What a coincidence! I just finished reading Into Thin Air — the first-hand account, by journalist Jon Krakauer, of the harrowing and tragic 1996 climbing expeditions to summit Mount Everest that cost a dozen lives — only a week before the publication of the anniversary edition of the book, 30 years later. I inadvertently acquired the book back in 1997 and hadn’t touched it since. When a few reading buddies (who are big fans of the book) urged me finally to dust it off, I had no idea that I’d be reading this book at such a momentous time. 

Despite not being much into non-fiction, I was fascinated to learn about the “sport” of mountain climbing from Krakauer’s well-researched, well-written recounting that not only captured all the calamitous circumstances of that climb, but also filled in a lot of history and facts about the industry around climbing, especially climbing Mount Everest. Being a first-hand participant, Krakauer’s descriptions of events were emotionally close and full of specific details. Also, his personal knowledge and relationship with the other people in the book adds a dimension of intimacy which makes the tragedy even more heartfelt.

Krakauer’s journalistic approach meant that his narrative of events was going to be interspersed with background information, context, and data. The reportage style of the book (which was an expansion of a magazine article that Krakauer wrote for Outside magazine at the time) meant that the scenes were going to be described in a concise and objective manner. This book is not “narrative nonfiction” so it doesn’t apply storytelling techniques found in fictional stories upon real-life events. There was only modest use of metaphor or imagery, only some exploration of inner thoughts (obviously only Krakauer’s own), and relatively pragmatic language used even for capturing intense action or scene-setting. Being accustomed to reading fiction, this was a bit of a letdown, and I felt I was less emotionally engaged than I should have been. Nevertheless, the extreme events themselves were able to captivate me in a way that made up for the unadorned prose.

Because these events were real, current, and involved people who were still around (or their families still were), there needed to be some accountability baked in. Krakauer couldn’t take creative liberties and couldn’t represent people or situations in ways that were not verifiable or corroborated by witnesses and interviews. This led to some stylistic challenges which caused the writing and storytelling to become a bit disjointed and confusing. For example, the high number of people named in the book would have been overkill if these same events had been part of a fictional narrative. Many of them were superfluous to the core story, but needed to be accounted for in this book as a matter of record. Even when the action was at its most chaotic, during the deadly, fateful storm at the summit, Krakauer named all the other climbers who were involved in the moment, even if we weren’t as familiar, seeing as they had not been central to the story up to that point. They had actually been there, so they needed to be represented.

I’m glad my venture into reading non-fiction was with such a adventurous story. Krakauer’s reporting and all the informative details that he added to the main events helped me understand them in their real-world context. Interestingly, I compare my reading experience of this book to Ararat by Christopher Golden, a horror novel I’d recently read which also involved a high altitude mountain setting. Granted, that story was pure fiction (and Mt. Ararat is only half the height of Everest), but its lack of believability about its setting was kind of laughable in light of what I learned about mountain climbing from Into Thin Air. Reading this book felt obviously more grounded in reality, so its stakes felt more meaningful. Despite getting a bit lost in the details a few times, reading this story was very memorable and felt like a worthwhile journey.

3.5 stars

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