Beyond the North-West Frontier Book

The bashing of Maurice Herzog - but quite an interesting book nonetheless

I only read (and had heard of) True Summit after having read Annapurna by Maurice Herzog a couple of months ago. I quite enjoyed Annapurna but came across Roberts’ book as well and thought it’d make a nice accompaniment to the classic. The most striking words that hit a reader coming to the novel is it’s proclamation of being the definitive account of the 1950 Annapurna expedition, further claiming it will unravel the ‘truth’ about what really happened on the mountain so many years ago.

I have two prefixes to my review: first, unlike Roberts I’d never heard about Maurice Herzog prior to reading Annapurna in 2013 and therefore had no preconceived ideas one way or the other about the truth or myth of Herzog. Yes, I read the book a few months ago and enjoyed it enough but Herzog is certainly not a hero for me, so please don’t consider my review to be a defence of Herzog – I’d like to think I’m being fairly impartial in my review (well, to a certain extent! ;-).

Secondly, as to whether this is really a definitive account of the 1950 expedition, I’m far from convinced by Roberts’ arguments, as I will outline. If I’m being generous, Roberts makes some interesting arguments and it’s great to hear voices of the other climbers (this is what I enjoyed most from the novel). The first half the book is really quite interesting and I liked how much less flowery Roberts’ writing is compared to that of Herzog. However, it certainly doesn’t, in my mind, unravel any real ‘truths’ definitively.

Why? Well first, I don’t know why but Roberts just seems to have an unnecessary fierce and prejudiced against Herzog and his achievements. It goes beyond simply presenting the facts and letting evidence speak for itself. There’s almost malice to the way Roberts attacks Herzog. Here’s just one short example (from page 140/141) of what you’ll find throughout the book:

Writing about that public career in L’autre Annapurna, Herzog lapses into shameless name-dropping and ill-disguised pats on his own back. On meeting John F. Kennedy, then the junior senator from Massachusetts, Herzog shares his idea of creating an “army” of young people pledge to work in underdeveloped countries – evidently the germ of the Peace Corps. “An admirable suggestion, Maurice,” says Kennedy, according to Herzog. “We need an ideal for our youth.”

It is a real shame for David Roberts that he didn't just stick to presenting his side of the story in a much more impartial way, without the constant need to bash Herzog - passages like the following are also constant through the book and unnecessary to make his point:

Reading between the lines, one realises that the cordée of Rébuffat and Terray les virtually the whole climb with the brothers Herzog trailing behind on a second rope. In L'Autre Annapurna, Herzog calls the climb "the greatest ascent in the Alps" (to date). Though a highly credible new route, the Peuterey Ridge was not in the same class as the Walker Spur on the Grandes Jorasses or even Terray and Rébuffat's first on the Col du Caiman.

Despite all of this however, the crux of the issue with Roberts’ is that I felt he heavily relied on anecdotal evidence for many of his assertions - not enough of it is concrete. This really takes away the credibility of it being the account of 'what really happened on the legendary ascent of Annapurna' as is suggested on the book's cover.

Another area I found frustrating was Roberts’ (deliberate?) failure to acknowledge the part the hypoxia (lack of air at high altitude), fatigue and stress would have played on the climbers’ minds and subsequent memories. This seems to me totally ignored, so when Roberts attacks Herzog yet again, anyone who knows a little about high-altitude climbing has to come to the conclusion that people’s perceptions are going to be wildly different (if you want a good description of hypoxic effects on the brain, read Jon Krakauer’s excellent Into Thin Air).

In the end one also has to be realistic about such undertakings and their outcomes. Herzog is certainly not the first or last adventurer who reached the pinnacles of the public’s attention at the expense of their team mates. The author does not seem to want to acknowledge that this is the reality of the world - names like Tenzing Norgay and Buzz Aldrin are just a few that come to mind.

In concluding, I would have given this book four stars but towards the last 50 pages or so, Roberts' unrelenting attack on Herzog becomes tiring and all-consuming. What is particularly annoying for me is that most of Roberts' comments aren't based on conclusive evidence - a lot of it feels like subjective bias and dislike of Herzog, which doesn't add to Roberts' overall argument on the merits of Herzog's account and life.

I came close to giving the book only two stars as the unrelenting bashing of Herzog became fiercer and felt more personal. Ultimately, though, I think Herzog’s legacy will not be greatly damaged by True Summit - after all, his is still the best selling mountaineering novel of all time over a half century later - Roberts' account already seems largely lost only a little over a decade later.

Ultimately did Roberts convince me? The simple answer is no, not really - it certainly showed that there are always many sides to a story, especially on high mountains when you’re dealing with hypoxia, stress and fatigue. I'm sure there are large tracts of the novel which are accurate and it certainly is convincing in its argument that Herzog took great creative liberty in his descriptions, recollections and accounts of the expedition. But True Summit fails overall because Roberts seems to present his point of view as fact, while ignoring that fact that much of his 'evidence' is interpreted and not concrete – which, ironically, is one of the chief criticisms he makes of Herzog and his brother.