True Summit transformed Herzog’s bland, overdramatic, national fairy tale into a true adventure story, racked not only by weather and mountains, but also by anger bordering on hate. Every bad notion I had of Herzog was confirmed by Roberts and his compilation of memoirs by the “knights of the sky”, especially Lachenal’s. A crucial moment in the book for me is when Roberts meets Herzog in his office. The description of the furnishings was priceless. The metals and trophies everywhere, then to top it off the full book-shelf of Annapurna copies. Herzog comes off just as I expected him to be; pious, flaunty, and dramatic bordering on acting. The reason it’s a turning point, is because of the three ideas Roberts construes to explain the gaps in writing about the adventure. His willingness to give Herzog an excuse out of his lies is much to easy in my opinion; “They could be the fruit of memory’s sharp seizureing again and again on disturbing…The Road Not Taken.”” (105)

As I read, I kept expecting for all of the accounts to realign, or to at least take on a form of cohesion at some point. Frankly, there is less that can be proven, than can be corroborated on by multiple people retelling the same situation. It’s abundantly clear that over half of the original Annapurna, and great chunks of the various climber’s journal were either fiction, or (in most cases) the product of lack of brain function and memory retention. But of all the accounts, Herzog’s “novel”, and his active role in defining and managing the selling of the story, were the result of his gigantic ego.

Herzog was obviously a deeply religious and nationalist man. There is no doubt in my mind he genuinely believed in his adventure for not only his sake, but also for France and God. Those convictions, combined with altitude and the actually quite powerful drugs he and his teammates were taking, can account for some of the garbled memory, but not for all of it. I don’t believe it was all a facade, it makes prudent sense that he could not actually pose on the summit because of a cornice.

But what is really telling of Herzog’s egotism and self-indoctrination is how he compares his two books as one subjective and the other objective. What absurdity! How can he claim this and still call Annapurna a novel? The fact of the matter is, with his bad memory, combined with his obsession of selling the story to the public, he creates an absurd mixture of lies and fabrication, riding the line between pure fiction in order to make himself appear as nobly to his beloved France as possible.

The feat of conquering Annapurna was quite extraordinary. Ironically, Herzog’s persistence and obsession, combined with the skill of his employees, allowed for a miraculous story. Sadly, the truth of the matter will never come to light. Instead, Herzog, the willing and dull subject of Devies’s, was granted an early monopoly on the story. As the post-humous memoirs came out, Herzog has had enough dominance in every sport and oversight circle imaginable, that the voices of his compatriots haven’t been properly told. It was their brave deeds that spoke the most of the adventure, not his. His account has the least self sacrifice, for all his grandeur talk of humanity and success. His write off of Lachenal’s description of saving his life speaks volumes for his self-centeredness. Herzog ruined an incredible story, and to be honest, Annapurna wasn’t half as exciting as hearing the detailed action filled accounts of the other climbers.