Mount Everest—Chronicle and Reading List Summary and Analysis

This section offers a description of Mount Everest that reads like a short encyclopedia entry, followed by a chronological summary of plans, reconnaissances, attempts, and ascents of the mountain from 1892 to 1988. The first attempt was made in 1921. The most significant of the attempts summarized here were discussed at more length in the body of the text, but the chronicle has value as a quick reference, and because it mentions all attempts and ascents in order. The book's translators interrupt the chronicle after 1981 by an "Afterthought," penned in 1982. In third person, it describes a 1982 meeting between Messner and two participants in the 1924 Everest expedition on which Mallory and Irvine were lost. One of these participants, Professor Odell, agreed with Messner that he probably spotted the two climbers on the mountain's...