Alice in Exile – Piers Paul Read

 When Alice Fry meets Edward Cobb at a society party in London in 1913, there is a spark between them that reaches across a divide in class and outlook. Cobb is landed gentry, heir to the baronetcy at Nester Park, and an army officer. Alice thinks herself a modern woman, studying at university, in sympathy with the suffragist movement and sharing the socialist ideals of her publisher father.

Opposites attract; the relationship develops. Cobb takes advantage of Alice’s liberated views on sex before marriage. Alice allows herself to appreciate the high life at Nestor, where she meets and challenges the entrenched views of the political elite. On an outing to the Epsom Derby (the Cobb’s have a stud and a horse running) Alice meets a Russian aristocrat, Baron Rettenberg. He is a connoisseur, and not just of horseflesh.

When Alice’s world, including her prospective marriage to Cobb, collapses in scandal and misfortune, Rettenberg swoops in with an offer of a post as governess to his two youngest children – in Russia. For Alice it would be a welcome bolthole, so she accepts and goes with him into self-imposed exile at the Baron’s Soligorsk estate.

The years that follow are tumultuous for the whole continent with the outbreak of the First World War and the rolling revolutions in Russia. Edward Cobb is mired in the slaughter of the Western Front. The Rettenbergs must navigate the changing currents of the Russian Empire’s descent into chaos. Cobb comes to realise what he has lost in Alice; Rettenberg, increasingly relying on her for practical and emotional support, sees that, in Alice, he may gain more than a quick conquest. As for Alice, she concentrates on what is necessary to survive.

It is a well crafted novel written with clarity that gives credibility to the love triangle and generates empathy with the characters. The historical context provides an interesting and vividly drawn backdrop to events. The resolution remains in doubt to the end, and possibly beyond.

Into the Silence – Wade Davis

 This comprehensive account of the first attempts to climb the world’s highest mountain deals with more than just the mechanics of the expeditions of 1921, 1922, and 1924. The subtitle, ‘The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest’ could also have included a reference to Tibet, as both its landscape and culture feature large.

Davis lays some solid foundations ahead of the main action, reprising the history of Tibet and its relations with the British Raj in India. Similarly, the World War 1 experiences of expedition members are covered in detail, along with their feelings of disassociation with the post-war Britain they return to. Davis cites this as a motivating factor, driving some to seek adventure, endurance and even danger, abroad. And what offered more than the ascent of Everest?

The first expedition in 1921 broke new ground in exploring the (to them) largely unknown regions of West Tibet and enabling some detailed reconnaissance of the approaches to the mountain. By the time an accessible route was determined, adverse weather caused the exhausted and depleted climbers to withdraw.

A year later, lessons learned on the importance of physiology, the second expedition included younger climbers, with only George Mallory returning for another go. In addition, oxygen cylinders and masks were brought, controversially as some considered its use as cheating. While Mallory set a new height record unaided, it was eclipsed days later by George Finch using the breathing apparatus. Close, but no cigar; weather and the death of seven porters in an avalanche on the high slopes ended the expedition.

Two years on, Mallory and several of the class of 1922 returned with better oxygen gear and, in Mallory’s case, an acceptance of its necessity at extreme altitude. They got higher than before. Did Mallory and Irvine reach the summit? Nether returned to tell the tale, and it was seventy-five years before one of their bodies (Mallory) was found.

The nearly six-hundred-page read is a fitting tribute to the early explorers. Maps are provided to enable the reader to follow their footsteps across the roof of the world, and there are some photographs, though these are frustratingly in random, rather than chronological, order.

The words, however, are excellent, placing the expeditions in historical, geographical, and cultural context It reveals the men as well as the mission, with plenty of first-hand testimony from diaries and letters. Altogether, an epic book worthy of its epic subject matter.