Into the Silence

The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest

De: Wade Davis

Narrado por: Enn Reitel

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

Reseñas de la Crítica

“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)

One of the greatest narrations ever

Enn Reitel's performance is spectacular. It takes a good story and brings it to life. His delivery adds gravitas.

Captivating, surprisingly poignant, (sometimes overly) thorough story.

Very well written. The thesis, how society and the Great War had influenced the psyche of these men to take on these expeditions sometimes to a reckless degree, was really interesting and well executed. I loved learned about each of their personal histories, their personal and spiritual journeys in Tibet, and how each of them approached this most extreme goal. It gets a little dry when the author goes into the minutiae of what they took with them and their itineraries. But I’m not sure that’s unavoidable. Overall, would highly recommend the book and the narrator was excellent.

Fascinating account of the conquest of Everest

Very interesting story spanning from the Great War and how that put British men into a mindset for mountaineering to the 1980s detective work trying to piece together what happened to Mallory.

Amazing adventure.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, it's about men of uncommon valor.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Mallory, as he was a monumental figure.

Which character – as performed by Enn Reitel – was your favorite?

All. He made them come to life. He is a master of story telling.

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

The title of the book. It is about so much more than just Everest and mountain climbing. It is about a time in the not so distant past that we tend to forget.

Any additional comments?

Wonderful on all levels.

One of the Great Narrative Histories of All Time

I'm not kidding about the title. Wade Davis' other titles gave no indication that he would or could produce such a tour de force, but this book is remarkable. In my opinion, it's the greatest piece of narrative history since "The Guns of August", even though this book is only tangentially about WWI. Davis has Tuchman's ability to weave biography into historical narrative, to give comprehensive detail and broad overview simultaneously, and his prose is assertive and yet sometimes poetic. This is a really brilliant book, far greater than the sum of its parts. Maybe one of the hundred greatest works of historical literature.

Outstanding nonfiction

This book was so much more than I was expecting in the best of ways. I learned a lot

Mostly Fantastic

It's pretty clear that Wade Davis has read everything ever written about Mallory's Everest expeditions, and has synthesized a definitive account. This is an amazing book for lots of reasons, but it's not always an awesome read. At times if feels like Davis is attempting to create a visceral analog to the scaling of Everest - and doing a damn good job. I'd swear there were chapters that included the number of grains in wheat shipments to the expeditions. And while my inner scholar bows to Davis' virtuosity, the reader in me - the lover of narrative - is often left gasping for air.

But mostly this book is awesome. There are biographies and histories that venture into a past that predates the subject of a book. Sometimes the backstory informs the main narrative and provides a bit of extra context. And sometimes one has no idea why the author decided to include a particular bit of information (I recently read an awful biography of Amelia Earhart that included a full history of the state of Kansas, before ever once mentioning the books main subject). Wade Davis does a much cooler thing. He takes you on these long, meandering stories, all compelling in their own right, before turning a final corner and revealing something awesome and wholly relevant.

But the expeditions become literally tough going. There's so much detail and that detail is very repetitive. It feels like a litany more than a narrative. But it's an amazing piece of scholarship. The downside is that not everyone will dig it. I didn't. Not always.

But Davis is a fantastic writer, and this is an amazing, if pedantic telling of a story that seems newly fresh, with renewed interest in Mt. Everest. That interest is rooted the surreal, trendy flirtation with death, the mountain has become for over-privileged Westerners, but the juxtaposition fully underscores the achievements and tragedy of Mallory's life and death on Everest.

GREAT READ

Worth the time. A nice blending of history and mountaineering. At times, I lost track of characters and geography. But worth the time to hear.

The finest history of early Everest exploration

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

I have listened to more than 200 audio books and would put this book close to the top, if not at the top itself.

What other book might you compare Into the Silence to and why?

Over the years I have read hundreds of books on climbing, quite a few of them describing the early Everest expeditions. Never before has an author put the climb and climbers into the context of the period in which it occurred. Above All Things by Tanis Rideout has been one of my favorite books specifically on Mallory, but it was novelized. This is pure fact, superbly researched and written, and it brings all of the players into focus so clearly. I was skeptical about Wade Davis writing about a climbing expedition, but he has great understanding combined with superb skills as a writer. It has never been so clear that those concepts of high altitude climbing so familiar to any modern climber were largely evolved during the three early attempts on Mount Everest.

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

It was definitely difficult to stop listening, but at 28 hours a bit long for a single sitting. It is certainly one that I will return to again and again.

Any additional comments?

Wade Davis has achieved a remarkable feat, produced a book on climbing the like of which may never be done again. It is a book that even non-climbers can read and enjoy. His descriptions of the trenches of WWI from the perspectives of the various players compares to some of the best writing on that period. This is truly a work of real genius.

Beyond the possible

Thrilling, thorough, WW1, after all the planning and recruiting to climb Everest with no equipment to finish. Felt like I was there suffering with the hikers