Touching the Void: The Harrowing
First-Person Account of One Man's Miraculous Survival
by Joe Simpson
Completed January 2001
Touching the Void tells an incredible story. Joe Simpson and Simon Yates were mountain climbing in the Andes when Simpson slips and falls, badly breaking his leg. They are near the top of a 21,000 foot peak and a storm is approaching. In the first-person narratives (primarily Simpson, but also some from Yates), we live through the next six days of torture for both men. Yates is tortured because a day or so into the ordeal, he has to cut the rope between himself and Simpson to save his own life; Simpson because of the physical agony of climbing, stumbling and crawling back to base camp.
It is truly a miraculous story. It is interesting to me, though, that neither man (to my recollection) mentions God at all. The book is not spiritually inspiring (the word "miraculous" in the title is about as close as it ever gets to a religious comment). Simpson talks of "the voice" that compels him to relentlessly put one hand in front of the other and drives him toward survival, but there is no overt references to God. For me -- in my biases -- this is not surprising. I have always thought of extreme mountaineering as a very selfish sport: despite the tremendous expense, only the participant really benefits. The world seems no better for the expense of all of this energy and resources, which strikes me as profoundly self-centered. A lack of acknowledgement of the power of God seems consistent with that, to me. Then again, perhaps Simpson's editor just convinced him to secularize his experience.
The book itself is a good read. Simpson and Yates aren't fabulous writers, but they have unbelievable material and they tell it well. It was not nearly as gripping and well-told as Endurance (see review), but then again, Endurance isn't a first-person account. Definitely enjoyable and worth the time.