A review by merqri
Paths of Glory by Jeffrey Archer
2.0
This is yet another Archer book with its unmistakable characteristics. This is no Kane and Abel but still manages to climb the peaks of fiction bestsellers maintaining readers' interest.
Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction and for this fictionalized story of the mountaineer George Mallory, the truth is still obscured and subject to speculation. Jeffrey Archer carves an intriguing tale taking the known elements of Mallory's life and chooses to give a conclusion to the hung fate of their fateful expedition.
Before reading the book, I had no idea who George Mallory was and I was under the impression that the team of Edmund Hillary, a person from New Zealand and the sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay was the first to climb the highest peak of planet earth in 1953. George Mallory's tragic expedition was a generation before that in 1924. Thanks to the subject of this book, I came to know about previous expeditions.
The book has the characteristic Archer pattern of beginning the story from the birth of his central character as he begins to weave the narrative to reach the climax. However, this time, the story is based on true events, and hence the over-dramatisation of his early years felt out of place. There are dramatic events in Paris, Venice, then the real bits about his participation in the first world war. In the end, it remains a slightly believable yet fictional character study.
The successful complete expedition is from 1953, which is a generation after Mallory's attempts. When you think about that, a completely different narrative design with these different time periods, the supremely demanding nature of this quest would have made the book genuine and more interesting. This would have needed a shift of focus from a single person life story (something Archer is good at) to a more objective-based, in this case, mountaineering or even Everest as a challenge. As it stands now, it feels like Archer used the alluring uncertainty of that expedition to propel his fiction work directly in the bestseller's list. This was first published in 2009 when Archer was already world-famous, people would have encouraged a different style and a more experimentative approach might have resulted in a very different book.
Jeffrey Archer has a gift of storytelling but he needs to think out of his own confines. For me, nothing will surpass Kane and Abel, and that start to end character buildup approach has now culminated with that work.
Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction and for this fictionalized story of the mountaineer George Mallory, the truth is still obscured and subject to speculation. Jeffrey Archer carves an intriguing tale taking the known elements of Mallory's life and chooses to give a conclusion to the hung fate of their fateful expedition.
Before reading the book, I had no idea who George Mallory was and I was under the impression that the team of Edmund Hillary, a person from New Zealand and the sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay was the first to climb the highest peak of planet earth in 1953. George Mallory's tragic expedition was a generation before that in 1924. Thanks to the subject of this book, I came to know about previous expeditions.
The book has the characteristic Archer pattern of beginning the story from the birth of his central character as he begins to weave the narrative to reach the climax. However, this time, the story is based on true events, and hence the over-dramatisation of his early years felt out of place. There are dramatic events in Paris, Venice, then the real bits about his participation in the first world war. In the end, it remains a slightly believable yet fictional character study.
The successful complete expedition is from 1953, which is a generation after Mallory's attempts. When you think about that, a completely different narrative design with these different time periods, the supremely demanding nature of this quest would have made the book genuine and more interesting. This would have needed a shift of focus from a single person life story (something Archer is good at) to a more objective-based, in this case, mountaineering or even Everest as a challenge. As it stands now, it feels like Archer used the alluring uncertainty of that expedition to propel his fiction work directly in the bestseller's list. This was first published in 2009 when Archer was already world-famous, people would have encouraged a different style and a more experimentative approach might have resulted in a very different book.
Jeffrey Archer has a gift of storytelling but he needs to think out of his own confines. For me, nothing will surpass Kane and Abel, and that start to end character buildup approach has now culminated with that work.