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"Seven Summits", Steve Bell (ed.)
Mitchell Beazley, 2000

This is a mountaineering book that not only has great photos but is also enjoyable to read.

It starts off with a nice little spat - competing forewords from Dick "I did the seven first" Bass and Pat "But I did the REAL seven first" Morrow. The difference being whether you count Kosciuszko in Australia, at 2228m, as representing Australasia or prefer the altogether more challenging Cartensz Pyramid in Irian Jaya, 4884m. And in the interests of balance and completeness, the book naturally belies its title and has chapters on all eight summits.

The format for each chapter is the same - a general introduction to the mountain, its environment and its history, followed by two or more personal accounts of ascents (or just one account, in the case of Kosciuszko). All contributions are by people who have completed the Seven.

This format keeps the book interesting, and as mentioned above, the pictures are excellent. There is, though, a sad side in the number of climbers - writers, their partners or friends - who have lost their lives on these or other climbs. ART

Overall verdict: Great introduction to the seven (or eight).
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Most of this book is a biography of George Mallory, followed by a short account of the expeditions after his death in 1924 which throw significant light on his and Irvine's fate. Only the last few chapters relate the events of the 1999 expedition which found his body.

There is more detail in the book than could be covered in the television programme, and this brings more evidence to the debate on whether or not Mallory and Irvine made the first ascent of Everest.

Before I read the book, I liked to think they probably did make it. For what it's worth, now I've read the book, I think they probably didn't. A string of factors - the non-functioning stove, Mallory's notorious late starts, the forgotten torches, the location of the oxygen bottles, the difficulty of the third step - all point towards time running out for two exhausted men. The only contrary evidence is Odell's sighting of the two figures at the third step "going strong for the top" at 1250pm. Odell was always confident in the accuracy of his sighting, but it is uncorroborated, and it is possible he was misled by the effects of perspective from his viewpoint.

Whatever the answer - and we shall probably only know for sure if Irvine's body and their camera is ever found - the book is worth reading for the picture it paints of a remarkable mountaineer and the story of the expedition that finally gave him a grave on the mountain. ART

Overall verdict: A biography with an adventure thrown in.
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Anyone writing more than a simple account of a visit to Antarctica is faced with the problem of which aspects to cover - the narrative, descriptive, historical, scientific, political, and (for many) spiritual aspects of their experience. Sara Wheeler was lucky enough to spend several months in Antarctica, and her book sets out to cover most of these (although anyone looking for science, wildlife, or pictures will be disappointed!).

Despite what must be, I imagine, a strong temptation to try to describe the land- and sky-scapes of The Ice, and the impact they have on the writer, she is sparing with her descriptive passages. One of the longer descriptions is of the southern lights:

The sky was streaked with faint emerald shadows, splaying out in several directions to the horizon, changing shape, spreading, and bleeding into the blackness. Iridescent coppery beams roamed among the stars like searchlights, and soft ruby flames flickered gently above the glacier, sporadically leaping forward into the middle of the dark sky. Towards the east, a rich and luminous haze rolled lazily back and forwards like a tide. At one moment the whole sky was a rainbow, flaming with radiant mock suns.

Antarctica clearly has a profound effect on many, if not most, of the people who spend time there, as the extensive quotations and extracts from historic and contemporary accounts show. Sara Wheeler does not shy away from describing the impact it has on her. She ends Chapter 5 on this note -

In Antarctica I experienced a certainty amid the morass of thoughts and emotions and intellectual preoccupations seething inside my balaclava'd head. ... It wasn't an answer ... it was something that put everything else ... in true perspective. ... The landscape was intact, complete and larger than my imagination could grasp. ... it was the scale, the unownedness, and the overpowering beauty that made Antarctica different. ... I felt certain that a higher power exists ... The glimpse left me with a deep and warm sense of calm and mental well-being, like the cosmic glow after some astronomical phenomenon.

In fact her book is more about the people of Antarctica, past and present, than any other topic - the way they live now, the way they lived and died in the past, and how they respond to the physical and psychological challenges of this most extreme environment.There is a sense of today's scientists carrying the baton of the great explorers of the past. Once you have become an Antarctican, it seems, you join a special group. As one of the New Zealand scientists says, "I hardly ever talk about Antarctica at home. No-one would understand." ART

Overall verdict: What a year on The Ice is really like.
Also see Historical
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