb Everest without oxygen from the North at the height of the monsoon season. Messner was about to do solo, without any form of support whatsoever beyond advanced base camp.
But it's not as exciting as it sounds. If you want to finish this book without falling asleep or giving up halfway, you'd need to do a lot of skipping. Messner bores us with too many details, quoting chunks from publications, his mother and his girlfriends. It's really very badly edited and there are way too many "subplots" that only serve to disrupt the reader's flow of thoughts.
Skip through all the boring stuff, concentrate on his actual description of the climb, how he arrived at the conclusion that Mallory never reached the summit while climbing between the First and Second Step and how he finally struggled his way to the misty summit. It's actually quite a good read, but leave the rest of the story out.
|
Summary:
Story is slow, climbing is good
|
Comment:
This book demonstrates that Reinhold is not a master of the writing craft even though he knows a lot about mountain climbing and other extreme adventures. The writing (or at least the translation) is wooden -- compare these books to those of Joe Simpson or Greg Childs. Still, there was much that was interesting in this book and many good photographs. Some of the details on the journey to Everest through Tibet were intriguing. All in all, this book deserves three stars and would be worthwhile recommending to someone who really enjoys mountaineering.
|
Summary:
A Diamond In The Rough
|
Comment:
This book is truly a mountaineering masterpiece, but it might not seem so to those unaccustomed to Messner's writing style. Much appears to be lost in the translation to any English first-time reader. But I've read nearly all of his books and have learned how to soak it all in. Hidden in the sometimes laborious writings are crystal-clear windows into Reinhold's experiences and thoughts. His solo, oxygenless ascent is generally considered one of the most impressive events in mountaineering history. Considering that the ascent was undertaken during the monsoon makes it all that much more incredible.
|
Summary:
story of the first solo accent of Mnt. Everest
|
Comment:
I could not say anything less then that Reinhold Messner's "The Crystal Horizon" is a great book. It is not a usual climber's book, but rather a strange mix of history, politics, religion, geography, meteorology, personal history and world views of the man who is beyond doubt the greatest living mountaineer. The book deals with the first solo accent of Mnt. Everest, accomplished during the monsoon season. It is ravenously illustrated and photographed. It is an exciting adventure. It is a riot and a sad story of a man who escapes to the mountain to find peace. It is well worth you time. One should forgive Messner (or rather his translator) some awkward sentence structures, punctuated by the action and verbal phrases put at the end of sentence, and quite frequent exercises in the obscure mix of native religion, Buddhist witticisms and Central European Christianity. I do however, applaud the honesty and occasional beauty of those philosophical excesses, particularly when he talks about feeling akin to Sisyphus when climbing and when he exhibits the diary entries of his girlfriend which does not always portrays him in the best light possible. Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot.
|
|
|