Wow what they went through before they even got to the mountain

Great book and excellent listen, what a breed of men they were to fight such a nasty war to then want to climb the unassailable Everest in very basic clothing and equipment extraordinary.

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1 person found this helpful

Incredible

Great historical information woven into a compulsive tale that matches any of the Everest attempts

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Monumental.......

This is certainly one of the "best" audiobooks I have ever listened to. I put best in quotation marks as it is very hard to compare to say a crime thriller or pure history. I am not surprised that it took 10 years to write as the scope is vast - from the depths of the trenches of the first world war to the heights of Everest.
I finished listening and I know that I will have to listen again as there is so much detail and information provided on the war, climbing and religion that I have certainly failed to take in quite a lot of it.
I do know one thing though, Mallory and his ilk, although perhaps driven in a way I can't really understand, are men who deserve respect (in the proper old fashioned use of the word) and really did feel that if they died while trying to achieve something they believed in utterly, it wasn't a waste.

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4 people found this helpful

An amazing, well researched epitaph

A meticulously well researched and moving biography to the lives of those who endeavoured first to climb Everest. From an era of men and women to whom we owe our freedom to enjoy the mountains. Life mattered less than the moments of being alive.

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Brilliant compelling

Having known the story of Mallory and Irvine for many years this book provided a much wider and fascinating context. Extensive research enabled Wade Davies to write a fabulous and often harrowing account of the early Everest pioneers…scarred by their war time experiences their kind would not exist today. It has left me full of admiration for those for whom the difference between life and death was like the drawing a curtain.

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Epic Tale

Well researched and a clear passion for the subject the writer gives us an outstanding tale of the Life of George Mallory.
From the depravity of World War through to the giddy heights of the tallest mountain on earth.
The big unanswered question did they make it to top?
Why read this 🤔 obvious "Because it is there"

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Haunting, beautiful and fascinating

You may have seen the grainy footage of Mallory and Irvine disappearing into the snowy vastness of Everest and the mystery of what happened to them afterwards has been enough to generate a whole series of investigations. But the genius of this book is the way it details how the whole climbing party got to that point from the Edwardian public school system via the carnage of the first world war. The war is presented as jaw droppingly awful and somehow Davis manages to find new ways to excite disgust and pity on a topic which has been written about endlessly. He goes on though to write touchingly about the aftermath of the war, the fallout for survivors and the bereaved and the place that mountain climbing played in the imagination of people who were left wholly changed by the experience of the first industrialised conflict. Once the action shifts to Everest there is plenty of interest to be found in the enormous isolation of the region and the overwhelming challenges faced by an expedition ludicrously under equipped by modern standards.

One passage that sums up the virtues of Davis as an author is the section dealing with those who wrote to the organisers of the first expedition asking to be included in the party. A lesser author might have had a bit of fun at the expense of the wide selection of totally unqualified volunteers who put themselves forward. Davis pays them the respect of telling a bit of their story to give the reader a sense of people who had really done something in the their lives and just wanted to experience adventure; like the guy who had been in action at the Front from the start of the war in 1914 right the way through to 1918 prior to staying on for a further year as the troops were demobilized. Davis takes the trouble to acknowledge that whatever his defficiencies as a mountaineer this is someone who was both incredibly brave and with much more than his fair share of luck.

It's hard to believe that there is a single interesting thing left to say about WW1 and Everest but this is an enormously rewarding listen.

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7 people found this helpful

Amazing historical tour de force

What did you like most about Into the Silence?

It gave a detailed historical background to the Everest expeditions of the 1920s, including the wartime experience of the main participants. This brought the famous names to life, allowing the listener to identify with their struggles.
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What was one of the most memorable moments of Into the Silence?

It is hard to choose just one, but some of the descriptions of the first world war left me shocked and stunned; the writing was so vivid that I felt I was there.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

I was irritated at the mispronounciation of most of the French place names, and also at the American style of saying dates (eg October one, rather than the first of October). But the pace was good and the speech clear..

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

The film has already been made! John Noel's Epic of Everest, made by one of the participants in the 1924 expedition, has just been remastered and released.

Any additional comments?

The only reason I am givng four stars and not five is that sometimes the details of the mountain geography were rather repetitive and confusing; this might have been easier to cope with in print, where you can go back a page or two to check things. But this is a minor criticism.
I would urge anyone nervous of the length of the book to go ahead; it is full of detail, sometimes quite difficult to retain, but at the end I felt I had lived through the whole experience. I think this book will stay with me long after most works of fiction have gone out of my mind.

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I am in complete awe.

I was captivated and inspired from start to finish. A world and landscape from just less than a century ago that is explored and described so beautifully that seems so, so distant and yet really isn't. Astonishing tales of endurance, insight into the individuals involved and their will against unimaginable powers of nature. Beautifully written, researched and read. A top listen that at times took my breath away with it's power and the mental and physical power of those involved. I am in complete awe.

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Superb.

A mesmerising tale as staggering as Mount Everest itself and brilliantly captured by the narrator.

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