Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, had just reached the top of a 21,000-foot peak in the Andes when disaster struck. Simpson plunged off the vertical face of an ice ledge, breaking his leg. In the hours that followed, darkness fell and a blizzard raged as Yates tried to lower his friend to safety. Finally, Yates was forced to cut the rope, moments before he would have been pulled to his own death.
The next three days were an impossibly grueling ordeal for both men. Yates, certain that Simpson was dead, returned to base camp consumed with grief and guilt over abandoning him. Miraculously, Simpson had survived the fall, but crippled, starving, and severely frostbitten was trapped in a deep crevasse. Summoning vast reserves of physical and spiritual strength, Simpson crawled over the cliffs and canyons of the Andes, reaching base camp hours before Yates had planned to leave.
How both men overcame the torments of those harrowing days is an epic tale of fear, suffering, and survival, and a poignant testament to unshakable courage and friendship.
Concise and yet packed with detail, Touching the Void, Joe Simpson's harrowing account of near-death in the Peruvian Andes, is a compact tour de force that wrestles with issues of bravery, friendship, physical endurance, the code of the mountains, and the will to live. Simpson dedicates the book to his climbing partner, Simon Yates, and to "those friends who have gone to the mountains and have not returned." What is it that compels certain individuals to willingly seek out the most inhospitable climate on earth? To risk their lives in an attempt to leave footprints where few or none have gone before? Simpson's vivid narrative of a dangerous climbing expedition will convince even the most die-hard couch potato that such pursuits fall within the realm of the sane. As the author struggles ever higher, readers learn of the mountain's awesome power, the beautiful--and sometimes deadly--sheets of blue glacial ice, and the accomplishment of a successful ascent. And then catastrophe: the second half of Touching the Void sees Simpson at his darkest moment. With a smashed, useless leg, he and his partner must struggle down a near-vertical face--and that's only the beginning of their troubles.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Good:
Joe has a taut, spare style of writing. Perhaps the only negative one can point to is that he goes a little too much into techno-speak on mountaineering. However, this is forgivable since that was the audience he was writing for. That the book became a general public bestseller was a surprise. In a sense he writes sort of like Mickey Spillane- with spare descriptions, clipped, but not as taut as MS. But, there are some soaring moments of poetry- especially one scene where Joe describes looking out of the... more info
One of those exceptions where the movie is better than the book:
Joe Simpson's disastrous experiences climbing Siula Grande in 1985 make for one of the greatest true adventure stories of the twentieth century. After Joe's accident on the mountain, he and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, nearly achieved an unlikely descent. When Simon is unable to continue Joe's rescue, he does the unthinkable (which Joe does not blame him for), and Joe's hellish troubles begin. Sounds like the outline for an exciting and heart-wrenching adventure, doesn't it? Unfortunately, Joe... more info
Exciting read:
After watching the movie version of this book I wanted to read Touching the Void. I usually like to read the book first but in this case I am glad that I did it in reverse. I am not a mountain climber and do not know the terms used in the sport. So watching the movie helped set up the book to where it made a lot of sense. The book provided a more realistic vision of what the climbers thought and felt. It put me there with them. I am in awe.
Snore:
This is a very boring book. I thought it would be an action packed survival book, but it put me to sleep.
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