Customer Reviews

Life and Death on Mt. Everest

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Although Life and Death on Mt. Everest is a book with an identity crisis, it is nonetheless a fascinating work that should interest armchair adventurers and mountaineers alike. Despite the title, parts of the jacket flap blurb, and even the quotes on the back, Life and Death is really an anthropological examination of mountaineering and the Sherpa-Sahib (author's term) relationship, within the context of the history and culture of both groups. Most of the relatively minor problems with the book arise from the identity crisis; this book can't decide whether it is an academic or a popular work. I suspect, though of course I can't know, that Ortner wrote the book as an academic monograph, and her publishers then altered it superficially to capitalize on the resurgence of Everest interest.

The text itself will present a few problems to the lay reader. It has too much information on Ortner's theory, philosophy, and methods of anthropology if it is intended strictly for the layman. The academic-style footnotes are frustrating; Ortner uses copious end-of-text footnotes, mostly to give citations, but also to supply additional information, commentary, and anecdotes. In order to get that extra information, the reader has to refer back and forth constantly, breaking up the flow of the read. If this is intended to be, in whole or in part, a popular work, Ortner should have moved the added-data footnotes to the bottom of the page, and left the citations at the end. Also, the author is a little too inclusive - she includes more about Sherpa religion than is really necessary to provide cultural background; this distracts from the main theme of the book. It would also, of course, be uninteresting to laypeople interested solely in climbing. Finally, Ortner doesn't always cite authors of quotations in the body of the text. That would be fine for academics, but not so for armchair adventurers, who will be familiar with most of the sources and will always want to know who said what.

However, these are minor quibbles, really, considering the book's value. Although there are huge numbers of expedition accounts and life-of-a-climber memoirs available, there are relatively few books that examine climbing as a culture. And though Sherpas are mentioned in every book ever written about Himalayan mountaineering, the information is always one-sided and usually one-dimensional. Ortner, in one volume, manages to change both those things; she describes climbing from the outside and Sherpa culture from the inside, and in the process brings valuable insight to both. And despite the author's academic bent, the book is not dense or dull; it's a fast, light read, especially considering its depth.

This book is not for readers seeking an adrenaline rush or those with a short attention span, but it is for almost everyone else. Himalayan climbers will benefit from the perspective on both their hobby and their Sherpa partners. Armchair adventurers will finally find the answers to some of their persistent questions about Sherpas, and will also find the view of climbing illuminating. And those who are interested in anthropology or other cultures will be gripped by the descriptions of Sherpa life and acculturation. Basically, the book is an all-around winner.

If you're looking for Thereal McCoy in her Sherpa guise, don't bother to read Ortner's 'Life and Death on Mt. Everest'. Turns out she's long gone--or rather, undergoing (nearly) endless cycles of mediated rebirth. On the other hand, if you want a nuanced and balanced analysis of the complex interactions between western mountaineers and a Himalayan people over the last century, then this book is for you. Ortner is the best writer on Sherpa peoples in the English language, and a good theorist to boot. This new book will please not only her familiar anthropologist readers, but an audience of self-critical 'adventurers' as well. It's a nice antidote to much of the mountaineering literature in which Sherpa turn up incidentally (enough about you; let's talk about me!), as well as to romantic positivists who maintain the illusion that there are 'genuine' Sherpa lurking somewhere (ever deeper) in an Himalayan Shangri-la.

Ortner's work is rigorous, as in the best of academic work, but is delightfully readable. Apart from some necessary theorising and explanation of methodology, it is very accessible. This is the book to get into when you've had a diet of Boys (mostly) Own Adventures in the Himalayas, and are looking for something a bit chewier.

It is in fact a good companion volume for anyone with an interest in the sociology of mountaineering.

I recently read Arlene Blum's 'Annapurna: a woman's place' which is an exemplar of both 70s feminism and counterculture. Ortner places the various waves of mountaineering (military style expeditions/macho competitiveness/ beginning of women's involvement / counterculture) in their historical and sociological context, whilst simultaneously placing the Sherpa at the centre of the story.

It also tells much about the interaction between mountaineering and Sherpa Buddhism - the changes to that religion and the various responses and attitudes of the Sherpa to the religion.

Never does Ortner present the Sherpas as a homogeneous mass. She gives both a good depiction of the big picture, but also incorporates enough post-modernist sensibility to recognise that the Sherpa are not an indistinguishable mass with identical reactions, motivations etc.She also examines seriously Sherpa as the agents of change (eg through strikes) and where Sherpa power vis a vis sahibs lies.

People who enjoy this would also enjoy Ed Douglas's 'Chomolungma Sings The Blues'. Douglas is a climbing journalist who, whilst not an academic like Ortner, also has a lot to say about mountaineering and a strong focus on Sherpa involement.

This book is a critical culture theory treasure. Typically, I would not make an effort to defend a book on Amazon, but in this case it seems necessary. Apparently, previous purchasers were expecting this book to be about Sherpa culture, which it clearly is to anyone who studies culture (perhaps say, an anthropologist, which is precisely what Sherry Ortner is). The commodification of culture by individuals in Western nations is unmistakably represented in these remarks. Obviously they were expecting some form of rationalization for the impact of middle class, white, adventure-seekers on the Sherpa culture. Needless to say, a critical reading of this book (in my opinion, what it was intended for) would isolate for these reviewers that the Sherpa culture is more dynamic than the reading of the first sentence might lead one to believe. I would suggest this book to anyone with the patience and intelligence to read it thoroughly and critically while setting their ethnocentric ideas of the world to the side. Sherry Ortner is, if not the most profound anthropologist of contemporary times, one of them. This book is amazing.

When a professor of renown for anthropology is dealing 30 years long with the world of the Sherpas you should expect that she knows about what she is talking and that she is qualified to notify anything noteworthy about the topic. Indeed she collected noteworthy and interesting material. Also I think it was high time that somebody made up his mind to report about those who made the summit successes of the Europeans and Americans possible and yet were forgotten too often, though they made mostly the difference between success and failure.
There is enough literature on the heroic deeds of the "white" mountaineers of the Himalayas. Almost too much has been written. But the author here is not so much interested in exposing just the mountain performances, rather she wants to find out what the point of view of the Sherpas is. Because for them, as their contributions are imminent, it is much more than just a spare-time work! And there is life besides mountaineering! In fact the society in the Khumbu area has changed due to the advent of the westerner mountaineers. But there is also much tradition.
The author reports about the awakening awareness of the Sherpa people, about strikes on expeditions which deal with better payment and equipment, but also to demand for more respect, to express the growing self-consciousness of the Sherpas by giving them a say in it and by giving codetermination!
The Sherpas did not only change for the outside world. The author has lived in the inside world and saw changes there as well. There is for the Sherpa men the importance to be competitive among one another, the quest for being the best, which even developed to the endeavour to challenge the western mountaineers. But there is also the cultivation of making friends. The once Sahib became a rope partner. But this is in my opinion not valid for the mass of the Sherpas who are still doing their work as porters.
The author is arguing comprising how the expeditions affected the life of the Sherpas. She makes clear that consumption thinking, which is getting notable as soon as the basic requirements are ensured, is not alien to them, but as influential as religious convictions and the gender-specific peculiarities of co-existence in the Sherpa community.
While she is amplifying that other side of life in the Sherpa villages, in the Buddhist temples and monasteries, she is as well reporting about the social and economic pressure which is bringing young men to mountaineering. And it is not idealism I most cases! The author is tracing with commitment how the identity of the Sherpas gradually is going to change. It is not all to their disadvantage!
The life before mountaineering was not at all idyllic, for the life in the higher ranges of the Himalayans was always hard and austere and still is.
The economic situation is changing dramatically only for some. It is true that some have in comparison a remarkable prosperity from their occupation in the tourism industry, but many have also perished on the mountains. By the way many by acute mountain sickness! But there is also a lot that has not changed at all. The cultivation of the fields is burdensome, there are no streets and the connection to the outside world, to schools and hospitals is scanty.
There was also always inequality in the Sherpa community, competition and a heap of conflict potential of also cultural and traditional origin. Hence mountaineering offered a certain escape from the problems, but also the chance to transform the own society. A successful expedition member has not to bother about his fields!
New for me was the cultural struggle between the buddhist monks on one side and the tibetan Lamas and the shamans of the Sherpas on the other side. The Sherpas are tibetans by descent. They were confronted in Nepal with another religious culture, which the Nepalese regard as "true" Buddhism in opposition to the Lamaism. This is so because the shamans and lamas are connected with sorcery and black magic, thus with the elements of darkness. The practice to tap those sources for the benefit of the people is not questioned by them.
According to my experience western "nirwana-seekers", who travel not as mountaineers into the Himalaya regions, but because of the "spiritual experience" are not aware of the fact that the representatives of the different ideological variations are often inexpiably opposing each other. The Sherpas have so to say the choice between Buddhism with and without necromancy whereby traditionally they are prone to the first. This proves to be true on mountain tours when they show reference to the mountain idols.
The description of the world of the monks, especially their spiritual world takes up much space in this book. Many Sherpas give their sons to the monasteries for education. But it can be doubted that there are many of them who are able to outline that stuff with the religion in a structured and elaborate form. The belief is simple. Therefore the whole thing seems to be overvalued by the author. Nevertheless "power" and "discipline", which should be represented by the clergy, is rather more in appearance by the Sherpas: their power for physical performances and their discipline, which make them to reliable companions and mountain comrades.
Besides all this one is informed about the development of mountaineering in the Himalayas and also about the deeper meaning in the imagination of Westerners to compare it with the practical, more materialistic drive of the Sherpas. This is for the reader a welcome counterpoint, since dealing on more than a hundred pages with the problems of a people in the remote valleys of the Himalayas, is nothing for what visitors from the west come to the place. They do not come to see the Sherpas but the mountains!
Here the author resorts to the statements of the more known VIPs of mountaineering. They offer under lack of oxygen often enough expendable wisdom, but sometimes there is also knowledge worth mentioning: "One of the main reasons that people of today exercise dangerous, risky sports like mountaineering is to fight boredom. For many to dispel monotony is one of the most important challenges in a world in which it is almost impossible to find a real adventure."
For these men the modern era is the problem and mountaineering the solution. Where the modernity is vulgar and materialistic, the mountaineering is sublime and transcendental. The mountaineering, being also a child of the modernity, as a counter-draft to the misconception of the modernity! This seems to be an interesting thought for me! Where the modernity is loud and full of distractions, the mountaineering is peaceful and prone to reflexions. Where modernity is flat and boring, mountaineering is difficult, challenging and full of thrills.
Well, I, myself a mountaineer and at the same time opponent to claims of modernity and post-modernity, do not like to contradict too willingly. But often, I subjoin, mountaineering is nothing but silly prestigiousness addiction, the ideal of the idealess.
Be that as it may be, in this context the Sherpas function as a part of the solution. And thence in any case they are no part of modernity, rather a part of secret reclusiveness in the mountains and valleys of the Sherpas to which the seeking spirit of an unsatisfied man is drawn.
The author is also trying to trace the characteristics of the Sherpas. Impressing was and is the loyalty and dedication of the Sherpas more for persons than for things and goals, something which is so often missed in our materialistic oriented world. But also for the Sherpas goes to make money matters. Not much space for romantic apotheosis.
The author is discussing the thesis that the Sherpas developed gradually to that kind of people whom the white Sahibs wanted to have. If so there must be pragmatic reasons for it as well. The other way around is also fitting for the Sherpas know how to make ends meet: bad humoured guides do not have many clients in the long run.
What is apparent to most visitors of the Himalayans is the constant cheerfulness of these people even under strain. This is a social style of interaction having to do less with Buddhism, since all religions have in common how the people should behave among each other. The old fashioned capability to trade is also concerned.

The author has spent much time with the Sherpas. Yet she is holding exaggerated testimonies of sympathy cheap. She is reporting of inclination for egoism in village life, desire for dispute, mainly on land issues, controversies which even dwindle into violence. Responsible for this is the unequal distribution of possession. It is about rivalries, reputation, influence and properties especially for the minor holders. There are those who earn a lot with mountaineering and those left behind or the physically weaker who are left with nothing.

Sherpas are famous for being able to work hard physically and mentally. Thereby they still have a smile, even about crude jokes they can be mightily amused. The success of their performance is according to the author caused by their inner drive besides the better biological customization to the environment. But it is not clear from whence it comes.
It is apparent, it happened to the author the same that happens to many westerner, who spend the time with Sherpas. They are puzzled in front of the nature of the Sherpas: "the Sherpas have an incredible talent to be most reliable and compliant and do readily what they are asked for and even go beyond without seeming servility or abjectness."
Perhaps the riddle is solved when it is recognized that westerner in general cannot discern between humbleness and servility. Humbleness means looking at oneself and others realistic and certainly not inflated. Servility means making differences in valencies. Especially on mountains one is learning how foolish this is. There only life is counting and life supporting qualities.
Sherpas do not feel inferior, they want to be treated as equals, but they are too polite to revolt. A Sherpa who participated in the Annapurna expedition of 1950 said once: "As primitive as we are, we are seldom wrong in our judgement of beauty and strength and most of all our intuition as for the qualities of the heart!" Well then, who ever wants to get to know something about himself, go to the Sherpas! What to you the mountain is not mirroring, the Sherpas will provide it!

very pleased with this delivery, came on time, much cheaper than the bookstore and new!

Note that this author who said this book characterizes the Sherpas as "exploited" said he didn't finish the book -- I doubt he read more than a few sentences b/c there's no way that his claim that the book views Sherpas as "exploited" can be sustained with evidence from the text. Ortner is arguing precisely the opposite point, that the Sherpas were able to resist and transform Himalayan mountaineering, and their role in it, to their advantage. Likewise, it's not a postmodernist book, it's a deliberately realist book, aimed at showing the influences of western climbers, Tibetan monks, and the internal dynamics of Sherpa society on the Sherpa-climber relationships and how they've changed over time.

I bought this book in hardback and was looking forward to reading it. I thought that getting to know the climbing industry from the Sherpa perspective would be fascinating (and it would have been). However, the writing in this disappointing book is so wet with victimology and so heavily in the style of post-modern deconstructed feminist scholarship that it is actually painful to read. I could not finish it. There are too many good books that I will ever get to read. However, reading what I could slog through felt like I imagine climbing Everest without the extra oxygen to feel like.

Unless you are interested in viewing the sherpas as yet another of the endless victims of the western (male) world, stay far away and save your money. The one star is for those who are interested in such things and because I can't give it zero stars. I wish I could get my money back. I rarely pan books on Amazon.com because it makes people upset, but this is a special case for me.

It isn't that the author does a bad job for what she is after, but that I found it personally offensive. Take that for what it is worth.

The author is clearly an expert on Sherpas, having lived and studied among them as an anthropologist for over 40 years. She writes this book for the layman in a form of anthropoligical study. She misses the mark both in terms of layman interest, and in terms of an enlighting anthropoligical study. Ms. Ortner looks at several facets of Sherpa life with a view toward how and why Sherpas became involved in mountaineering. It was clear to me, despite all the research and academia, the answer as to how and why remains perfectly clear and not too profound. Carrying loads, establishing camps, and fixing ropes provide the Sherpa with an extremely high income (relative to their society), allowing the climbers to provide greater comfort and a better standard of living for themselves and their families. I was very disappointed in this particular book, and I do not recommend it as a means of insight into the Sherpas.

The book was very disappointing - ancient format- opinionated. The author suggests walking a tightrope in theoretical anthropology...yet she presents a really biased,dogmatic,authoritarian point of view. The title is great, but the content - Sherpa - is not well represented here and easily confusing and deceptive. A real disappointment. Look for other resources, as this book will only create more confusion and is only a window with shutters quarter way open.