Into Thin Air Book Review

Have you ever wondered what climbing mount Everest would be like?  In Jon Krakauer’s book, Into Thin Air he goes into detail on his experience climbing Everest.  As a journalist for Outside magazine he signs on with Rob Hall’s guided expedition as a client.  On the mountain that year there are many others teams and tension in building with a possible disaster high on the mountain to come.  Krakauer writes about everything on the expedition and his detail makes for one of the best books every written about high altitude mountain climbing.  

Each character in the book played a crucial in the story and Krakauer did a great job introducing and describing each one.  In the end of the book each characters true character was revealed as a storm set in near the top of Everest leaving many people fighting for survival.  Because the whole reason Krakauer was even on Everest was to write a story for outside magazine he went into very precise detail into each character. The most compelling characters had to be the 2 guides along on the expedition, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer.  Both men throughout the story were friends, helped each other and their clients through the climb and even teamed up during their ill fated summit push. Through Krakauer’s writing it was made apparent that although they were friends each of them was in intense competition to get the most clients to the top of the mountain and drum up business.  Krakauer’s details about some of the clients on the trip such as Doug Hansen and Beck Weathers made the story even more gripping because they were both leaving families behind if they died.

With the characters also came a lot of internal and external conflict.  For many of the climbers their conflict was whether the climb was actually worth it.  They faced weeks of suffering for a summit attempt that might not even happen and the risk of death every time they stepped out of their tents.  Even Krakauer was leaving behind his family. His wife said, “‘It’s not just you who’ll pay the price. I’ll have to pay too, you know, for the rest of my life”(Krakauer 84).  For the guides their conflict was between the desire to get their clients to the summit and the responsibility t0 keep them alive.

The setting was another part of Krakauer’s writing that made the book even more enjoyable to read.  The setting the story took place in was one of the most important parts of the book and Krakauer did an amazing job describing it in vivid detail.  Krakauer described one of the most dangerous parts of Everest like this, “Following the fixed line, I meandered through a vertical maze of crystalline blue stalagmites.  Sheer rock buttresses seamed with ice pressed in from both edges of the glacier”(Krakauer 79). This quote shows why setting is one of the most important parts of the the book because it shows the beauty of the climcing but also the danger of the climb.  

The fact that this was a true story made the the book into even more of a page turner and the plot of the book was the most important part.  Every single detail of the climb was described in the book and without those crucial details the story would have been hard to understand and much less enjoyable to read.  The way Krakauer wrote out the plot also made the story better. He chose to start the book right as he is on the summit on the Everest and then in the next chapter flashes back to where it all begun.  Krakauer’s style was also very significant to the book. Throughout each of the chapters he foreshadowed something very bad that would happen at the climax of the book. He did this through things like describing illnesses that were happening to sherpas around him and the overall unease of every Sherpa in camp.  His foreshadowing is shown through the following mistake on summit day, “Whatever motivated him, Lopsang’s decision to tow a client didn’t seem like a particularly serious mistake at the time. But it would end up being one of many little things. A slow accrual, compounding steadily and imperceptibly toward critical mass”(Krakauer 170).  This instance is just a small piece of the foreshadowing previewing a possible disaster ahead.