Touching the Void - 3 stars

[forsanolim]

We're back again with another installment of "Forsan reads extreme sports books," this time with another mountaineering book about a trip in the Peruvian Andes, where author Joe Simpson ends up breaking his leg high on a mountain, at the beginning of his descent with his climbing partner Simon Yates. As the two slowly attempt to descend down to escape the brutal cold and weather, a technical miscalculation results in Simon--in a desperate attempt to save his own life, believing that Joe has already or will soon die on the mountain--having to make the difficult decision to literally cut the rope that ties the two of them together, leaving Joe on the mountain to face a (in his mind) certain death. Of course, as the subtitle states, Joe does not in fact die, but rather somewhat miraculously, while facing tremendous pain and severe dehydration, manages to slowly make his way down.

I've had this book on my radar since finishing Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster a couple months ago, and I feel like that's the obvious book to compare this one too. While there were things that I liked about this one, I think that Krakauer's was much better overall. This one was at many points extremely technical in its use of mountaineering jargon and other terms, making details of what the two were facing often somewhat hard to understand, though I did like the inclusion of pictures throughout the book. Also and perhaps relatedly, the first half or so of the book was, in my opinion, quite slow to get through. However, I do think that the pace definitely picked up after the accident, and I think that Simpson did a good job of capturing his internal mental state throughout his solo descent.

[Anita]

forsanolim wrote: "We're back again with another installment of "Forsan reads extreme sports books," this time with another mountaineering book about a trip in the Peruvian Andes, where author Joe Simpson ends up bre..."

I read this last month, and I think your review is right on the money.