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No Way Down: Life And Death On K2 (2010)

by Graham Bowley(Favorite Author)

3.87 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0061834785 (ISBN13: 9780061834783)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Harper

review 1: It took me way too long to get into this book, and I did enjoy it in some ways. It provides factual, insightful knowledge into the experiences that these people had atop K2 and does not hold back in describing the horrors and gore of the many problems they encountered. Yet, I still couldn't get into it. I literally forced myself to read it -- 1. Because I had already bought the book and was adamant it would improve at some point. 2. Because I have a deep fascination and admiration of K2 and almost felt like I had to read this. The facts and knowledge is all there, as I said in the previous paragraph, but it was delivered poorly. I quote a previous review by another user: "It read like a giant newpaper article." Another issue I had with this book was the inexperience the au... morethor clearly had in regards to mountaineering. This wasn't a drastic issue, because I'm far from experienced myself, but when reading a book like this, I do prefer an author with thorough insight and experience of at least the outline of what he is writing about. This doesn't mean that I don't recommend it whatsoever. I believe that the reason I disliked this book was because I read it directly after reading Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer, which is a wonderfully written book that I thoroughly enjoyed. Perhaps if I didn't compare the two when reading it, I would have enjoyed this book.If I could rate it with half stars, the rating would be 2.5, for it wasn't a terrible read, and at times I did find myself enjoying it in some sense, but overall I found it hard to read. I don't think it has ever taken me so long to read a book on a topic I usually enjoy.
review 2: I know nothing about mountaineering and would be hard pressed to recognise K2 in a picture (oh a big rock with snow on. is it a particular big rock with snow on? Uh... snow... Snowdonia?) but for some reason I keep finding myself reading mountain-disaster books. Twisted voyeurism? Despite my lack of background, though, I found Bowley explained things clearly and I didn't get confused about what was going on. The dramatis-personae at the beginning did help immensely there. However, one part did jar me - and this is a spoiler - when Jumik Bhote was hanging off the side of the mountain, thinking about the situation and visualising his funeral, I assumed that he must have survived, because otherwise how would Bowley know what he was thinking? But of course it turned out that he died and that section was extrapolated based on statements from people who knew him and a description of his actual funeral. After that, I had to take the rest of the book with a grain of salt. Bowley created a gripping narrative, but I had to wonder how much he was fictionalising for the sake of it. He does at least add a chapter in the end on where other people disagree with the testimonies he used.The most important thing to learn from this, though, is that sometimes avalanches literally smash open a guy's head and send one of his eyeballs poinging down a cliff like a bouncy ball so one of his buddies can find it and SMEGGING HELL, WHY DO PEOPLE STILL CLIMB MOUNTAINS, I MEAN BY THIS POINT SURELY WE CAN JUST ASSUME THAT GIANT ROCKS ARE ACTIVELY MALEVOLENT AND WANT YOU TO DIE BROKEN. It's like they didn't see that Indiana Jones film where the rock chases him down the corridor. less

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