Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #628390 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Customer Reviews

I learnt a lot
This is a brilliant book. Not only is it a gripping read but I learnt a lot about the history of Himalayan mountaineering from the Sherpas point of view. I also found out more than I had known about budhism and what drives people to go on through the most gruesome of events.

Another great Everest story
I read this book a couple of months after reading "Into thin air", by Jon Krakauer and I bought and read this second book exactly because I read the other one. I'm not a mountaineer, I don't even like mountains, so why? For "Into thin air" I was attracted by the author, which I already knew, but here I knew exactly what it was about. It's impossible to talk about one book without mentioning the other and I'm sorry if I do it, but they are very similar under many aspects and completely different under others. So, I'm not a mountaineer, but these two books are both exciting like two thrillers, impossible to put down, breath-taking and, on many occasions, heart-breaking. Like Krakauer did, Jamling Tenzing tells his story and, in parallel, one or more other stories that took place in the past. In this case, Tenzing obviously talks in particular about his father's climbing with Hillary in 1953, but the two stories are so well mixed that they become as one. And Tenzing adds to his book that part of spirituality that comes from his roots, a spirituality in which he seemed not to believe so much before his Everest attempt, but that became a part of it as far as he went on with his adventure.
Very well written, very touching in his past and present relationship with his father, even more touching in his need to climb Everest to understand his father fully. Of course we can't touch Tenzing's father soul like he did, but we can touch Everest's immensity and sacredness and understand that climbing THIS mountain is something different that just climbing, for those who believe in Chomolungma's sacredness but also for those who don't.