Final Blog Entry: Base Camp Perspectives

Map of Mt. Everest

The book Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer has lived up to all the praise it had received by many of my friends and family. My uncle who is passionate about rock climbing recommended this book in the past, so I was glad to see that it was one of the book choices. I never understood how dangerous high altitude climbing was until I read about the events in the book and now I have a newfound respect for those that climb high, while at the same time wondering why they take the risk.                                                        

The two blogs that I previously wrote analyzed the novel using reader response and postcolonial literary theory. Both analytical topics have their pros and cons. I found that reader response has a lot more variety to choose from. There are many more topics you can write about and there aren’t really any specific perspectives you have to base your blog post on. Reader response is very opinion based compared to postcolonial and feminist theory. There are very few limitations and as such, I was able expand on many different questions allowing greater freedom of topics.

            Although reader response is a lot more open, there isn’t as much direction leading to specific analysis of the book. I found that analyzing Into Thin Air from a colonial perspective allowed me to dive deeper into the novel and learn more about the complexities of the story and associated impacts. I really enjoy learning about history and it turns out that Into Thin Air describes a lot about the past of Mt. Everest. The author, Krakauer does a great job explaining the history of the “discovery in 1852… the lives of twenty-four men, efforts of fifteen expeditions and the pass of 101 years before the summit of Everest would finally be attained” (Krakauer 15). When reading the book, the reader learns about Sherpa culture and how the western world gradually populated and changed the way Sherpas now live. “Once Everest was determined to be the highest summit on earth, it was only a matter of time before people decided that Everest needed to be climbed,” (Krakauer 15) and began colonizing the area and the mountain. The postcolonial perspective allows the reader to clearly understand how Everest and the Sherpa culture changed over decades since colonialization.

            Before writing the second blog we were given a choice to analyze the book from a feminist or postcolonial perspective.  Into Thin Air has a lot of background information on post colonialism as it had a great impact on climbing history as a whole and specifically climbing in the Himalayas.  One would need a deeper understanding of feminism to undertake that viewpoint as there is far less available content on it as it pertains to Into Thin Air and climbing Everest.  I chose to take that postcolonial perspective.

            Based on my experience writing these blogs on the subject matter of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, postcolonial literary theory is more interesting to write about. It gives you a clear direction to work with and allows you to dive deeper into the concepts of the book in that respect, allowing you to gain more knowledge. I enjoyed learning and researching about the history of Mt. Everest and about the Sherpa culture. It was interesting to learn that Sherpas are gaining work and money from the many Mt. Everest climbing expeditions, but at the same time heartbreaking seeing their culture lose some of its charm due to the impact of business on Everest and its many international climbers. I really enjoyed reading Into Thin Air, one of the greatest adventure books of all time. I found Beck Weathers’ book entitled “Left for Dead” and Anatoli Boukreev’s book entitled “The Climb” at home and I am very excited to read them next, so I can learn different perspectives of the events that occurred on Mt. Everest that year. Hopefully they will both grant me the same sense of adventure and thrill that I received while reading Into Thin Air.