by Joe Simpson
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Book Description
“I had to stand there and watch while the rest of my life was determined by the shaky adhesion of a few millimetres of fractured ice and the dubious friction of a tiny point of metal in a hairline crack in a rock wall…”
Marking the climax of his climbing career, Joe Simpson confronts his fears and mountaineering history in an assault on the North Face of the Eiger. Since his epic battle for survival in the Andes, recounted in Touching the Void, Joe Simpson has experienced a life filled with adventure but marred by death. He has endured the painful attrition of climbing friends in accidents which call into question the perilously exhilarating activity to which he has devoted his whole life. Probability is inexorably closing in. The tragic loss of a close friend forces a momentous decision. It is time to turn his back on the mountains that he has loved. Never more alive than when most at risk, he has come to see a last climb on the mile-high North Face of the Eiger as the cathartic finale to his climbing career.
In a narrative that takes the reader through extreme experiences from an avalanche in Bolivia, ice-climbing in the Alps and Colorado and paragliding in Spain - before his final confrontation with the Eiger - Simpson reveals the inner truth of climbing, exploring the power of the mind and the frailties of the body through intensely lived accounts of exhilaration and despair. The subject of his new book is the siren song of fear and his struggle to come to terms with it.
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 The film was better, 2008-06-23
I saw the documentary entitled "The Beckoning Silence" on a transatlantic flight and was so overawed by its beauty, its understated sense of drama and Simpson's captivating interviews that, when the film was done, I simply went back to the beginning and watched it again. On my return flight I watched the film a third time. Like Simpson I too had read "The White Spider" as a teen and it seems we were both mesmerized by the story of Hinterstoisser's desperate attempt to lead the climb down the Eiger.
I suppose I hoped that Simpson's book would be a chance to relive the film a fourth time and I've been disappointed. On film the man is a charismatic, thoughtful and fascinating interviewee and you truly get a sense of his inner turmoil about climbing. I'd previously read "Touching The Void" and found his writing-style uninspired so, having seen him talk with such passion on film, I was hopeful that this volume would reflect my new respect for the man. Didn't happen.
So: the book is a collection of climbing stories - many of them involving tragic ends - written in the familiar Simpson style. But the film? Now there's another story! Catch it if you can.
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 Stop Whining, 2008-02-08
For a guy with the true grit to drag himself out of a crevasse and down a South American mountain in "Touching the Void", he sure does a lot of whining at the begining of this book. His attempts at existentialism really bogs the book down. Once he gets down to doing what he is good at, writing about climbing, his description of his attempt on the Eiger is gripping stuff.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Good read but doesn't quite work, 2008-02-03
This book on mountaineering is written by the author of another classic, *Touching the Void*. It's a good read but unsatisfying overall, at least to me.
Each chapter stands well enough on its own, and covers topics that are familiar in the mountaineering genre. In one chapter, a friend bails on a climb because he can't stand the growing death toll. In another, Simpson narrowly misses getting hit by an avalanche. The climax story is an attempt on the North Face of the Eiger - - what else? Simpson writes well and the stories work.
The underlying theme, though, is the hardy perennial of mountaineering: why do I do this dangerous thing even as friends continue to die? The book dances around this but never confronts this. Instead, Simpson keeps climbing even as a louder and louder voice inside him tells him to stop. The sport comes across as an addiction that can't be explained to someone who doesn't share it.
It's telling that when Simpson seriously thinks of quitting, he tries paragliding as an alternative. He and his mountaineering friends view this *dangerous* sport as a *safer* alternative to mountaineering. Why not try something more mainstream like mountain biking instead? I would have liked to see Simpson confront the issues suggested here - - whether he's pursuing adrenaline rush, death wish, a need to be extreme, or whatever it is.
Alas, the book does not provide much illumination in such matters, so I don't think it works as a whole. It succeeds as a series of magazine articles stapled together.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 the beckoning silence, 2007-12-31
book in excellent condition
arrived really quick in the desert in the middle of australia
...thanks
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Great combination of climbing history and history in the making, 2007-05-12
I decided to read this book after reading Simpson's first book Touching the Void, which is one of the most interesting and inspiring books I have ever read. The Beckoning Silence shows a different side of Joe, and one that is most entertaining. He is someone with the confidence to make fun of himself as well as expose his fears but with an unwavering inner strength and wisdom. Originally I thought the book would be entirely about climbing the Eiger, but he actually takes you on a journey climbing several mountains while paralleling his experiences with his climbing heroes of the past and interweaving the impact they have had on his life. He also takes you paragliding in Spain; although, reading about his fear of flying while on a jetliner circling the airport with mechanical problems was one of the funniest things I have read in a long time. The last quarter of the book is dedicated to his climb and his fear of climbing the Eiger and all his heroes who paved the way with their lives before him. The reflection on the death of two other British climbers on the last three pages was a bit melodramatic and way to drawn out, but I think you'll really enjoy this book and since I heard he just finished the movie of the same title, you may want to check that out as well. Incidentally, "Touching the Void" was an excellent documentary, one of the best and most interesting I have ever seen and very true to the book.
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