Antarctica: Both Heaven and Hell [Hardcover]

Reinhold Messner (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

Product Details

• Hardcover: 381 pages
• Publisher: Mountaineers Books; First Edition edition (November 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0898863058
• ISBN-13: 978-0898863055
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,573,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars mixed bag of impressions, May 4, 2001

By 

Boris Aleksandrovsky (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Antarctica: Both Heaven and Hell (Hardcover)

This book is very uneven, unfortunately. On one side, photography is splendid, historical and geological discussion are very thorough, the spirit of adventure is live and well. However, I am TIRED to find Messner complaining about his partner on every single page. And the translation is so bad, that one can almost study German grammar from the English presented.

The philosophical expositions in the book kept my feelings mixed as well. On one side (and perhaps this is due to a poor translation) it is full of heavy and sometimes overly sweet German Romanticism; one the other hand, Messner's treatment of the white void in front of him as a meditative medium is very honestly portrayed and splendidly presented.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A rather dull book on a not so exciting adventure., March 5, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Boise Idaho) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Antarctica: Both Heaven and Hell (Hardcover)

Messner never gave me a feeling of what it was like crossing Antartica. He went into too much detail on all the problems he had just getting there, but was not very discriptive of life on the ice. I was never drawn into the book and thus did not have much emphathy with the characters. Felt like Messner did more complaining about things than trying to describe the adventure he was on. He complained about his life before the trip, he complained about all the problems he ran into trying to get to Antartica, he complained about his partner during and after his trip, and he complained about there being people at the South Pole. To his credit it probably was hard to write this length of book when the story line was: I got up each morning for 92 days and walked.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A great adventurer, but not a great writer, August 9, 2000

By 

Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Antarctica: Both Heaven and Hell (Hardcover)

The story of Reinhold Messner's walk across Antartica might have been more interesting had it been written by a professional author. Messner's first hand accounts, while interesting, do not make for especially good reading. However, there is a huge number of color photographs included that in and of themselves almost make the book worthwhile. Messner is perhaps the most accomplished extreme sportsman in the world. But he would do better letting someone else tell his fantastic stories.