Into the Silence

The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest

By: Wade Davis

Narrated by: Enn Reitel

Length: 28 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

On June 6, 1924, two men set out from a camp perched at 23,000 feet on an ice ledge just below the lip of Mount Everest’s North Col. George Mallory, thirty-seven, was Britain’s finest climber. Sandy Irvine was a young Oxford scholar of twenty-two with little previous mountaineering experience. Neither of them returned.

In this magisterial work of history and adventure, based on more than a decade of prodigious research in British, Canadian, and European archives, and months in the field in Nepal and Tibet, Wade Davis vividly re-creates British climbers’ epic attempts to scale Mount Everest in the early 1920s. With new access to letters and diaries, Davis recounts the heroic efforts of George Mallory and his fellow climbers to conquer the mountain in the face of treacherous terrain and furious weather. Into the Silence sets their remarkable achievements in sweeping historical context: Davis shows how the exploration originated in nineteenth-century imperial ambitions, and he takes us far beyond the Himalayas to the trenches of World War I, where Mallory and his generation found themselves and their world utterly shattered. In the wake of the war that destroyed all notions of honor and decency, the Everest expeditions, led by these scions of Britain’s elite, emerged as a symbol of national redemption and hope.

Beautifully written and rich with detail, Into the Silence is a classic account of exploration and endurance, and a timeless portrait of an extraordinary generation of adventurers, soldiers, and mountaineers the likes of which we will never see again.

©2011 Wade Davis (P)2011 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“The First World War, the worst calamity humanity has ever inflicted on itself, still reverberates in our lives. In its immediate aftermath, a few young men who had fought in it went looking for a healing challenge, and found it far from the Western Front. In recreating their astonishing adventure, Wade Davis has given us an elegant meditation on the courage to carry on.” (George F. Will)

“I was captivated. Wade Davis has penned an exceptional book on an extraordinary generation. They do not make them like that any more. And there would always only ever be one Mallory. From the pathos of the trenches to the inevitable tragedies high on Everest this is a book deserving of awards. Monumental in its scope and conception it nevertheless remains hypnotically fascinating throughout. A wonderful story tinged with sadness.” (Joe Simpson, author of Touching the Void)

“Into the Silence is utterly fascinating, and grippingly well-written. With extraordinary skill Wade Davis manages to weave together such disparate strands as Queen Victoria’s Indian Raj, the ‘Great Game’ of intrigue against Russia, the horrors of the Somme, and Britain’s obsession to conquer the world’s highest peak, all linking to that terrible moment atop Everest when Mallory fell to his death. The mystery of whether he and Irving ever reached the summit remains tantalizingly unsolved.” (Alistair Horne, author of The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916)

Into the Wow! Details and brilliant narration!

So I was looking for a book about Everest and I got this massive, fantastic, historic, tome about The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest. It truly is an amazing work and there are three things I really REALLY enjoyed about it.
1) The depth of research and the long reaching tendrils of detailed history that finally culminated with the historic climb. I actually had to double check my iPod and make sure I downloaded the right book because the opening WWI account was so long and detailed! It totally got me to Wish List some WWI history though, and I while I didn't mind, it was a bit of foreshadowing for what lay ahead. The WWI history I enjoyed, but as some of the other reviewers mention... the level of detail and length of time spent accounting for the route discovery, cartography, and overland journey to find and capture Everest got extremely tedious to listen to. Annnnnd without any sort of map (I usually print out my own area maps when listening to history anyway) or familiarity with the region, it was confusing, disorientating, and annoying. So yeah... #1 is a bit of Love/Hate that shouldn't be broken up.. but definitely falls into the positive half of my review. Its wordy and very in depth, but for most topics it works and is thoroughly enjoyed. You come out feeling accomplished and as if there's probably not anything out there about these first few years of Everest exploration that got missed.
2) The style of writing was very unique in today's world. It captured a nostalgic literary essence of the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century. I felt as if I were listening to a book that could be a century old due to the authors choice of words, sentence structure, and creativity. It worked superb with the awesome British narrator!
3) The narrator was perfect! A British man who's accent is reminiscent of "old" WWI English speech, character, and pomp. His tone was borderline aloof and instructional, but also held just enough familiarization and warmth to not come across as a proper Brit, all stuck up, reading IKEA directions at you.
There were only two things I didn't particularly like about this book and while they're definitely not deal breakers in any way, they tend to come up when I discuss the book with people.
1) This is not the longest book in the world, but at times, it sure feels like it! In several very brief moments it feels like you're stuck in this never ending loop of a British geography class! Oh please make it stop!! PLEASE!!!! And right when you're to the point of considering x2 speed or skipping to the next chapter, it ends. Ahhhh :) Thank you!
2) The final wrap up of this book feels like it was rushed. We went on this amazing, long, detailed journey to get here and now... "Out ya go! GO! See ya later, bye bye now! Adios! GTFO!" And I'm out on the door step like WTF!? I thought we had like.. you know.. a connection or something? What's going on!? Now I'm out here all alone and... alone... and the books done? Really? Its a joke right? We sort of hit the closing pleasantries and said goodbye really fast but... I wanted a little more post Mallory that included some of that previous research and detail. Its not as bad as the ending to the movie Dracula 3000... but it could've been a little better.
If anyone made it this far, I hope my review helps to persuade you to read the book and not dodge it. Its a remarkable amazing book and Ill be giving it another listen in the future for sure. I led me to so many other studies and interests... WWI books, tea history and actually tea brewing.. which I'm now getting ready to do, and taste test several loose leaf teas. It got me into more Everest books, as well as documentary's and movies. It brought me around to inspecting my camp stove, which led to more gear research and purchasing, which led to more ammo, more emergency water storage, and new YouTube channel subscriptions. It goes on and on, and its always like this for me, which I find fascinating! I think all learning is connected and having one thing lead to so many others... Connections! James Burke! Ah anyway.. connections between everything is so great and fun to experience! This is a book that I found rewarding to "read" on many levels and would HIGHLY recommend it to people interested in the regions history or Everest. Great author and style of writing.. and the perfect narrator.

great listening

I enjoyed it from the beginning till the end. So complex book,much better then expected!

The spectrum of mountaineering pre/post WWI

Would you listen to Into the Silence again? Why?

Yes, I would listen again because there is so much information, presented very well. The amount of research is impressive, to say the least, and a great gift to any reader who is interested in the golden era of mountaineering as well as the impact of WWI on those who participated in the horrors of war in the trenches.

Have you listened to any of Enn Reitel’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have not listened to Enn Reitel before, but he is excellent and I'll be looking for more of his performances.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I wouldn't attempt to listen in one sitting, since it is a long book.

Any additional comments?

I just love Wade Davis for all the research he did for this book, and for the intelligent and cohesive weaving of a complicated story.

Great book - well researched - inspiring

I first read
Path of glory from Jeffry Archer wich was an amazing story and I came to this one. Very well researched and inspiring

Unique, Fascinating Social History

Where does Into the Silence rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

The story is one of the best I've listened to. The narration is another matter.

What did you like best about this story?

I love the eclectic style of social history in the book. The author melds an account of the British experience of trench warfare in WWI with a new expression of British sentiment for empire--namely, the drive to conquer the world's greatest mountain. For the British, having suffered unspeakably in the war and having failed in their attempts to be the first to explore either North or South Pole, the desire to climb Everest became both a symbol of imperial glory regained and an expiation of the horrors of the war. In addition, the author shows a deep appreciation for and sensitivity to the local Buddhist religion and its effects on both local adherents and outsiders.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

The performance started out strong, but, as others have mentioned, stumbled over pronunciations of place names and events. It was also distracting that the narrator seemed to take breaths at random intervals, breaking up the pattern of the text. These problems were especially noticeable because the narrator has a lovely voice and this could have been a stellar reading.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

I think the title and subtitle of the book say it all.

Any additional comments?

A rare social history. Don't miss it just because the narration isn't perfect.

Great story of Mallory's quest

Not so much abput other things the title sugests but since I wasn't after those, I don't mind. Performance is perfect, story fascinating and written in a beautiful English, so scarce these days in any modern production.

Amazing Scholarship and a Great Read

I have no particular interest in mountaineering but read this book because I admire the author and am certainly glad I did. It is an amazing reconstruction of the day-to-day and hour-by-our progress of the first Everest expeditions but more than that, a reconstruction of a genteel Edwardian world now almost as exotic as ancient Tibet. A terrific read.

An amazing tour de force

I listened avidly to this incredibly well researched book detailing the lives of those intrepid men who attempted Everest in the early 1920s. I particularly loved the way Wade Davis developed the individual narratives of the climbers in light of their war experiences, often depicting WWI in gruesome and harsh detail, with no shortage of editorializing about the foolish and costly mistakes made by British generals in the Somme. The reader is given so much more insight into the origins of the British Everest expeditions and the ways these expeditions both met the imperialist imperative of a nation still feeling that it dominated the globe, while also assuaging the wounds and morale of a nation severely and cruelly weakened by the ravages of the war. Above all I loved the descriptions of the Tibetan Buddhists encountered by the climbers—their religious practices, their incredible monasteries gouged out of impossibly high cliffs, and their compassion for these strange white men who would risk their lives for such a ridiculous goal. I would strongly recommend that you try to watch Noel’s movie made of the ascent. I was luckily able to see it using Kanopy, a front-end app that gives access to my library system’s video collection. It makes such great companion viewing to see the movies being made of the third attempt, while reading the descriptions given by Davis in the book.

Five Golden Stars

Any additional comments?

Into The Silence weighs in at half the length of War and Peace and is on the same huge scale. The unimaginable killing and maiming in the 1914-18 trenches of the Western Front in the words, the descriptions of some of the British officers and medics who lived through the daily slaughter. It takes these Brits of the old school, plus an occasional Canadian and Australian, and tells the story of how between 1921 and 1924, having survived against the odds the trenches, went on to attempt to climb Everest, which in those days lay weeks beyond the railhead over unknown Tibet.

A compulsive page-turner, I emerged from days of engrossed isolation in the exploding trenches, lying in a hurricane-blown old tent on the North Col at 23,000 ft about to be ripped 10,000 ft below onto the such-and-such glacier. I had frostbite and had lost my icepick.

The foreground is the stuffy world of upper-class Cambridge, London and the Raj of the first two decades of the 20th century. The climbers of Everest with at most feeble sprays of oxygen were the same boys, now disillusioned, who were mowed down, blown up, and bayoneted in the trenches, who built and were running the world’s greatest empire.

Into The Silence is among the great books already of the 21st Century, a hundred years on from the events it relates, superbly, coolly put together and written by Wade Davis, today a Prof of Anthropology at UBC Vancouver. Davis, a well-known Amazon explorer, was for many years the Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society in Washington DC. If you look him up on TED you will find a couple of fast, chatty talks on the disappearing worlds of the Tropics, the Deserts, the Arctic. Five golden stars.

Very Detailed Account and Excellent Reader

Excellent book! Amazing detail about World War I along with Everest. The reader has british accent , oration was clear and pace was perfect.