Reading Response

Rethinking the Sahib-Sherpa Relationship

I thoroughly enjoyed Sherry Ortner’s book, Life and Death on Mt Everest. It was different from the recent books that we’ve been reading that included more of a climbing focus, in that it took us much more in depth about the relationships between the Sahib (“boss”: climbers) and the Sherpas. Ortner delivered it in a…

Life and Death on Mount Everest – Week 12

Readign Response Week 12 – The Everest Life Bryant Lymburn In this weeks reading of Sherry Ortner’s work, Life and Death of Mount Everest, she approaches the context of mountaineering from a very different angle compared to many texts written by people more directly involved in the climbing community. This is for one due to her…

Life and Death

This book offered so much insight into the life of Sherpas, which was actually very interesting to me, especially since all semester I feel as though we have been discussing Sherpas in a very vague sense, not wanting to state facts that are false or overgeneralize without the full amount of information we can know…

Life and Death Week 12

The text Life and Death on Mt. Everest: Sherpas and Himalayan Mountaineering by Sherry Ortner dove into a topic which I had been looking forward to all semester.  This was the topic of Sherpas and their relationships with mountaineers and the sport of mountaineering.  Throughout the entirety of her text she does not make sweeping…

Week 12

Life and Death on Mt. Everest was probably my most favorite book of all the books we have read in class and I think the reasoning behind it has a lot to do with my capstone class this semester. We discuss the components that help shape or re-shape a national or cultural identity and how…

Life and Death on Mt. Everset

            Life and Death on Mt. Everest: Sherpas and Himalayan Mountaineering is an interesting account of the relationships that are created through mountaineering. While this book is an enjoyable read, I do not have as big of a reaction towards this book as I have had with the others. I learned many things and though…

Week 12

It is truly difficult to know exactly to begin when discussing Life and Death on Mt.Everest. Sherry Ortner is definitely an anthropological monarch and this work is far more than Sherpas tragically dying on Everest (which I had pictured it out to be). Particularly what is striking is the vastly different lens that this is…

Life and Death on Mt. Everest

Sherry Ortner discusses just about all the generalizations and subjects about mountaineering we have talked about in class. Throughout the book you can tell she is being extremely cautious but honest with her arguments. Doing so she does a great job of examining and making clear the root of how Sherpas are portrayed. I like how she…

Reading Response Into Thin Air

This weeks texts from Into Thin Air and Fallen Giants were very interesting readings that intrigued me on a few differing levels.  Never mind that John Krakauer lives in Bozeman which is pretty neat in my opinion he is the modern climber as far as I can tell from what others have said.  He is also…

Into Thin Air

At first I was wondering how Into Thin Air would have been different if Krakauer took peoples advice to wait a few years after the accident and then write the book, but after reading it, I doubt it would have been much different. I enjoyed Krakauer’s writing on the history of Everest in the beginning of the…