Customer Reviews

Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (Adventure Library)

5 star:		(146)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This book was amazing. There's really no other way to describe it. Read captures magnificently the true story of a rugby team from Uruguay, along with a few relatives and close friends, whose plane crashed in the Andes Mountains on the way to Chile, where the boys were to play against another rugby team. Amidst a sea of death and horror, the people who survived the initial plane crash are forced to take immediate action in order to preserve their lives and the lives of others around them. Only the hope of a rescue that never comes carries the boys through their first few days on the mountain. When they realize that the rescue has been called off, their adventure truly begins. This is a story of brotherhood in the purest sense. Stranded in the freezing Andes, cold, hungry, weak and desperate, the survivors struggle against all odds to remain alive. They prove to be quite inventive and ingenious, using what remains of the plane to create a better world for themselves in the Andes. They maintain hope even as their friends continue to die and in their extreme hunger they are forced to consume the flesh of the corpses. It is their optimism and brightness of spirit that carries the final sixteen through to the end. In the meantime, their parents and families continue to search for the boys even when the countries of Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina abandon the search. Although many don't see how the boys could still be alive, they do not give up hope. At the end of the book, to see each boy reunited with his family is quite amazing. Words cannot express the depth of feeling that emerges from these pages. The story of the Andes survivors and their families is one that begs to be told. No work of fiction could compare to the inspirational quality of this work. It's a "must read," and once it has been read, it cannot easily be forgotten. This book will haunt your dreams and find its way back to your thoughts time and time again. More than anything it will allow you to project yourself ! into the conditions endured by the boys and ask yourself, "What would I have done?" Would you have been strong and believed you would be saved up until the end? Would you be destroyed by the absolute desperation of the situation? In truth you could not know until it happened to you. And it could happen to you. Perhaps the very knowledge of this is what makes the story of the Andes survivors shine. Their strength and will to live is extraordinary. It must be read to be believed.

Time has not diminished the drama of the tale of the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes Mountains. Of the forty five people on the plane at the time of the crash, sixteen came down from the mountain about seventy days later with a saga of survival not easily forgotten.

Theirs is a journey born of tragedy and human endurance. The author unfolds a tale that is gripping in the telling, as enthralling as it is almost unbelievable. It is investigative reporting at its best, because it does not fail to convey the human drama and pathos behind the story of this remarkable struggle for survival high up in the Andes Mountains. Masterfully written, it is a well balanced narrative that takes great pains to ground the experience of the survivors in the context out of which it arose.

The plane had crashed in the Andes Mountains on Argentinian territory. It was an exercise in terror for those on the plane, as it barreled down the mountain, before finally coming to rest in a valley of snow high up in the Andes. Of the forty five persons on board, thirty two had initially survived the crash. Some, however, had sustained serious injuries. Time would not be their friend. Moreover, with little warm clothing (keep in mind that October is springtime in South America), the survivors were exposed to the extreme cold of the night air, high up in the Andes. Though spring, this still meant temperatures well below freezing. Damp, cold, and hungry, amid the anguished cries of the injured, thus began the first of many such nights.

By their tenth day in the Andes, the limited food supplies, which they had rationed with all the care of a miser, had virtually run out. Starving and ravenously hungry, they voiced what they all knew to be true, but had not dared to voice before. They must eat, or they would die. The only thing left for them to eat, however, was abhorrent and deeply repugnant to them. Digging deep into their conservative, religious souls, they found a way to justify actions that would have them transcend a new reality. Their fallen comrades would now provide the means of their sustenance. All eventually succumbed to this only means of survival.

This, while one of the most dramatic parts of their story, is just that, a part. Their survival entailed much more. They had to endure other deprivations. They had to survive the elements. They had to overcome a profound despair over being seemingly forgotten by the outside world. Ultimately, only sixteen were able to do so. How they did so will fascinate all readers of adventure literature. The means that they took to let the world know that they were still alive will astound even the most jaded of readers. It is an account of human endurance that is thought provoking and compelling, a quest to reconcile physical needs with the spiritual. It is, above all, a riveting testament to life.

Time has not diminished the drama of the tale of the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes mountains. Of the forty five people on the plane at the time of the crash, sixteen came down from the mountain about seventy days later with a saga of survival not easily forgotten.

Theirs is a journey born of tragedy and human endurance. The author unfolds a tale that is gripping in the telling, as enthralling as it is almost unbelievable. It is investigative reporting at its best, because it does not fail to convey the human drama and pathos behind the story of this remarkable struggle for survival high up in the Andes mountains. Masterfully written, it is a well balanced narrative that takes great pains to ground the experience of the survivors in the context out of which it arose. Thus, begins this epic tale of survival.

The plane had crashed in the Andes mountains on Argentinian territory. It was an exercise in terror for those on the plane, as it barreled down the mountain, before finally coming to rest in a valley of snow high up in the Andes. Of the forty five persons on board, thirty two had initially survived the crash. Some, however, had sustained serious injuries. Time would not be their friend. Moreover, with little warm clothing (keep in mind that October is springtime in South America), the survivors were exposed to the extreme cold of the night air, high up in the Andes mountains. Though spring, this still meant temperatures well below freezing. Damp, cold, and hungry, amid the anguished cries of the injured, thus began the first of many such nights.

By their tenth day in the Andes, the limited food supplies, which they had rationed with all the care of a miser, had virtually run out. Starving and ravenously hungry, they voiced what they all knew to be true, but had not dared to voice before. They must eat, or they would die. The only thing left for them to eat, however, was abhorrent and deeply repugnant to them. Digging deep into their conservative, religious souls, they found a way to justify actions that would have them transcend a new reality. Their fallen comrades would now provide the means of their sustenance. All eventually succumbed to this only means of survival.

This, while one of the most dramatic parts of their story, is just that, a part. Their survival entailed much more. They had to endure other deprivations. They had to survive the elements. They had to overcome a profound despair over being seemingly forgotten by the outside world. Ultimately, only sixteen were able to do so. How they did so will fascinate all readers of adventure literature. The means that they took to let the world know that they were still alive will astound even the most jaded of readers. It is an account of human endurance that is thought provoking and compelling, a quest to reconcile physical needs with the spiritual. It is, above all, a riveting testament to life.

One of the most striking things to me, while reading this book, was that the author devoted only the barest minimum of text to the actual crash of the plane... barely a third of a page. This alone should illuminate the style in which this book is written. It is not gratuitous, nor fictionalized. Everything is laid out in a straightforward, almost documentary fashion. This approach to telling such an indescribable tale actually serves the story well. The experience of these young men over the 71 days they were lost in the Andes Mountains is simply unfathomable. To cloak the telling of the story in a barrage of parables and adverbs and overwrought descriptions would, I think, diminish the power of its truth: The will of these 16 human beings to survive at all costs rose above every brutal reality thrown at them on a sustained basis for 10 weeks. Truly, it's hard to imagine their plight being much worse. It's equally hard to read this book without being consumed by the question of "What if that was me?" We each doubtlessly like to think that we'd have been one of the 16 survivors, but as each chapter unfolds, I couldn't help but wonder to what extremes could I be pushed before succumbing? Having seen the movie and read the book, I can't help but think that the movie cheated the audience somewhat, first by sanitizing the eating of the dead. For the most part, the survivors were only shown peeling back strips of muscle tissue which looked an awful lot like chicken. I don't think it should have been a major focus in the film, but the reality of cannibalism in the extreme was what enabled these men to survive and cannot be overlooked or brushed aside with only a perfunctory acknowledgement. The book was not remotely indulgent or gratuitous on this issue, but no details were spared. The corpses were scavenged, skulls were split with axes to get to the brains, strips of fat were laid on the plane's roof to dry in the sun, the men endured horrible bouts of diarrhea and other maladies, on and on... there is nothing pleasant about this kind of survival. The matter-of-fact writing style simply laid it all out and yes, it's disturbing and quite difficult to read. Very little of the dead's remains were not used as food and the author presents it plainly, but it's no less graphic for the telling. The second aspect in which the movie cheated on the storytelling was the final expedition of Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa which facilitated the rescue of the 14 men who remained on the mountain. This was a 10-day journey of profound difficulty, the last few days of which, in the film, were condensed to a 30-second montage. The book also goes into quite a lot of detail on the searching efforts of the parents, as well (completely omitted in the movie). This slows down the story noticeably, but is a necessary part of its telling. ALIVE is a gripping tale of harrowing survival in one of cruelest set of circumstances imaginable. The book is well-written, utterly compelling and I highly recommend reading it if for no other reason than to inspire a profound appreciation for one's own life.

Author Piers Paul Read does a superb job of narrating this awe inspiring, nightmarish tale of survival. A violent plane crash in the Andes leaves a team of young Rugby players to battle, sub-zero temperatures, avalanches, the death of friends and loved ones, hopelessness and eventually starvation. Their will to survive brings them to a horrible choice few ever have to make; resort to canabilism or die a painful death by starvation. What makes their decision even more heartbreaking and terrible is the fact that most of the bodies they must eat to live are friends, teammates, and/or relatives. For nearly 80 days we live through the waking nightmare via Read's narrative suffering unimaginable physical and incomprehensible mental trials, but in the end it is oddly a tale of hope, faith, love and the ultimate sacrafice.

This book is so well written that you will feel like you were there and suffered with them. After reading this book I felt like I had a new appreciation for life. I highly recommend this book.

I just had to re-review this book which I just finished reading again. And again, I was riveted. Even though I got caught sneaking a page or two at work (twice) and knew the outcome I couldn't put it down. Piers Paul Read did a masterful job of portraying this true story of human drama, endurance and survival of the Self. The book definitely exceeds the movie.

The book runs the gamut of human emotions and responses to catastrophic disasters, and effectively portrays the extremes of human strengths and frailties, along with defeats and conquests in an inspirational and exciting manner. Heroes and heroines there were. Cowards and weaklings too. Mediators and the Head-Strong also were among them. Put them all together and you get a good mix and idea of what we are all about. I could not help but feel I was there, that I too shared in their victories and commiserated in their defeats. Great Book! They must have had a great spirit watching over them.

While the movie adaptation of Alive depicts the major events of the ordeal fairly comprehensively, only the book contains the complete account. Piers Paul Read's book is very complete and detailed, more fully describing the daily sufferings and routines of the survivors. In particular, emotional stresses, individual personalities, and the grisly task of obtaining flesh are related in depth.

It is frightening to consider how easily we can be thrust into a situation as horrifying as that the Uruguayan travellers in this book had to endure, but their story should not be avoided because it is upsetting. There is much to be learned from this account: the value of resourcefulness, of ability to do the agonizingly difficult, and of courage in frightening circumstances. Furthermore, to recognize how nearly hopeless a situation can be, and what extraordinary effort is needed to escape it helps us recalibrate our perceptions of difficulty, misery and pain to more accurate levels.

Though the survivors requested and evaluated this book, it is completely frank. Read gives an honest description of each survivor, including personality failings which made some survivors a further hardship to the rest. The growing despondency and physical withering of the survivors is told with harsh vividness. Describing how dead bodies were utilized was surely the most difficult task, but Read writes of this area with as much detail as any other. Corpses were not only stripped of muscle, but also internal organs, then bone marrow, then the skulls cracked for the brain within, as corpses available for food became scarce, ocasionally requiring that the grisly, partially eaten bodies be exhumed. In addition to the ordeal on the mountain, also included are: a brief description of the emotional outcomes of the experience; the media bombardment; the personal search conducted by parents for the crash site. Maps are included to place the story, but these are not scaled.

This account does leave one disturbed. The truth of our defenselessness but for the blanket of civilization is a valuable lesson that can only be shocked into our conditioned minds, however. There is a place in everyone's reading for such material, and furthermore, this incredible story takes only two or three days to read.

As a kid in 1972 I heard on the radio that survivors from a plane crash in South America had walked out of the mountains weeks after being given up for dead. This superbly readable narrative tells their story. Thirty two of the 45 rugby players and other passengers survived the hard landing in the deep snow (some with injuries). Now they were trapped high in the remote and frigid Andes Mountains with almost no provisions. No rescue planes appeared overhead - all search flights scoured the wrong area due to faulty navigational readings the pilot (who was off course) radioed in before the crash. Shivering in their new home (the plane's fuselage), each person knew they'd need extraordinary effort and some luck to survive what became a ten-week ordeal of damp, cold and death. The author shows how the group developed several life-saving innovations. We also see the devastating choice they faced when their rationed food ran out; either cannibalize their dead comrades or die of starvation. Later, in near desperation, they sent their fittest members up the icy slope of a nearby peak. Perhaps the two could somehow ascend safely without proper equipment, and then find a way out from their frozen death trap.

Author Pier Paul Read makes readers feel like they're sitting alongside the survivors high in the frozen Andes. This is not a happy story - too many perished from injuries and harsh conditions. Still, this is an utterly fascinating narrative (and later a 1993 film) about determination and the will to survive.

I remember in college reading about these plane crash survivors who walked out of the Andes after having been stranded for several weeks... So when the book came out a few years later, I read it in one sitting. Well, actually, when I started to fall asleep I put it down, but as soon as I woke up started again until I finished. It is still one of the most compelling books I've ever read and in discussions with people on favorite books, it is at the top of my list. The other reviews describe the story, but what is so compelling is how this survival situation brought out the true characters of the teammates--which ones got hysterical, which ones turned to mush, which ones became the leaders--and how ultimately heroic they all were. What the reader keeps asking oneself is, "What would I have done in that situation?" How would I have handled the extreme situation these mostly upper-class boys found themselves in? The author does not spare the reader the grisly details of the crash and its aftermath. I did not find it boring in the least. I relished all the details--the descriptions about their lives before the crash, their families' annguished search for them... It is truly a heart-rending--and triumphant--story. Also, the movie of this event done in the 1990s is surprisingly good. I recommend that, too. The decpiction of the plane crash in the mountain is particulary jarring. But, the book is stunning. Read it!