AOADD

Until today I was beginning to think that I was afflicted with Adult Onset Attention Deficit Disorder. Then today I finished Touching the Void, a book that I started reading yesterday. Megan (the Elder) had recommended this book and the subsequent movie, and on a trip to REI, while waiting in the checkout line, she pointed it out, and I bought it. I'm glad I did. This is only the third book I've read this year, and I was beginning to think that my attention span had been permanently shortened to that necessary to read the typical web page.

I guess all I needed was a good read, and this book certainly filled the bill. It's the true story of a couple of twenty-something British climbers who took on a 20,000 foot peak in the Peruvian Andes. Not long after they summited, Joe Simpson, the author of the book, broke his leg badly and could no longer climb. His climbing partner Simon Yates managed to lower him down nearly impossible slopes until Joe slid over a cliff and ended up dangling helplessly by the rope. Simon was belaying him with his own body weight dug into a snow seat on the steep slope. After about an hour of hanging on to him, and with his own perch sliding out from under him, Simon did the only thing he could (short of suicide) and cut the rope. Joe's fall of 50-100 feet into a crevasse was broken by the snow cap that was covering it. He found himself on a ledge in pitch darkness with no possible way up, and no idea of what was beneath him. Rather than waiting for death on the ledge, he lowered himself down and was lucky enough to find the bottom before he ran out of rope. When daylight came, he saw his predicament, with no way own of the crevasse except by climbing a cone of snow back up to the top. Needless to say, he miraculously makes it out,but his adventures are far from over. He spent days on the mountain, with no food or water, a terribly fractured leg, and no hope of rescue. The book reads like a horror story where the villain keeps coming back to life every time you think the hero's been saved.


So if you think you might be afflicted with AOADD, pick up this book. I guarantee you won't be able to put it down.