Book Review: "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer 4.5/5

For most of us, rolling off the couch for an hour long session of working out and ogling before primetime requires a depressingly modern form of energy drink induced willpower. For a few, like author Jon Krakauer and mountain climbers in general, will is something much more.

In, “Into Thin Air,” Krakauer’s personal account of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, readers are introduced to a world where will is training for a year to fulfill a lifelong dream of climbing one of the world’s most hallowed peaks, continuing to climb despite bitter cold and increasingly oxygen depleted air, and turning back because of unfavorable conditions only hundreds of feet from the peak after a lifetime of dreaming and forking over thousands of dollars -- something that the climbers suffering from “Summit Fever” on May 10 could not do.

Krakauer’s gut wrenching, journalistically sound account makes it clear that the true danger in scaling Everett isn’t reaching the top but having the energy and clear mind to get back down. The novel, written as a catharsis over his survivor’s guilt only a year after the disaster, attempts to ask, what happened up there? What led experienced expedition leaders to make such egregious decisions?

Mainly the answers come in the form of varying high altitude sicknesses that affect the mind. Suffering from hypoxia (an amount of oxygen deprivation so great the adult mind is turned into that of a slow child’s) himself, it is tear jerking to read Krakauer’s account of how his oxygen depleted mind would not allow him to comprehend the obvious dangers looming ahead for his fellow climbers and save his friend and guide, Andy Harris.

Answers also come in the commercialization of Everett where expedition teams haul novice climbers up the mountain as long as their wallets are fat enough. Since Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers to scale the mountain 43 years earlier, the previously unreachable Everett had almost become a joke to respected climbers. Mapped out by expedition teams, Everett had become exploited to the point where clients were bringing fax machines to base camp, a lama showed off a picture of himself posing with Steven Segal, and deceased climbers from failed treks shared the mountain with hundreds of depleted oxygen tanks.

Therefore, there were climbers on the mountain who had no business being there who paid an extravagant amount of money to reach the 29,028-foot summit, as if reaching the peak is something automatic when it has more do with luck and perfect conditions than actual skill and a $65,000 price tag. The question then became for expedition leaders, how do we turn around clients who are so close, have endured so much, and have paid so much money? What will turning around such high paying clients do to my company’s reputation? And sadly, the inability to make this tough decision led to the deaths of so many clients and the expedition leaders themselves.

While this is not a book that will be studied in literature classes, it is impossible not to be moved by “Into Thin Air.” It is a novel that will be enjoyed as much as Krakauer probably hated writing it.

R.I.P J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger, the author known for his solitary lifestyle almost has much as his literary talents, died two days ago at the age of 91 at his home in Cornish, NH. I'm not going to attempt any kind of essay on Salinger as the New York Times has it covered, and it will only serve as an injustice to the man who wrote "The Catcher in the Rye."

I've only read two of Salinger's novels, "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Franny and Zooey." The latter was read in my high school honors English class manly in passing as I had to write a research paper comparing and contrasting two novels written by an author we read that semester. I don't remember the novel at all as, like many papers written back then, it was done in between games of HalfLife, CounterStrike and online chatting.

But I'll never forget "The Catcher in the Rye." I've always enjoyed reading, but as many of us can agree to I'm sure, reading for school can be a chore. Often students feel forced to read novels by authors long dead about topics long forgotten in forms of English that are barely understandable today. Sometimes there are books that go against this norm and "The Catcher in the Rye" was that for me.

Finally a book for school that I actually enjoyed. This hadn't happened since sophomore English when we read the "Odyssey," and, let's just say, Salinger far surpassed Homer. We were only assigned to read the first two or three chapters the first night, but I found myself unable to put the novel down. I read at least half the book that night, only stopping because there was other homework to attend too.

"No wonder kids needed a permission slip to read this book back in the day." I thought as I flipped page after page filled with the profanities and "phonies" of Holden Caulfield.

Almost a decade later, a few years back, I re-read the book, and was amazed at how I still identified with it even though high school seemed one hundred years away. I decided then to re-read it at least once every five years or so to see how my opinion of it would change. Would I still identify with Caufield or view him with an adult's cynicism?

We'll see.

Thank you Mr. Salinger for giving us this book. I wonder how much you laughed between 1961 and 1982 when it was the most censored book in the United States.

Looking Forward to The Whigs' "In the Dark"

As January comes to an end, my anticipation is growing for The Whigs' latest album, "In the Dark," which has an official release date of March 16.

The Whigs have to be one of the most underrated bands out there. The band's first two albums, "Give 'Em All A Big Fat Lip" and "Mission Control," are what Christopher Walken as The Producer Bruce Dickinson would refer to as pure gold although neither feature one nanosecond of cowbell.

So, I'm excited to see what the trio have in store. After hearing the title track live at the Hummingbird Stage & Taproom a few months back and listening to more of the new stuff online, its pretty clear that "In the Dark" will be a new step for The Whigs.

Lead singer/guitarist Parker Gispert reaffirmed this in a November interview with Rolling Stone as he discussed the different approaches the band was taking with this album: its the first album with new bassist, Tim Deaux, the first with producer Ben Allen (Animal Collective’s "Merriweather Post Pavilion"), the first where Gispert channels the lyrical directness of country music, particularly that of Johnny Cash and the first after connecting, shiver me timbers, with Kings of Leon.

Well, the Whigs haven't disappointed yet, so I expect more greatness. I just hope "In the Dark" is more Cash than Kings.

The Hidden Genius of Home Alone

Ahh, there you are. Welcome cinephiles, one and all, to these hallowed pages where we, masters of the craft, can hide from the weekend box office smash watching rabble. I am Pavarotti Killington, your guide to the movies.

Movie critics agree that there have been numerous ground breaking pictures followed by, arguably, even greater sequels: “The Godfather” and “The Godfather II,” “A New Hope” and “The Empire Strikes Back” and “The Fellowship of the Ring” and “The Two Towers,” to name a few examples. But all of these films must bow to the greatest one, two combination of all time, the Ruth and Gehrig of movie pairings: “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2.”

Surely you jest, sir, you are saying, as you grab the nearest pitchfork and wrap this lighted article around your freshest torch. But, please, sit, and instead grab your monocle and pipe and light your finest tobacco as you ponder my argument.

At their surfaces, these two films are already high in the canon of cinematic taste for good reason. Both are hysterical, emotionally touching, and feature the fine acting of Macaulay Culkin, who is perhaps the greatest young thespian to ever grace the screen, matched, perhaps, only by Haley Joel Osment of “The Sixth Sense.”

However, in its simple packaging as a classic John Hughes comedy revered by young and old, it’s easy to miss the nuances and messages which these films truly wish to convey. Do not feel depressed or curse your supposed good taste. This is something even the greats of the illustrious American Film Institute have failed to realize with all of their tweed jackets and beard rubbing.

Enough cannot be said of the sheer genius of Hughes. Take his satirical portrayal of the suburban family in all its greatness: the big house, the fancy possessions and the wealth to send themselves and Uncle Frank’s family on not one, but two vacations.

Yet, somehow amidst this capitalist prestige, society’s model family manages to forget their youngest son, not once, but twice, causing a chain of calamity that only comes to an end thanks to the street smarts of said youngster. Would an inner city welfare mother working two jobs to make ends meet be met with such forgiveness and robust laughter, or would the forgotten child, soaked in tears, be ripped from mother’s arms to the repeated cries of “I did the best I could. It was an accident.”

The brilliance does not stop there. In “Home Alone 2,” Hughes shows us one of the grandest five stars hotels the world has ever seen. But, with all of The Plaza’s glitz, glamour and supposed hospitality, the young Kevin turns to a feces covered bird lady, who is so much of a hermit that she does not even chant, “toppins for a bag.” Hence, the two stereotypes are flipped upside down as she befriends Kevin and ultimately saves him, which the dolts at the hotel fail to do.

Sure, they were tricked by a Talkboy and foiled by the antagonist of “Angels with Even Filthier Souls,” but as adults responsible enough to run a fine hotel, society would expect them to possess the wisdom of forgiveness to save the boy. Again, Hughes’ shows that society’s labels are not always so fitting. Furthermore, that a world with no labels would perhaps be a true utopia.

The examples of such genius in these two cinematic achievements are endless, so I will digress no further as you clearly get the point. Every artist aims to create something unreachable and ever lasting. May there be hope that these “family” films are not perfection. That artists will not pack their creativity, forever depressed by the revelation that these films make future cinema irrelevant.