#79: High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed by Michael Kodas

New York: Hyperion, 2008. 357 pages

I have always had this strange fascination with Mt. Everest. I don't want to climb the damn thing and really do not want to go there. I'm perfectly happy to live vicariously through the people who attempt to get up to the high point. Michael Kodas is a writer for the Hartford Courant who went on an expedition to the mountain with a team funded by his newspaper and the state of Connecticut. The story that Kodas unfolds during his 2004 expedition is terrifying.

In 2004 seven people died on Everest; at least one of them was left on his own by a man he paid more than $10,000 to guide him to the top. One was a 63 year old Japanese woman who slipped 1000 feet below the summit and dangled off a rope, dying before her colleagues could save her. What emerges from this text is a place where no one is safe. It's a place that if you go alone (like David Sharpe in 2006) you will be left to die by other climbers. It is such a money maker that theft seems endemic in the high altitudes, with food, head lamps and even fucking crampons stolen from other climbers.

More importantly, it seems to be "a source of bragging rights" according to one climber (187). It is a source of bragging rights for many wealthy westerners; some guide companies ask for more than $30,000 for a trip that may or may not be successful. It is wonderful when a blind man climbs Everest, or when a double amputee does. This book does not come out and question whether or not they should have been there in the first place. In both those instances, they were experienced mountaineers who knew what they were in for. In that case, they absolutely should be there. The real question becomes should all of these fucking people be there? The answer to that is a resounding "NO"

Kodas's expedition fell apart in a blaze of recriminations, fistfights and anger. In Kodas' text, it is not the environment that is in the most danger (even though it is in a perilous position) but in some cases the humanity of those that undertake the climb. This is what makes the book so scary; imagine falling into a tent you cached food at at the 7200 meter level only to find it looted. Night is coming on, but your sleeping bag has also been stolen. What do you do? Some poor bastards have had to ask this true life and death question. Read this book to find out their answers. I could not recommend this book enough.

#78: The Return of the King by JRR Tolkien

Silver Jubilee Edition, Ballantine Books.

Well, this is it. I put these away for another year. In some ways, this is the most difficult book to plow through, as the temptation to just get to the parts where:

--Gollum bites Frodo's finger off
--And Saruman (nee Sharkey) gets stabbed by Wormtongue for being a general bastard.

In some ways, the reader is carrying a burden along with Frodo. Tolkien was in love with using the phrase "Behold!" and words such as "splendor" and "beauty" and "puissant". I remember the first time I came across that word, "puissant".  It means "powerful" or "having high influence". How has the writing changed since the 1920s and 1930s?

1. Eowyn, you sought the Lord Aragorn's love because he was high and puissant
2. Eowyn, you wanted to bang Aragorn because he is hot dirty or clean and can kill 400 orcs with his two day old stubble alone.

I can hear it now: "Did Faramir call Aragorn a pussy??????" Well, no he did not, you illiterate baboon! I love the fact that Frodo could not go through with destroying the ring in the end. The passage in the book reads almost matter of factly, as if you should have expected it all along. No one really destroys the ring in the end, as Gollum just pulls it off and falls over the edge. It destroys itself. I don't know what that means exactly, but evil and bad experiences can't really ever be excised. They remain, no matter what you do or how hard you try to forget them.

This is what makes the Battle for the Shire, left out of the film, so poignant and meaningful. The Hobbits, much like the generation of men such as Tolkien who went off to World War I, came home having seen things that no person should ever have to see. Death, destruction, waste, fear, hate; all of these take a toll. As they know these things, jack asses who play act like Bill Ferney hold no power over Pippin, Sam, Frodo and Merry. What is wonderful is how the Hobbits use a terrible experience as a positive. They clean up the Shire and become great leaders; they could have just as easily became bitter, angry and hate filled.

That being said, the experience changed them utterly. This is hinted at in the film when the four mates share an ale and look very uncomfortable in a place where a year earlier they would have been dancing. They have become part of a wider world and a wider narrative, which I think is what Tolkien was really getting at. We have a choice whether to leave home, to go where we are asked by friends, countries, governments. That journey changes our expectations as we become part of a wider tale, whether it is war, making friends from far off places, meeting people not of your race or class. Our minds can incorporate these things or not, and we can choose to return home. But those things stay with us and endanger the safety of the memories of our home. It may seem smaller, meaner, less important and wrapped up with meaningless things like fun, drinking, dancing and the rest. The important idea is to not be ashamed of where you are from if it is filled with frivolity, and not to begrudge those who know only happiness. Those of us who have seen sadness, loss and pain in great measure must protect those who have not from the very things we have experienced. That is the lesson I take from Frodo Nine Fingers and the Ring.