Engrossing, but marred by an undercurrent of resentment of the male ego.

books:


	• Savage Summit: The True Stories of the First Five Women Who Climbed K2, the World's Most Feared Mountain Jennifer Jordan William Morrow, 2005 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Engrossing, but marred by an undercurrent of resentment of the male ego.

As a man, I came looking for a story of risk and adventure from a woman's perspective. I too wanted to understand what drew these pioneers to the high and lonely places. The stories of the five women were gripping and well written, but I found the harsh and unrelenting criticism of the male ego tiring. The men and women of the climbing community share the same desire to conquer and to be tested. I had hoped for a story of shared desire, not of bitter divide between fraternity and sorority.

A different perspective on high-altitude climbing

There just aren't many books by women about high-altitude climbing so this one was a welcome addition to the pantheon. Jennifer Jordan (who is not herself an Alpinist) has written an interesting but slightly flawed book about the lives and deaths of the first five women to summit K2.

Everest may be the world's tallest mountain, but K2 with it's unpredictable weather systems, isolated location, avalanche danger (made more prevalent by global warming), technical complexity and colder climate is considered the more difficult climb. At the time this book was written, out of the nearly 200 people who had summited, only five were women who are all now deceased (there have been a few more women who have successfully summitted in the time since.) Three had died on the descent, the other two later on subsequent climbs. In the group were two Frenchwomen (Chantal Mauduit, Liliane Barrard), one Pole (the legendary Wanda Rutkiewicz) and two Brits (Julie Tullis and Alison Hargreaves.) Jordan has researched their lives as best as she could given some (particularly Barrard) left little in the way of autobiographical information. Along the way, they deal with sexism-both from the Pakistani government as well as, more depressingly, their male climbers-as well as certain advantages of biology (women seem to be less prone to high-altitude sickness and frostbite although the reasons for this are still speculative.)

Jordan has lots to say about sexism in mountaineering that was quite illuminating. Additionally, she is a worthy voice for these women who are not near as famous as their male counterparts. She clearly liked some of the protagonists better than others but she does make the effort to portray them as the complex, flawed and original women that they were. There is lots of information about the history of mountaineering both in the Karakoram and on Europe's summits and some great anecdotes about the women's early climbing experiences.

What was less enjoyable was Jordan's thesis that there is a curse on women who climb K2 (the mythology being that K2 is masculine energy as opposed to Everest's feminine energy.) With a 1 in 7 chance of a climber dying on descent, it is sad but not surprising some of the first women to climb K2 did not make it down. As many men in the book survive K2 only to die on a future summit as well (Michel Parmentier, Rob Hall and Benoit Chamoux to name a few), Rutkiewicz and Mauduit's later deaths are indeed tragic, but also not unexpected. High-altitude climbing is a hobby with high mortality rate. No mystical reasons need be sought and I think it does something of a disservice to the climbing community-female in particular-to spread superstition. As some other reviewers, I also found Jordan's habit of speaking of the dead's thoughts in their final days as disconcerting since some, such as Hargreaves who died in a storm on her descent from the K2, could not have left a record of her thoughts on making the summit. While Jordan mentions in the beginning she took "Perfect Storm" liberties, it was mildly off-putting.

Despite these complaints, I still did enjoy this book. It is for the most part well-written and gives attention to a chapter in mountaineering that is sadly marginalized. Read it and learn about the pull of the Death Zone, the history of K2, and the victories a small group of exceptional women experienced in a male-dominated sport.

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Compelling lives, less than compelling writer

"Savage Summit" - it seems that every author who writes about K2 feels the need to write IN BOLD the difficulty of climbing the world's most dangerous peak. Or is it a weakness for climbing cliches? It is difficult to find well - written mountaineering books, and Jordan's lack of climbing experience (or is it writing experience? Or both?) marrs this attempt.

The climbers she covers are all exceptionally interesting, and Jordan does do an adequate job of depicting the difficulties encountered by female alpinists in the hyper macho, competitive and male dominated world of Himalayan climbing. Especially interesting to read about are Mauduit and Rutkiewiecz, opposites in their personal style in the Himalayas. But I do agree with other reviewers - too much juvenile male-bashing here. And given the arena, its not hard to find easy targets.

But her attempts to resurrect the psychological states of these five dead climbers can be awkward, and sometimes just inept or embarassing. The writing in general is unexceptional, too amateurish, and sometimes I wondered how much she really knew about the climbers, or climbing in general. In the end, it comes off as an attempt to write a feminist critique of Himalayan climbing by trying to show that there was some general feminist motive shared by all five of these climbers. And as they are all dead, we can't ask them, but Jordan founders in this respect. In the end their only shared legacy is a love for the highest ranges in the world.

Overall, worth reading. Not worth buying.

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Tales of strength and determination

I could not put this book down. I knew nothing of alpine climbing to begin with, but became engrossed by the descriptions of the mountains that inspired the lives of the first five women who climbed K2. Myself, I am inspired by the strength of these women. One reviewer commented that the author seemed to have something against male climbers. I did not get this feeling, but rather felt that she was descrbing things as they were, with men often resenting and feeling threatened by these women's accomplishments. As other reviewers have said, these women were indeed complex. I was struck by the pattern of some of their deaths: continuing on when weather was bad for example, or underestimating their need for gear in their summit bids. But then, at 8,000+ meters in freezing temperatures and with little food to eat and scarce oxygen in the air, one can understand how decisions would be difficult! I suspect that these mistakes are not unique to women, but have claimed the lives of many a climber, male and female alike.

A wonderful read, an inspiration, and a tribute to the awesome power of nature and the strength and fragility of human life.

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Gripping, well-written book that leaves the reader appalled.

Jennifer Jordan is an outstanding writer and somebody who knows mountaineering inside and out. Because of her background, she makes the tragic stories of the first five women who climbed K2 (Wanda Rutkiewicz, Liliane Barrard, Julie Tullis, Alison Hargreaves, and Chantal Mauduit) come alive. These women were all complex individuals, but they all had what I consider an insane drive to achieve something few people would bother to achieve. And in the end, like so many other top mountaineers, they ended up dead.

Some may romanticize their deaths as something they would have "wanted," that the manner of their deaths was better than rotting away from Alzheimer's, cancer, or getting killed in other, more mundane accidents, but in the end this reader was totally appalled by their foolhardiness, their stupidity even. Just in case the reader may think I am sexist, I also think it is idiotic for men to engage in high-altitude mountain climbing. Sooner or later, there is a very real chance a person will die from it. And for what? For bragging rights? Talk about pointless.

Nevertheless, this is a great read, almost as good as Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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