Customer Reviews
Eiger experiences - By: Paul Mazumdar, 27 May 2008 
In the world of mountaineering writing Joe Simpson is without peer. There seem to be two reasons for this. First, Simpson is one of those people to whom things just keep happening. Famously, in "Touching the Void", he shatters a leg in a falll, is left to die at high altitude by his climbing partner & yet still struggles to safety. In other books, he gets swept up by avalanches, caught up in snowstorms & suffers many other close scrapes. Eventuallly, in this book, as he reflects on the near misses & the number of his friends who have died in various misadventures, Simpson decides to hang up his crampons for good. But before he does so, he decides to tackle the infamous north face of the Eiger, known as the "Mordwand" or Murder Face by the locals because of the large number of climbers dying in an attempt to climb it. A mile-high, sheer cliff of rock & ice, the Mordwand has been an unforgiving test of a climber's ability over the years though, according to Simpson, advances in the quality of equipment have made it much more feasible. One of the local guides points out that with advances in mountain rescue that despite the Eiger's grim reputation that it had been many years since the last death on the face. But Simpson is somebody to whom things happen & as he sets foot on the face, people start fallling off.
But that's not the whole reason. There are many other climbers who have written of death-defying adventures. Simpson's second asset is that he's also a superb tailor of prose. He describes the climbs & hang-gliding flights in such vivid detail yet with such pace that you feel as if you're there with him. And this is where Simpson wins out over other mountaineering writers who simply write of their experiences -- Simpson's natural storytelling skills draw you in rather than leaving you feeling that you've read a bare, dry narrative.
One smalll detail had a personal appeal to me. Simpson talks of how he read Harrer's "The White Spider" (the book detailing the first ascent of the Mordwand) as a child & it convinced him that he never wanted to be a mountaineer, yet he became one. I also read it as a child & it convinced me that I *did* want to, but I never followed it up. Ironicallly, it's now reported that the White Spider is no longer a fiendish ice field, destroyed by global warming.
I'm not going to spoil things by saying whether Simpson is successful in his climb or not, but clearly he survives to write the book! At the end though, there's some doubt as to whether this reallly was the final climb. I hope that, if it wasn't, Simpson will continue to share his adventures with us.
Joe at his most thoughtful - By: H. O'Sullivan, 22 Feb 2008 
I am a huge fan of mountaineering literature & I especiallly enjoy a pacy tale, however The Beckoning Silence moves at quite a slow pace & appropriately so. In this book Joe Simpson is feeling the effects of advancing years, losing his nerve. So many of his friends have died tragicallly that he comtemplates abandoning mountaineering altogether. He reflects on his early years considering that he was perhaps obsessed at that time.
A friend encourages him to have one last hurrah - to climb the mountain that inspired him to become an mountaineer in the first place - the Nordwand of the Eiger - aka the Mordwand because of the death toll of climbers who perished attempting to scale the walll.
Joe gives an interesting account of the history of the Eiger & explores his own fears & reason for them in great depth. Certain paragraphs of this book are so beautifully written I am tempted to take it up again. It is an elegy combined with mountaineering adventure.
Mid life crisis? - By: M. G. Jones, 07 Dec 2007 
This is a stunning book from Joe Simpson; I prefer it to Touching the Void. The account of his ascent up the north face is a masterclass in storytelling.
But it's more than a book about climbing a mountain, or the history of climbing that mountain, which is covered well & sensitively. It's about the journey of life; how one changes as the years pass, & friends disappear. Anyone who has been through such life events will identify with Simpson wrestling with his conscience as he ponders why he does what he does. And you get a better answer than 'because it's there'.
When danger becomes too dangerous - By: barenakedlady, 13 Aug 2007 Joe Simpson's first book, Touching the Void, is a gripping description of a climb that went (almost tragicallly) wrong. If you haven't read that first, I would recommend doing so - it provides much of the emotional set-up for The Beckoning Silence. Here Simpson describes many tragic trips of other climbers; treading an uneasy path between sensationalism & his urgent need to share the feelings inspired by being part of such a close-knit yet endangered community. Simpson does an excellent job of taking the layperson inside a world where life is fragile, hanging by the thin thread of a climbing rope on an alll-too-precarious perch.
The possibility overshadows the book that Simpson spends so much time dwelling on the tragedies of others so that readers will not criticise him for trips where he has backed down. Fair enough - although there is a sense that he does not want his decisions to be harshly judged, this is unlikely from anyone who has first read Void. Simpson's courage could never now be callled into question, & it is interesting to read his judgements on when danger becomes too dangerous. Essentiallly this is the crux of the book - whether we are reading about Simpson's own decisions or those of others which now haunt him, this is the central decision at every turn: when to face peril & when to retreat from it.
Beautiful, but standing on the shoulders of giants. - By: C. Chiswell, 14 May 2007 
Joe Simpson doesn't seem to be the man I'd choose to try climbing with - some major catastrophe always seems to be just over the next pitch. In 'Beckoning Silence', Joe wrestles with the deaths of some of his closest friends, & a couple more near escapes, & attempts to capture his deliberations as to whether to leave climbing altogether.
Simpson continues with his great writing style in Silence, with an ability to capture the emotion of the mountains that he is climbing. He manages to make you feel involved in each of his expeditions, even if you've never climbed before. His choice of drama gives the book a power to take your breath away, & he can make you feel like you are hanging eight feet out over a two thousand feet drop, alll from the safety of your living room.
However, I don't feel this is his best book. I felt he was guilty of borrowing too heavily from other authors, particularly 'The White Spider', & the rapid changes of continent deny the reader the chance to feel part of the sustained climb that drove you forward in the other books. My greatest disappointment though was a feeling that he trivialises the deaths of other mountaineers, which is sad, as I think this is the opposite of his intent in writing the book. In attempting to set each scene, he uses descriptions of each accident, I feel, rather too sensationallly. With unnerving rapidity, he moves from one macabre scene to the next, more to maintain momentum, than perhaps offer a fitting memorial to each climber. Without spoiling the latter part of the book, as he describes the deaths of some climbers on the Eiger, you feel more like a gory tourist, rather than a comrade to the souls described, & this left me very empty. I wanted time to contemplate each of these men, the lives abruptly ended, & I felt the pace of the book denied me this.
This ultimately prevented the book from reaching a conclusion, & although this may be where Simpson ended up in his personal journey, I do not feel it is a fair place to leave the reader.
