The Tower

A Chronicle of Climbing and Controversy on Cerro Torre

By: Kelly Cordes

Narrated by: Bernardo de Paula

Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

Patagonia's Cerro Torre, considered by many the most beautiful peak in the world, draws the finest and most devoted technical alpinists to its climbing challenges. But controversy has swirled around this ice-capped peak since Cesare Maestri claimed first ascent in 1959. Since then a debate has raged, with world-class climbers attempting to retrace his route but finding only contradictions. This chronicle of hubris, heroism, controversies, and epic journeys offers a glimpse into the human condition, and why some pursue extreme endeavors that at face value have no worth.

©2014 Patagonia (P)2023 Tantor

Interesting, exciting, insightful

Loved this book, the history, the research. It was obvious a lot of research went into this book. It was so well written & conclusions did not feel jumped to. I appreciated getting all sides of the stories. So interesting & so we’ll written. I couldn’t put it down once I started.

Interesting, well written and narrated

A good piece of climbing history, the author has in my opinion written a well researched and thorough book about a niche part of climbing history. You probably need some climbing background to fully appreciate the story but I think it would still be enjoyable to a layman willing to look up a few things.
Excellent narration as well.

Fantastic

A great story. Enjoyable listening. Truths that can be applied to our current state of affairs. Patagonia what an amazing place brought to life in this great book of climbing history.

Great book - struggling narration.

Awesome story and writing by Kelly Cordes. Unfortunately the narrator clearly did not do his diligence as he mispronounces numerous climbing terms such as piton and arete throughout the book.

Its a pee ton NOT a pie ton!

Not sure how you can read a climbing book without any idea how to even pronounce the most basic of climbing terms correctly. A bit painful to listen to.

Great story, narrator chuffed on climbing words..

piton is pronounced pee-tawn! Dihedral is pronounced die-he-drawl..

Amazing story, and the narrator was great outside of the gaffs

Tedious

Readers (listeners) will, of course, differ in their appreciation for various works. I am an avid reader of climbing and mountaineering literature and like nearly all of them. This book, however, was not among them. First, the topic is quite narrow: Unless you have a really ardent interest on a specific climbing route (Compressor Route) on a specific peak (Cerro Torre) in a specific mountain range (Patagonia), you might find this subject a bit narrow. Cerro Torre is an astounding looking peak, and I recognize its importance in the world of climbing, but most of us haven't climbed it and never will. Second, the book has a heavy moral overtone. There is one way to climb a mountain according to the author, and only one way ("by fair means or not at all"--if this is as obvious as the author makes it seem, why the need to write about this at all?). This tone gets tiresome, tedious, and pedantic. Similarly, it spends a whole lot of time taking Cesare Maestri to task, and then sprinkling this critique with assorted other climbs of Cerro Torre told at a general level. But what problem are we trying to solve here? Most doubt Maestri's claim and why not just leave it be and let the claim die with him? This has been written about a lot previously. My third criticism is the rather breathless tone with which second-hand quotes are delivered routinely throughout the book ("so-and-so said of this-and-that, this..."). One gets the sense the author is trying very hard to squeeze an interesting narrative (interesting to him, at least) out of a very narrow subject. Finally, as another review noted, the narrator is obviously not a climber else the frequently-repeated mispronunciations would not have happened. In sum, I do not recall a climbing/mountaineering book I was very more eager to get through.