What are the limits of human endurance? It's fashionable to declare that we are only constrained by our expectations, that, if we could but throw off the mental and societal shackles we place upon ourselves, anything is achievable. Deep down, though, we all know this is nonsense. Yes, this pretty fiction may benefit us as a sop to our egos and a handy tool for motivation, but its utility ends there. Humans are animals and, like animals, our bodies can only endure so much pain and numbness, heat and cold, light and oblivion, before we surrender. But however compelling this logic may be, it does nothing to prevent the bravest and craziest among us from pushing themselves to that fateful line, to that moment beyond which death is assured. This is the macabre but fascinating theme that plays beneath Mr. Davis' intriguing but interminable history of the Mallory-lead expeditions to climb Mount Everest in the 1920s. Its affect will linger for some time.
In many ways, World War I destroyed the promise of the 20th century. In their arrogance, kings and politicians capitalized on all the grand, technological promise of their age and deployed it in a global conflict that sent millions of young men senselessly to early graves. The war, which lasted four painful years, ruined economies, ripped apart social fabrics, ended empires and inaugurated an age of mass-slaughter that characterized the whole of the century. The war was so costly that, In 1914, one out of every three British men, from 13 to 24, was killed. This was not a darkness from which any civilization could easily return. And yet, in his attempts to reach the summit of the world, one son of this slaughter would do his part to heal the wounded ego of a battered Britain and, in doing so, taste greatness.
The son of a clergyman, George Mallory was a tall and unusually attractive man who, after being educated at all the right schools, and after rubbing shoulders with the famed Bloomsbury group, was sent, like many of his friends, to war. But after making it through that terrible cyclone unscathed, he fixed upon a new mission, one that would take him far from the unimaginable devastation of western Europe. He would test himself against Mount Everest. The world's tallest peek at 29,000 feet, the mountain, nestled deep in the heart of forbidden country, had never before been summited. What's more, it was, or so its Tibetan natives believed, inhabited by great spirits whose wrath would be aroused by any attempt to climb its sacred slopes.
Accepting the former as a challenge and dismissing the latter as silly superstition, Mallory effectively lead three expeditions to the mountain from 1921 to 1924, each one financially and technically backed by Britain's prestigious Alpine Club. But even steeled by the Great War, supplemented by the finest gear, and willed onward by the most earnest desire for success and fortune, the first two efforts to scale the mountain ended in failure not a thousand feet from the elusive peek. The final ascent, in 1924, turned into the mystery of the century as Mallory and his climbing companion disappeared, pulled down into Everest's icy embrace and trapped there for 70 years until climbers in 1999 discovered their well-preserved bodies.
At nearly 700 pages, Into The Silence is a mind-numbingly thorough reconstruction of Mallory, his many companions and their three attempts to conquer the world's highest peek. Mr. Davis leaves no climber unacknowledged in his singlehanded attempt to fill out each man's background and to ground their collective achievements in the most traumatic event of their era. In this, the work becomes as much a history of war and its consequences as it is a paean the veterans of the Alpine Club whose ambitions knew no bounds. To the extent that Mr. Davis furnishes us with a detailed, chronological recount of the Mallory expeditions, Into The Silence is a success. However, the sheer voluminousness of the result is enough to cause the reader's eyes to blur with fatigue. For the author's exhaustive research overwhelms the reader, leaving him gasping for air as he is drowned in a sea of secondary players, most of whom have been lost to time.
At times, Into The Silence is compelling; the physical deprivations these men endured for the achievement of a goal is remarkable and well-deserving of celebration. Their lives are interesting, their pasts moving. But the work, otherwise, collapses under its own weight, leaving the reader flailing for purchase. the narrative too often digresses into detail that should have found the cutting room floor, causing the work to often lose focus. Oppressively informative... (3/5 Stars)
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