Product Description

A book of adventure, wisdom and spiritual enlightenment. Touching My Father's Soul recounts Tenzing's son, Jamling Norgay's treacherous climb to the world's most forbidding summit. As retold in Krakauer's Into This Air, the 1996 IMAX climbing expedition collided with tragedy. As the climb unfolds so too does Norgay's inner journey. His desire to finally stand alongside his father's soul on the summit of Everest is realised, as is an understanding of his family's Sherpa history and a realisation of the power and significance of the Himalayas. Beautifully repackaged for the paperback edition, this is a classic.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #101252 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In Touching My Father's Soul Jamling Tenzing Norgay--son of sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who in company with Edmund Hillary made the first ascent to the summit of Everest in 1953--recounts his own experience of climbing the mountain with the 1996 IMAX expedition, and his spiritual quest for an understanding of how Everest has dominated the lives of both his father and himself.

I felt that only by following my father up the mountain, by standing where he stood, by climbing where he had climbed, could I truly learn about him. Only then would I be able to assemble all the missing parts of a father's life that a young man envisions and longs for but never formally inherits.

Jamling describes how his father's fame, and resulting fortune, liberated his children from the austere and insular life of the sherpa--the author travelled and was educated, in part, abroad--but also disconnected them from the social and spiritual certainties of that way of living. Writing after his father and mother had died, Jamling attempts to understand the meaning of their lives and their motivations.

This is a deeply personal book about one man's love for an absent father, and quest for a sense of shared identity, but Jamling is an equally astute commentator on the background to this intimate journey of self discovery. He examines the tensions between the Western, combative relationship with Everest, which drew the attention of the world to the mountain, and the sherpa relationship with the place they themselves know as Chomolungma. He traces the impact of the mountain "industry", the political and religious groups that tried to hijack his father's achievement, the controversy over "who was first?" and the difficulty in reconciling the Buddhism of the sherpas with the language of conquest and ambition.

Touching My Father's Soul is a spiritual, reflective work that seeks to reconcile the histories of one man, his family and his people with the immutable mystery of the mountain. --Alex Hankin

From the Publisher
A gripping and inspirational piece of mountaineering literature, shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker award

About the Author
Jamling Tenzing Norgay is the son of famed mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, who climbed Everest in 1953 with Sir Edmund Hillary. Jamling is also the star of the IMAX film Everest, and lives in Nepal. Broughton Coburn is the author of the National Geographic Society book Everest: Mountain Without Mercy. Coburn has lived in Nepal for 25 years and has a deep knowledge of Himalayan culture and Tibetan Buddhism.

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Customer Reviews

Soulful Saga
It missed the top prize but `Touching My Father's Soul' was short-listed for the Boardman Tasker Award in 2001. Judging for this annual competition is likely to be swayed by both style and story, and this may have been to the disadvantage of `Touching My Father's Soul'. The language adopted is often colloquial, probably due to Jamling Tenzing Norgay's time in the United States; and the writing sometimes appears as staccato, probably due to involvement of a co-writer, Broughton Coburn. Initially this was irritating but it does not detract from a powerful and moving story by the son of Tenzing Norgay, who with Edmund Hillary was the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Jamling successfully followed his father's footsteps as climbing leader with the David Breashears' team making the IMAX film `Everest'. The account is not a cutting-edge mountaineering book, but all ingredients for an enthralling narrative are immediately evident. Events took place in 1996, the disaster year that claimed many lives including guides Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, and witnessed both heroic deeds and mean-spirited actions.

Numerous books have already been written about the fateful 1996 season on Everest, but here is the first by a Sherpa. Jamling Tenzing Norgay deals sympathetically with the happenings of 1996 and he presents Buddhist beliefs and explanations to counterbalance previous descriptions dominated by western views. This dichotomy of cultures is what distinguishes `Touching My Father's Soul' from other books, and there is continuing commentary on Sherpa traditions - particularly in respect to death and the influence of divine beings. When Jamling Tenzing Norgay returned from the United States he had become unsure of his belief in Buddhism, but in preparing for Everest and in playing his part in the expedition he undergoes a religious transformation as he re-lives his father's climb.

The original story of Sherpa Tenzing's historic first ascent and its aftermath is interspersed with Jamling's own 1996 ascent of the mountain that had so dominated his life. In addition to language style this also makes difficulties for smooth reading, but does not detract from `Touching My Father's Soul' being more than just another mountaineering book. It is the record of a sacred journey and re-discovery of Buddhist destiny. The spiritual dimension to its many questions and contradictions makes `Touching My Father's Soul' an inspirational and enlightening read.

A very different read about the Ascent of Everest
This book was fascinating to read if not as fast flowing as some other Everest books. I have read a great many of them and I could not put this one down as it has been written from the point of view of not only the son of Sherpa Tenzing but also from a religious and Nepalise viewpoint. If you want to read about climbing in a different culture than the West this is an absorbing read.

Spiritual and just brilliant
I was lucky enough to read this book while actually trekking Mount Everest Base Camp. The book was really interesting to read from a Sherpa's point of view, although he was actually part of the climbing team but always kept his Sherpa connections and helped where he could. For me this book was amazing, I have the advantage that I could really visualise the places he speaks about on the trip from Lukla to Base Camp. I loved the way the book rolled back and forth relating his experience to his fathers and the way in which he spoke about his connection to the Budhist religion. If you have a passion for Everest, read this...please.