|
Sir Edmund Hillary was clearly a remarkable man with his life marked particularly by the first successful ascent of Mt. Hillary's writing style is fairly pedestrian, but he does give a number of examples of where he thought he fell short as a person, husband, and father. Also, the chapters detailing his upbringing give you a good idea of how far he had come from his early days in a beekeeper's family.
The descriptions of the climb to the summit of Everest along with Tenzing Norgay are particularly interesting, especially his discussion of the period immediately flowing the first ascent when immense pressure was brought on Tenzing to say that he had reached the summit first. I found the sections about the journey to the South Pole to be tedious and confusing. Everest.
The chapter about the plane crash in Nepal that took the lives of his wife and daughter was extremely emotional.However, the book does have its slow moments. However, Everest was not the only adventure for Hillary. Other trips to the Himalayas and to other parts of the world are described and give you an idea of Hillary's overall achievements.The most meaningful parts of the book to me were Hillary's efforts to lead the way in helping the Sherpas by building schools, hospitals, and pipelines.
A good map would have helped. His extreme confidence in his own abilities shows through during the book.All in all, the book is certainly worth reading if you are interested in Edmund Hillary or mountain climbing.
Clearly he is a gifted climber who possesed endurance way beyond that of the average human. On the plus side, this is indeed a proper 'boys own' story and is very well written. Unfortunately, the reader becomes quickly aware of the arrogance of Hillary. However, this is over-shadowed by the authors arrogance as he tells the reader how much better he was than those around him.In a way i wish i had not read the book as it has shattered a romantic illusion I had of what Hillary was really like. It also made me very sympathetic of those who had to endure him in the ice packs of Antartica and the isolation of the death zone of Everest.
Vivian had told the story from his point of view in his 1958 book, "The Crossing of Antarctica," and even though that book also included eighteen pages written by Hillary, I was glad to see more of what Hillary had to say, especially with his perspective of writing about it so much later. The two parties reached the South Pole in January, 1958 after which they made it to the Ross Sea in less than six weeks.
And Sir Edmund Hillary's story of how he and Tenzing Norgay did it is terrific and even to my suspicious eyes seems sincere. The portion of the book I was most curious about dealt with the Antarctic Expedition of 1957 to 1958.
I remember how exciting it was for those of us in London for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation (on June 2, 1953) to find out that Mount Everest had been climbed at last. Vivian (Bunny) Fuchs.
Hillary was the leader of the Ross Sea Party, which was to was to lay provisions between the Ross Sea and the South Pole to support the crossing of Antarctica by the Transpolar Party, starting from the Weddell Sea. The Transpolar Party was led by the overall expedition leader, Dr.
As the two parties neared the Pole, the telegrams between Bunny and Hillary were in all the newspapers. This entire book is worth reading and tells us plenty about the life of a successful adventurer.
The discussion is a futile one, but it seems to put a damper on the relationship. I found this book a pleasant surprise, after having read a few mountaineering adventure books. In this book we also follow his life, not just his great conquests. If you are looking for one, look elsewhere; Hillary climbed Everest, but did not have any major mountaineering accomplishments thereafter. Instead, we see the picture of a simple man, a very likeable and sincere one, with flaws and virtues.We can see his sneakiness in going for the south pole despite orders not to, we can see his dedication to the people of Nepal, we can see his somewhat estranged relationship with Tenzing and the tensions that arose after Tenzing said he had reached the summit first. We see the backstage of the lecture circuit he went through after Everest, then the honors he received and his attempt to maintain some normalcy in his life. Overall, it is a very good life book, and despite it being filled with adventures, we see the character of a person that is much more than simply an adventurer.
Unless Edmund Hillary can produce definitive evidence that A). George Mallory and Andrew Irvine did not reach the summit of Mt. Everest in 1924 or B). that Tenzing Norgay was not actually the first to set foot on the summit, he cannot truthfully bill himself as "The First Person to Conquer Everest."
|
