Post 3: Tone

Although the last third of Into Thin Air is etched with tragedy and peril, Jon Krakauer describes the chain of events in a way that gives it a sophisticated, somber and matter-of-fact tone. Words such as "survive," "severe," "fatigue," "worse," and "help" jump out at you from almost every page as you read your way through this tragic storm. Krakauer foreshadows this somber gloom from the beginning, when he says, "Training my lens on a pair of climbers approaching the summit, I noticed something that until that moment had escaped my attention. To the south, where the sky had been perfectly clear just an hour earlier, a blanket of clouds now hid Pumori, Ama Dablam, and the other lesser peaks surrounding Everest" (8). The blanket of clouds is a literal symbol of what is to come: one minute, the sky is blue and people's minds are clearly set to reach the highest peak in the world with nothing standing in their way; the next, a thick layer of dark clouds bring danger to the mountain as despair engulfs the minds of its climbers. Although climbing Everest is never anywhere near safe, the rest of the first two thirds of the novel are relatively low key. It's not until later, on summit day, when the events fall into somber gloom. Krakauer is the first to notice the incoming thunderclouds, and gives us the first sign that something is really amiss when he describes clients and guides alike still trekking towards the top of Everest hours after Rob Hall's initial turn around point. As Krakauer continues towards Camp 4, the gloomy conditions turn from bad to worse. "Around 3:30 pm I left the South Summit ahead of Mike, Yasuko, and Andy, and almost immediately descended into a dense layer of clouds. Light snow started to fall. I could scarcely tell where the mountain ended and where the sky began in the flat, diminishing light; it would have been very easy to blunder off the edge of the ridge and never be heard from again. And the conditions only worsened as I moved down the peak" (197). Once he himself stumbles into camp, the first wave of somber ominousness over, the real magnitude of the tragedy sets in for Krakauer, as "Tears welled in my eyes, instantly freezing my eyelids shut. How could Andy be gone? It couldn't be so" (227). Yet, as heavy as everyone's hearts are at this time, Krakauer continues to also give important matter-of-fact information as he shares the story: "I realized, however, that if he hadn't turned left but instead continued straight down the gully - which would have been easy to do in the whiteout even if one wasn't exhausted and stupid with altitude sickness- he would have come quickly to the westernmost edge of the Col. Below, the steep gray ice of the Lhotse Face dropped 4,000 vertical feet to the floor of the Western Cwm. Standing there, afraid to move any closer to the edge, I noticed a single set of faint crampon tracks leading past me toward the abyss. Those tracks, I feared, were Andy Harris's" (227-228).  Somber, tragic, realistic gloom. The accuracy and precision of Krakauer's story and the perfect tone he sets it in gives me the feeling that I, too, am experiencing the Everest Disaster. Suddenly losing so many people right in front of your eyes is very hard. Jon Krakauer had to deal with the pain of losing people he'd come to trust and love, the pain of seeing others suffer, the pain of living while others hadn't, and the pain of always wondering - What else could I have done? Most people, although it might take a while, would be able to deal with that pain. But Krakauer never will get the luxury of putting that May behind him. Because it's his job, as a survivor of that mountain, to share it with the world. Every time someone reads his book, every time he receives questions or comments or complaints, he relives the most tragic part of his life over and over. He had to recount the hard treks, the laughter, the pain, and the tragedy to everyone, everywhere. And he did a good job of it.

Looking back, the most exciting and intriguing part of the book for me came towards the end, in the aftermath of the Disaster. While the storm was taking place, Jon Krakauer precisely described the perils he himself went through, and I could barely put the book down. However, when Krakauer talked to the other survivors once they were off the mountain, he was able to get a much better grasp of what really happened that day, and that was when the puzzle pieces started to fully fall into place, both for him and for me as the reader. For example, Krakauer tells of meeting up with Andy Harris on his way down to camp - and even seeing him practically make it into camp - so the initial thought is that Harris is alive and okay. However, when the storm and minds on the mountain begin to settle, they realize that Harris is really gone. By talking to the head sherpa, Lopsang, and other survivors, Krakauer pieces together what really happened: Harris never made it past the South Summit. Krakauer, in his highly delusional state, mistook him for Martin Adams, a man with a completely different body build and a mistake you would never make in your right mind. This shows just how little of a story one single person actually knows, but when you piece everyone's tale together, it can really become something amazing.