Thin Air: The most chilling and compelling ghost story of the year

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This is a slim book, and a simple story, but it has all the elegance of a classic ghost story -- Miriam McDonald * SFX * I could feel the chilly winds and the cold in this one and the eerie feel of the mountain really comes to life in her vivid writing. Paver's writing style managed to read like a diary or first person tale from an actual survivor of a mountain climbing disaster. She expertly set up a failed 1907 Lyell Expedition and explained the impact it had on climbers in the 1935 Cotterell expedition at hand. Because of this, combined with the likability of everyman narrator Stephen Pearce, I was pulled in from the beginning. In the ghost story, it’s often when intellectual arrogance begins to crumble that the characters – and the reader – are taken to the most unsettling places. In the foothills outside Darjeeling, the men are careful not to encourage the “mumbo-jumbo” of the “coolies” for fear of having the ascent disrupted by panic, but on the mountain itself, superstitions once scoffed at seem all too real. “Isn’t it strange,” says Stephen, “that we laugh at the Sherpas for putting their faith in amulets, when we’re really exactly the same, except that with us it’s a white rabbit’s foot or a crucifix.” He says this as he clings to the piece of prayer-ribbon given to him by his manservant, Nima, for protection.

Looking for a proper ghost story? Thin Air is a creepy, compelling tale of a Himalayan climbing expedition, where strange events on the mountain stir dread and panic.” A tightly wrought tale that keeps the reader wondering to the end whether the terror is merely psychological, or if there is in fact something dark haunting the slopes of Kangchenjunga. There's a good narrative strand of sibling rivalry between the narrator, the mountain expedition's doctor, and his elder brother, who is the expedition's leader. But it is the slow build-up of tension from the supernatural elements that makes this book so good. The climax is gripping and horrifying without being gory and then there is a very moving aftermath.It’s a hypothesis, and it makes me feel slightly better. I’ve put a frame around the wrongness. I’ve contained it.”

The book transports the reader into cold, inimical terrain, forcing them to question the evidence of their over-stimulated senses * METRO * Author's press release (8 August 2009). "Michelle Paver's Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Sells A Million Copies!". Booktrade.info. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016 . Retrieved 6 February 2011. {{ cite web}}: |author= has generic name ( help) Following Lyell’s route are Kits, Stephen, Major Cotterell, McLellan and Garrard – Kit’s best friend. Despite Captain Tennant’s request that they do not follow the same route up the South-West face, the party ignore his plea and continue as planned. Dr Pearce finds the jungle oppressive and dislikes the superstition and fear which surrounds the mountain. However, it is once they begin the climb that his unsettled feelings gradually turn to fear. Is he imagining things, or is there something - or someone - on the mountain, that is watching them? It becomes hard for him not to give at least some credence to local folklore when Kanchenjunga is so elementally powerful. How could it not be possessed of the capacity for anger or punishment? Is it any wonder that the Sherpas find gods and devils there? Michelle Paver's descriptions of Himalayan mountain-climbing are terrifyingly lifelike - the lashing winds, glittering ice: you can see it all...Paver's style is lively and clear; and the tale just rips along...Just fantastic -- Wendy Holden * DAILY MAIL *

Summary

Thin Air: A Ghost Story fitted the bill perfectly for me, this is more the the sort of story that is eerie and chilling and unsettling as opposed to scary. The peak is unclimbable for reasons other than geography. Paver’s style is lively and clear, and the tale just rips along. But there is something else beyond the genius loci. The real horror in Thin Air lies in the sheer scale of things: the height of the pinnacles, the depth of the crevasses, the cold and the silence, the distance from anything familiar, the huge otherness. It’s 1935, and mountaineering has the nation by the nape. Our protagonist Stephen Pearce has always been a keen climber, but he certainly wasn’t supposed to be conquering Kangchenjunga this spring. He was meant to be getting married and starting a family, but something about the life he could see stretched out ahead of him—and the death, yes—didn’t feel quite right, so when his big brother Kits basically begged him to follow in the footsteps of Edmund Lyell on an expedition up one of the Himalaya’s highest peaks, Stephen said yes.