When I saw the name of the protagonist on the paperback I remembered the news item that I had read about the discovery of his body on Everest. Immediately, I was curious that how a’masala’ writer like Jeffery Archer would address a true story of this man about whom I had read in the news item, not that Jeffrey Archer’s stories are not great to read, my personal favourite being " Kane & Abel".
This is a fictionalised account of the life of George Mallory, an ardent fan of the mountains and passionate about climbing.
The story opens with the discovery of his body on the Everest where you can feel the cold and smell the mountain. You can almost feel the desolate feeling of the discoverers and then the setting transports to England where you are made aware that the child is a prodigy who would scale great heights. Typical Jeffery style where the master is stunned to find that the guy who had started to climb the hillock late was already back when they climbed down.
Mellory’s entry into college is once gain reminicent of the dramatic style of Jeffery and though it tends to be slightly corny but gels with the spirit of the protagonist.
Thereafter, his induction into the club of mountaineers, his meeting with Ruth the lady with who he falls in love and the way he learns of her affections for him at Venice are score high on their understated drama and merge well with the pace of the plot. The novel further scores very high on the interaction between Mellory & Ruth post marriage. The characters of Ruth as the ever understanding wife and Mallory who is torn between his passion for mountaineering and his duty to his family are wonderfully etched.
The decision of Ruth to let Mallory pursue his passion to climb the Everest after she meest the wife of the South Pole explorer whose name I forget touches the heart.
You can feel the passion of all the other mountaineers and specially Mallory. When Mallory reaches Everest for the final ascent you are transported there and can see the fury of the other lady who was destined to kill Mallory. Everest emerges as a character in itself a lady with a large heart and tempestuous at once who even the Gods would fear. One may find the whole exercise futile but with Mallory’s passion one wishes that he could make to the summit.
When mallory and Irvine fall along icy sheet of Everest you know that they are gone but you hope that they would be still alive. When the team mates decide to return you almost feel if they could look around and find them.
The epilogue which details lives of the characters after Mallory an dIrvine are lost reads like an anticlimax and the portion which tells the reader that Mallory’s grandson placed a photograph of Mallory and Ruth is satisfying.
However, till the end one question bothers the reader. Did Mallory and Irvine actually reach the summit? That the photograph of Ruth which Mallory always kept in his pocket was not found on his body seems to indicate that they may have reached the summit. If only the explorers could have found the camera of Irvine.
The novel is not racy reading like most of Jeffery’s work and almost moves like an epic. The novel is an easy read in the genre unlike the works of Dominique Lapierre.