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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2247 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: January 31, 2018

Krakauer sees exactly one paradigm: the Aristotelian Tragic Hero. Regardless of the circumstances, Krakauer will arrange the narrative such that death is preordained, fates conspire and nobility is stamped out by an unthinking universe. This is one of the reasons he had to leave Seattle (his own assessment of the situation, also in the afterward of Into Thin Air): he turned one of the most independent, individualist pursuits people can take on into a predetermined game of bridge where the proudest adventurer is nothing more than a bridge partner to fate's lead.

Fundamentally, it's an Amundson vs. Shackleton debate: be prepared, be skilled, be funded, be forgotten. Be adventurous, be brash, be romantic, be dead... but be legend. Crowdfund your way up a cheap "killer mountain" in Pakistan with no backup and hope for the best?

    Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.

The really stupid thing is Shackleton never said that. Never published it. It started showing up in 1944. But people so.want.that.tragic-fucking-nobility that an ill-fated expedition fraught with planning errors has become a mirror for people to admire their inner Icarus.

Into Thin Air was a finalist for the Pulitzer in 1998. I'd say Beck and Krakauer have done a shitty job of discouraging climbing.





WanderingEng  ·  2247 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Regardless of the circumstances, Krakauer will arrange the narrative such that death is preordained, fates conspire and nobility is stamped out by an unthinking universe.

Huh. You're painfully right. It makes for a good story, but the mail carrier and the head guide that summited much, much too late weren't stupidly making fatal decisions (they were), but instead they were fated to keep going until they couldn't. Nobly (stupidly, because empathy) the guide stayed with the mail carrier to his demise. I hadn't thought about it, and you're clearly right.

kleinbl00  ·  2247 days ago  ·  link  ·  

From a narrative standpoint it makes perfect sense. We want our lives to be interesting. We want everyone's lives to be interesting. Drama masks aren't "mild contentment" and "self-satisfied smugness" they're ecstasy and tragedy.

Everyone has heard of The Perfect Storm. The characters they all remember, the characters at the center at the book, the characters we're all made to care about are the hapless fishermen who don't survive the storm. The couple in their known-to-be-unsinkable sailboat that (ohmygod) had to call the coast guard for rescue when the storm is so aggro their boat actually takes on water? Went and got the boat the next day. Fucker's still floating.

Nobody has heard of Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea, about plodding engineers that recover unrecoverable treasure from the deep ocean, even if they've heard of the SS Central America.

Nerds read about success. Normies read about failure. Krakauer is just the greatest cheerleader for failure in modern literature.