Into the Silence

The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest

By: Wade Davis

Narrated by: Enn Reitel

On June 6, 1924, two men set out from a camp perched at 23,000 feet on an ice ledge just below the lip of Mount Everest’s North Col. George Mallory, thirty-seven, was Britain’s finest climber. Sandy Irvine was a young Oxford scholar of twenty-two with little previous mountaineering experience. Neither of them returned.

In this magisterial work of history and adventure, based on more than a decade of prodigious research in British, Canadian, and European archives, and months in the field in Nepal and Tibet, Wade Davis vividly re-creates British climbers’ epic attempts to scale Mount Everest in the early 1920s. With new access to letters and diaries, Davis recounts the heroic efforts of George Mallory and his fellow climbers to conquer the mountain in the face of treacherous terrain and furious weather. Into the Silence sets their remarkable achievements in sweeping historical context: Davis shows how the exploration originated in nineteenth-century imperial ambitions, and he takes us far beyond the Himalayas to the trenches of World War I, where Mallory and his generation found themselves and their world utterly shattered. In the wake of the war that destroyed all notions of honor and decency, the Everest expeditions, led by these scions of Britain’s elite, emerged as a symbol of national redemption and hope.

Beautifully written and rich with detail, Into the Silence is a classic account of exploration and endurance, and a timeless portrait of an extraordinary generation of adventurers, soldiers, and mountaineers the likes of which we will never see again.

One of the greatest narrations ever

Enn Reitel's performance is spectacular. It takes a good story and brings it to life. His delivery adds gravitas.

Captivating, surprisingly poignant, (sometimes overly) thorough story.

Very well written. The thesis, how society and the Great War had influenced the psyche of these men to take on these expeditions sometimes to a reckless degree, was really interesting and well executed. I loved learned about each of their personal histories, their personal and spiritual journeys in Tibet, and how each of them approached this most extreme goal. It gets a little dry when the author goes into the minutiae of what they took with them and their itineraries. But I’m not sure that’s unavoidable. Overall, would highly recommend the book and the narrator was excellent.

Fascinating account of the conquest of Everest

Very interesting story spanning from the Great War and how that put British men into a mindset for mountaineering to the 1980s detective work trying to piece together what happened to Mallory.

Amazing adventure.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, it's about men of uncommon valor.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Mallory, as he was a monumental figure.

Which character – as performed by Enn Reitel – was your favorite?

All. He made them come to life. He is a master of story telling.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

The title of the book. It is about so much more than just Everest and mountain climbing. It is about a time in the not so distant past that we tend to forget.

Any additional comments?

Wonderful on all levels.

One of the Great Narrative Histories of All Time

I'm not kidding about the title. Wade Davis' other titles gave no indication that he would or could produce such a tour de force, but this book is remarkable. In my opinion, it's the greatest piece of narrative history since "The Guns of August", even though this book is only tangentially about WWI. Davis has Tuchman's ability to weave biography into historical narrative, to give comprehensive detail and broad overview simultaneously, and his prose is assertive and yet sometimes poetic. This is a really brilliant book, far greater than the sum of its parts. Maybe one of the hundred greatest works of historical literature.