196. WHISKY SOUR

J.A. Konrath 2004

Synopsis from the Author's Website:

    Lt. Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels is having a VERY bad week...

    Jack's live-in boyfriend has left her for his personal trainer, chronic insomnia has maxed out her credit cards with late-night home shopping purchases, and a frightening killer who calls himself "The Gingerbread Man" is dumping mutilated bodies in her district.
    Between avoiding the FBI and their moronic profiling computer, joining a dating service, mixing it up with street thugs, and parrying the advances of an uncouth PI, Jack and her binge-eating partner Herb must catch the maniac before he kills again...and Jack is next on his murder list..

What Hooked Me:

For somebody who watches as many detective/cop/crime shows like I do (my favorites: all the CSIs, both NCIS, the Mentalist, Blue Blood and Bones), I found this book's simple plot still fresh, enjoyable and truly suspenseful. I also like that the author infused humor to the very serious subject matter and that Jack Daniels is a tough female detective.

The Quotes:

'There were four black and whites already at the 7-eleven when I arrived. Several people had gathered in the parking lot behind the yellow police tape, huddling close for protection against the freezing Chicago rain.  They weren't there for the Slurpees.'(opening lines)

"This was stapled to her chest."
Benedict handed me a plastic evidence bag. In it was a three-by-five-inch piece of paper, crinkled edges on one end indicating it had been ripped from a spiral pad. It was spotty with blood and rain, but the writing on it was clear:

you can't catch ME

IM THE GINGERBREADMAN' (2)

'If this wasn't such a somber situation, the image of two detectives flashing around the picture of the gingerbread man and asking "Have you seen him?" would be pretty funny.'(8)

'I eyed the half-finished drink in my hand. When Jacqueline Streng married Alan Daniels, she became Jack Daniels. Ever since, people have given me bottles of the stuff as gifts, each probably thinking they were being clever. I was forced to develop a taste for it, or else open up my own liquor store.'(18)

'DO, or disorganized criminal, usually have little or no planning stage. Their crimes are spur of the moment, either lust-or rage-induced. Signs of guilt or remorse can usually be found at the scene, such as something covering the victim's face; an indication the killer doesn't like the accusation of a staring pair of eyes. Clues in the form of physical and circumstantial evidence abound, because the DO type doesn't stop to cover them up, or only does as an afterthought.'(32)

'Two months wasn't enough time to get over the death of a parent. Some people never get over it.'(60)

'Both Coursey and Daile chuckled. Exactly three chuckles each, and then they stopped simultaneously. Eerie.'(66)

'No one likes an asshole, Jack, until you have to move your bowels.'(101)

'I knew an ex-cop who used an expression whenever something bad happened. He was a real creep, but as the years passed I've come to respect the honesty of his words. Whenever he'd failed a test, or gotten a reprimand, he always said, "It's just one more layer on the shit cake. ... With all the layers I'd buily up over my life, I suppose one more didn't matter too much."'(110)

'But my mom ... my mom was everything to me. She was my best friend, my mentor, my hero. She was the reason I became a cop.' ... Mothers shouldn't be allowed to get old and fragile.'(119)

"I have some things to say, and then afterward I can answer a few questions," I told the crowd, giving them a chance to switch on their cameras and focus. "First of all, I was shot by the criminal that the press is calling the Gingerbread Man. He'd broken into my apartment last night. As you can see, my injury isn't serious. He couldn't aim the gun properly, because he was hysterical, crying for his mama."
Herb gave me a slight nudge in the ribs, but I was just warming up.
"Besides the obvious emotional problems, the killer is also very stupid. The only reason we haven't caught him yet is because he's been lucky, and because he's a coward who runs away when confronted."(133)

"I wish I was like that. More carefree."
"Anyone can be. People aren't carved out of marble. We're all works in progress. The trick is to define ourselves, rather than let outside influences define us."(191)

"He clubs, which means that the ends of his pen strokes are thicker than the beginnings. That's a characteristic usually found in sadistic personalities. You can see it on the down strokes of his t, l, f, i and on the bottoms of the y and b."(200)

'His pressure and angularity are very extreme. Again, indicators of violent behavior and aggression. The d is the social self-image letter. His d's are slanted to the right and clubbed. This usually means an inflated ego, along with a desire to control situations.'(200)

'You're the total of all the choices you've made in your life, Jack. This is what you have because this is what you chose.'(207)

First eBook Edition
279 pages
Book owned (on my Kindle)
Book qualifies for: 100 + Reading Challenge
Book idea from Petty Witter @ Pen and Paper. She always has such funny and interesting posts. So when I saw her review I thought I should take the book with me on my last trip four months ago. She promised a good entertaining read, and that it was. Her review is HERE.

195. NIGHT CIRCUS

Erin Morgenstern 2011

The Book Jacket Blurb:

    The circus arrives without warning. No announcements preceded it, no paper notices plastered on lampposts and billboards. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.
    Within these nocturnal black-and-white-striped tents awaits an utterly unique experience, a feast for the senses, where one can get lost in a maze of clouds, meander through a lush garden made of ice, stare in wonderment as the tattooed contortionist folds herself into a small glass box, and become deliciously tipsy from the scents of caramel and cinnamon that waft through the air.
    Welcome to Le Cirque des Reves.
    Beyond the smoke and mirrors, however, a fierce competition is under way -- a contest between two young illusionists, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood to compete in a "game" to which they have been irrevocably bound by their mercurial masters. Unbeknownst to the players, this is a game in which only one can be left standing and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will.
    As the circus travels around the world, the feats of magic gain fantastical new heights with every stop. The game is well under way and the lives of all those involved -- the eccentric circus owner, the elusive contortionist, the mystical fortune teller, and a pair of red-headed twins born backstage among them -- are swept up in a wake of spells and charms.
    But when Celia discovers that Marco is her adversary, they begin to think of the game not as a competition but as a wonderful collaboration. With no knowledge of how the game must end, they innocently tumble headfirst into love. A deep, passionate, and magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm wherever they so much as brush hands.
    Their masters will pull the strings, however, and this unforeseen occurrence forces them to intervene with dangerous consequences, leaving the lives of everyone from the performers to the patrons hanging in the balance.

What Hooked Me:

Perhaps it helped that I read this book slowly and leisurely,  for there are lots to imagine and visualize in this highly creative debut novel. I found each inspired illusion, each magical tent  (i.e. the Labyrinth, Celia's Feats of Illustrious Illusions, Widget's Anthology of Memory, the Hall of Mirrors, the Carousel, the Ice Garden, the Cloud Maze, the Pool of Tears) and each character truly enchanting and imaginative. I definitely would love to see a movie that would dare capture this amazing Night Circus.

The Quotes:

'The circus arrives without warning. ... No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. ... The towering tents are striped in white and black, no gold and crimsons to be seen. No color at all, save for the neighboring trees and the grass of the surrounding fields.'(opening lines)

'And the black sign painted in white letters that hangs upon the gates, the one that reads:

Opens at Nightfall

Closes at Dawn.'(3)

'People see what they wish to see. And in most cases, what they are told that they see.'(28)

'Chandresh relishes reactions. Genuine reactions, not mere polite applause. He often values the reactions over the show itself. A show without an audience is nothing after all. In the response of the audience, that is where the power of the performance lives. ... He was raised in the theater, sitting in boxes at the ballet. Being a restless child, he quickly grew bored with the familiarity of the dances and chose instead to watch the audiences. To see when they smiled and gasped, when the women sighed and when the men began to nod off.'(45)

'The face of the clock becomes a darker grey, and then black, with twinkling stars where the numbers had been previously. The body of the clock, which has been methodically turning itself inside out and expanding, is now entirely subtle shades of white and grey. And it is not just pieces, it is figures and objects, perfectly carved flowers and planets and tiny books with actual paper pages that turn. There is a silver dragon that curls around part of the now visible clockwork, a tiny princess in a carved tower who paces in distress, awaiting an absent prince. Teapots that pour into teacups and minuscule curls of steam that rise from them as the seconds tick. Wrapped presents open. Small cats chase small dogs. An entire game of chess is played.'(69)

'Celia smiles. "You are looking for someone who can perform in the midst of a crowd?" she asks Chandresh. He nods. "I see," Celia says. Then, so swiftly she appears not even to move, she picks up her jacket from the stage and flings it out over the seats where, instead of tumbling down, it swoops up, folding into itself. In the blink of an eye folds of silk are glossy black feathers, large beating wings, and it is impossible to pinpoint the moment when it is fully raven and no longer cloth. The raven swoops over the red velvet seats and up into the balcony where it flies in curious circles.'(75)

'Word spreads quickly in such select circles, and so begins a tradition of reveurs attending Le Cirque des Reves decked in black or white or grey with a single shock of red: a scarf or hat, or, if the weather is warm, a red rose tucked into a lapel or behind an ear. It is also quite helpful for spotting other reveurs, a simple signal for those who know. ... There are those who have the means, and even some who do not but creatively manage anyway, to follow the circus from location to location. There is no set itinerary that is public knowledge. The circus moves from place to place every few weeks, with the occasional extended break, and no one truly knows where it might appear until the tents are already erected in a field in a city or a countryside, or somewhere in between.'(142)

'They seek each other out, these people of such specific like mind. They tell how they found the circus, how those first few steps were like magic. Like stepping into a fairy tale under a curtain of stars. They pontificate upon the fluffiness of the popcorn, the sweetness of the chocolate. They spend hours discussing the quality of the light, the heat of the bonfire.'(143)

'Life takes us to unexpected places sometimes. The future is never set in stone, remember that.'(169)

"Secrets have power," Widget begins. "And the power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one person, will change them. Writing them down is worse, because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it. So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours."(173)

"It is too difficult to see a situation for what it is when you are in the midst of it." Tsukiko says. "it is too familiar. Too comfortable."(188)

'The past stays on you the way powdered sugar stays on your fingers. Some people can get rid of it but it's still there, the events and things that pushed you to where you are now.'(199)

'He looks around at the jars and bottles, intrigued but hesitant to open another. He picks up a frosted-glass mason jar and unscrews the silver metal lid. The jar is not empty but contains a small amount of white sands which shifts at the bottom. The scent that wafts from it is the unmistakable smell of the ocean, a bright summer day at the seashore. He can hear the sound of waves crashing against the sand, the cry of a seagull. There is something mysterious as well, something fantastical. The flag of a pirate ship on the far horizon, a mermaid's tail flipping out of sight behind a wave. The scent and feeling are adventurous and exhilarating with the salty tinge of a sea breeze.'(238)

'The striped canvas sides of the tent stiffens, the soft surface hardening as the fabric changes to paper. Words appear over the walls, typeset letters overlapping handwritten text. Celia can make out snatches of Shakespearean sonnets and fragments of hymns to Greek goddesses as the poetry fills the tent. It covers the walls and the ceiling and spreads out over the floor. ... And then the tent begins to open, the paper folding and tearing. The black striped stretch out into empty space as their white counterparts brighten, reaching upward and breaking apart into branches.'(259)

'Memories begin to creep forward from hidden corners of your mind. Passing disappointments. Lost chances and lost causes. Heartbreaks and pain and desolate, horrible loneliness. ... Sorrows you thought long forgotten mingle with still-fresh wounds. ... the stone feels heavier in your hand. ... When you drop it in the pool to join the rest of the stones, you feel lighter. As though you have released something more than a smooth polished piece of rock.'(282-283)

"Love is fickle and fleeting," Tsukiko continues. "It is rarely a solid foundation for decisions to be made upon, in any game."(306)

'Old stories have a habit of being told and retold and changed. Each subsequent storyteller puts his or her marks upon it. Whatever truth the story once has is buried in bias and embellishment. The reasons do not matter as much as the story itself.'(345)

"It is important," the man in the grey suit interrupts. "someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find the treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice up of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There's magic in that. It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it..."(381)

a Doubleday Hardcover First Edition
387 pages
Book owned
Book qualifies for: 100 + Reading Challenge

194. FRANNY and ZOOEY

J. D. Salinger 1961

Synopsis from Goodreads:

    The short story, "Franny", takes place in an unnamed college town and tells the tale of an undergraduate who is becoming disenchanted with the selfishness and inauthenticity she perceives all around her.
    The novella, Zooey, is named for Zooey Glass, the second-youngest member of the Glass family. As his younger sister, Franny, suffers a spiritual and existential breakdown in her parents' Manhattan living room – leaving Bessie, her mother, deeply concerned – Zooey comes to her aid, offering what he thinks is brotherly love, understanding, and words of sage advice.


What Hooked Me:
There is a lot to be learned from this novella about siblings Franny and Zooey. It has been a while since I have read such a touching brother-sister story. And who knew that a young, smart Alec, loudmouth, know-it-all Zooey can actually remind me to never forget to continue to sing to the Fat Lady?

The Quotes:
'Though brilliantly sunny, Saturday morning was overcoat weather again, not just topcoat weather, as it had been all week and as everyone had hoped it would stay for the big weekend -- the weekend of the Yale game. Of the twentysome young men who were waiting at the station for their dates to arrive on the ten-fifty-two, no more than six or seven were out on the cold, open platform.'(opening lines)

'All I know is I'm losing my mind," Franny said. "I'm just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else's. I'm sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It's disgusting -- it is, it is.'(29-30)

"I'm not afraid to compete. It's just the opposite. Don't you see that? I'm afraid I will compete -- that's what scares me."(30)

'To resume: The long, typewritten, four-year-old letter that Zooey had checked into the bathtub with, on this Monday morning in November, 1955, had obviously been taken out of the envelope and unfolded and refolded on too many private occasions during the four years, so that now it not only had an over-all unappetitlich appearance but was actually torn in several places, mostly among the creases. The author of the letter, as stated earlier, was Zooey's eldest brother, Buddy. The letter itself was virtually endless in length, overwritten, teaching, repetitious, opinionated, remonstrative, condescending, embarrassing -- and filled, to a surfeit, with affection. In short, it was exactly the kind of letter that a recipient, whether he wants to or not, carries around for some time in his hip pocket. And that professional writers of a type love to reproduce:...'(55-56)

'Much, much more important, though, Seymour had already begun to believe (and I agreed with him, as far as I was able to see the point) that education by any name would smell as sweet, and maybe much sweeter, if it didn't begin with a quest for knowledge at all but with a quest, as Zen would put it, for no-knowledge.'(65)

'"All right, all right, young man," Mrs Glass said. Whatever her taste in television-play titles, or her aesthetics in general, a flicker came into her eyes -- no more than a flicker, but a flicker -- of connoiseurlike, if perverse, relish for her youngest, and only handsome, son's style of bullying. For a split second, it displaced the look of all-round wear and, plainly, specific worry that had been on her face since she entered the bathroom.'(81)

'You can't live in this world with such strong likes and dislikes.'(99)

"I don't know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it doesn't make you happy."(118)

"It's us," Zooey repeated, overriding her. "We're freaks, that's all. Those two bastards got us nice and early and made us into freaks with freakish standards, that's all. We're the Tattooed Lady, and we're never going to have a minute's peace, the rest of our lives, till everybody else is tattooed, too."... "On top of everything else," he said immediately, "we've got "Wise Child" complexes. We've never really got off the goddam air. Not one of us. We don't talk, we hold forth. We don't converse, we expound. At least I do. The minute I'm in a room with somebody who has the usual number of ears, I either turn into a goddam seer or a human hatpin."(139-140)

'I mean, treasure is treasure, for heaven's sake. What's the difference whether the treasure is money, or property, or even culture, or even just plain knowledge? It all seemed like exactly the same thing to me, if you take off the wrapping -- and it still does! Sometimes I think that knowledge -- when it's knowledge for knowledge's sake anyway -- is the worst of all.'(146)

" Don't you think I have sense enough to worry about my motives for saying the prayer? That's exactly what's bothering me so. Just because I'm choosy about what I want -- in this case, enlightenment, or peace, instead of money or prestige or fame or any of those things -- doesn't mean I'm not as egoistical and self-seeking as everybody else."(149)

"...there isn't any prayer in any religion in the world that justifies piousness.'(160)

"Why are you breaking down, incidentally? I mean if you're able to go into a collapse with all your might, why can't you use the same energy to stay well and busy?"(166-167)

'Every inch of visible surface of the board had been decorated, with four somewhat gorgeous-looking columns of quotations from a variety of the world's literature. The lettering was minute, but jet-black and passionately legible, if just a trifle fancy in spots, and without blots or erasures. The workmanship was no less fastidious even at the bottom of the board, near the doorsill, where the two penmen, each in his turn, had obviously lain on their stomachs. No attempt whatever had been made to assign quotations or authors to categories or groups of any kind. So that to read the quotations from top to bottom, column by column, was rather like walking through an emergency station set up in a flood area, where, for example, Pascal had been unribaldly bedded down with Emily Dickinson and where, so to speak, Baudelaire's and Thomas a Kempis's toothbrushes were hanging side by side.'(176-177)

'... Even if you went out and searched the whole world for a master -- some guru, some holy man -- to tell you how to say your Jesus prayer properly, what good would it do you? How in hell are you going to recognize a legitimate holy man when you see one if you don't even know a cup of consecrated chicken soup when it's right in front of your nose?'(196)

'An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.'(199)

'Seymour's told me to shine my shoes just as I was going out the door with Waker. I was furious. The studio audience were all morons, the announcer was a moron, the sponsors were morons, and I just damn well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour. I said that they couldn't see them anyway, where we sat. He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady.'(200)

'Franny took in her breath slightly but continued to hold the phone to her ear. A dial tone, of course, followed the formal break in the connection. She appeared to find it extraordinarily beautiful to listen to, rather as if it were the best possible substitute for the primordial silence itself. But she seemed to know, too, when to stop listening to it, as if all of what little or much wisdom there is in the world were suddenly hers.'(202)

A Bantam mass paperback edition
202 pages
Book owned
Book qualifies for : 100+ Reading Challenge

193. INTO THIN AIR

Jon Krakauer 1997

The Book Jacket Blurb:

    When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly toward the top. No one had noticed that the sky had begun to fill with clouds. Six hours later and 3,000 feet lower, in 70-knot winds and blowing snow, Krakauer collapsed in his tent, freezing, hallucinating from exhaustion and hypoxia, but safe. The following morning he learned that six of his fellow climbers hadn't made it back to their camp and were in a desperate struggle for their lives. When the storm finally passed, five of them would be dead, and the sixth so horribly frostbitten that his right hand would have to be amputated.
    Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the bestseller Into The Wild. On assignment for Outside magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalaya as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world. A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and led thirty-nine climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.
    Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people -- including himself -- to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eye-witness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.

What Hooked Me:

The author wrote this book as an act of catharsis soon after the 1996 Mt. Everest climbing disaster, and as such, it is highly compelling and very emotional. It is remarkably written and includes enough background information to understand the sport of climbing and climbing the Everest, in particular.

The Quotes:

'Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet. I understood on some dim, detached level that the sweep of earth beneath my feet was a spectacular sight. I'd been fantasizing about this moment, and the release of emotion that would accompany it, for many months. But now that I was finally here, actually standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn't summon the energy to care.'(opening lines)

'And climbing provided a sense of community as well. To become a climber was to join a self-contained, rabidly idealistic society, largely unnoticed and surprisingly uncorrupted by the world at large. The culture of ascent was characterized by intense competition and undiluted machismo, but for the most part, its constituents were concerned with impressing only one another. Getting to the top of any given mountain was considered much less important than how one got there: prestige was earned by tackling the most unforgiving routes with minimal equipment, in the boldest style imaginable. Nobody was admired more than so-called free soloists: visionaries who ascended alone, without rope or hardware.'(20)

'The ink black wedge of the summit pyramid stood out in stark relief, towering over the surrounding ridges. Thrust high into the jet stream, the mountain ripped a visible gash in the 120-knot hurricane, sending forth a plume of ice crystals that trailed to the east like a long silk scarf. As I gazed across the sky at this contrail, it occurred to me that the top of Everest was precisely the same height as the pressurized jet bearing me through the heavens. That I proposed to climb to the cruising altitude of an Airbus 300 jetliner stuck me, at that moment, as preposterous, or worse. My palms felt clammy.'(30)

(photo from Wikepedia, Mt Everest)

'I didn't doubt the potential value of paying attention to subconscious cues. As I waited for Rob to lead the way, the ice underfoot emitted a series of loud cracking noises, like small trees being snapped in two, and I felt myself wince with each pop and rumble from the glacier's shifting depths. Problem was, my inner voice resembled Chicken Little: it was screaming that I was about to die, but it did that almost every time I laced up my climbing boots. I therefore did my damnedest to ignore my histrionic imagination and grimly followed Rob into the eerie blue labyrinth.'(77)

'The slopes of Everest did not lack for dreamers in the spring of 1996; the credentials of many who'd come to climb the mountain were as thin as mine, or thinner. When it came time for each of us to assess our own abilities and weigh them against the formidable challenges of the world's highest mountain, it sometimes seemed as  though half the population at Base Camp was clinically delusional. But perhaps this shouldn't have come as a surprise. Everest has always been a magnet for kooks, publicity seekers, hopeless romantics, and others with a shaky hold on reality.'(88)

'People who don't climb mountains -- the great majority of humankind, that is to say -- tend to assume that the sport is reckless, Dionysian pursuit of escalating thrills. But the notion that climbers are merely adrenaline junkies chasing a righteous fix is a fallacy, at least in the case of Everest. What I was doing up there had almost nothing in common with bungee jumping or skydiving or riding a motorcycle at 120 miles per hour. ... Above the comforts of Base Camp, the expedition in fact became almost a Calvinistic undertaking. The ratio of misery to pleasure was greater by an order of magnitude than any other mountain I'd been on; I quickly came to understand that climbing Everest was primarily about enduring pain. And in subjecting ourselves to week after week of toil, tedium, and suffering, it struck me that most of us were probably seeking, above all else, something like a state of grace.'(136)

'Unfortunately, the sort of individual who is programmed to ignore personal distress and keep pushing for the top is frequently programmed to disregard signs of grave and imminent danger as well. This forms the nub of a dilemma that every Everest climber eventually comes up against: in order to succeed you must be exceedingly driven, but if you're too driven you're likely to die. Above 26,000 feet, moreover, the line between appropriate seal and reckless summit fever becomes grievously thin. Thus the slopes of Everest are littered with corpses.'(177)

'Climbing along the blade of the summit ridge, sucking gas into my ragged lungs, I enjoyed a strange, unwarranted sense of calm. The world beyond the rubber mask was stupendously vivid but seemed not quite real, as if a movie were being projected in slow motion across the front of my goggles. I felt drugged, disengaged, thoroughly insulated from external stimuli. I had to remind myself over and over that there was 7,000 feet on sky on either side, that everything was at stake here, that I would pay for a single bungled step with my life.'(179-180)

(photo from Wikepedia, Mt Everest)

'Reaching the top of Everest is supposed to trigger a surge of intense elation; against all odds after all, I had just attained a goal coveted since childhood. But the summit was really only the halfway point. Any impulse I might have felt toward self-congratulation was extinguished by overwhelming apprehension about the long, dangerous descent that lay ahead.'(181)

'Confronted with this tally, my mind balked and retreated into a weird almost robotic state of detachment. I felt emotionally anesthetized yet hyperaware, as if I had fled into a bunker deep inside my skull and was peering out at the wreckage around me through a narrow, armored slit. As I gazed numbly at the sky, it seemed to have turned a preternaturally pale shade of blue, bleached of all but the faintest remnant of color. The jagged horizon was lined with a coronalike glow that flickered and pulsed before my eyes. I wondered if I had begun the downward spiral into the nightmarish territory of the mad.'(245)

'I'd always known that climbing mountains was a high-risk pursuit. I accepted that danger was an essential component of the game -- without it, climbing would be little different from a hundred other trifling diversions. It was titillating to brush up against the enigma of mortality, to steal a glimpse across its forbidden frontier. Climbing was a magnificent activity, I firmly believed, not it spite of the inherent perils, but precisely because of them.'(270-271)

'In the midst of all the postmortem ratiocination, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that climbing mountains will never be a safe, predictable, rule-bound enterprise. This is an activity that idealizes risk-taking; the sport's most celebrated figures have always been those who stick their necks out the farthest and manage to get away with it. Climbers, as a species, are simply not distinguished by an excess of prudence. And that holds especially true for Everest climbers: when presented with a chance to reach the planet's highest summit, history shows, people are surprisingly quick to abandon good judgment.'(275)

a Villard Books edition
288 pages
Book owned
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge