Thursday, June 10, 2010

Jeffrey Archer's Paths of Glory

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this story. It's really the book that has gotten me interested in "historical fiction", and curious about Mount Everest. This is mostly a "what if" type story. What if Edmond Hillery was not the first person to climb the mountain, but a man by the name of George Mallory was, and we didn't know it? What if he climbed the mountain, but it couldn't be proven? After I read it, well, listened to the audio book actually, I looked up some of the details the book gave only to find out that the story could possibly have happened, and in fact, some people believe it did. A lot of the facts are actually in history and we'll honestly never know if this story hits the mark, but it's always fun to have all of these seemingly useless facts about Mount Chomolangma in my head.

2 comments:

Sean Patrick Reardon said...

Glenna,

Like most things I take interest in, I go way overboard. When I took up snowboarding about 12 years ago, I also aquired a fascination with Mt.Everest. I am familiar with both Hillary & Mallory's story and remember seeing a great special on PBS about it. Glad they found Mallory's body. Can't believe that a teenager just reached the Summmit not too log ago. I think I will have to read this book. Thanks for the heads up.

Glenna said...

Yeah, when I was looking up info on climbing the mountain, I read someone, forgot who, put some "cheats" in to make it easier to get over the impossible parts. There are permanent ropes and ladders, stuff like that. Doesn't seem right..