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Title: My Quest for the Yeti: Confronting the Himalayas' Deepest Mystery by Reinhold Messner ISBN: 0-312-27078-X Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.2 (5 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: I Want The Snowman
Comment: This is one of those books that I am almost embarrassed to admit I read. What has it been, about 20 or 30 years since these types of myths were even thought of as a remote possibility? When I picked the book up I almost thought that I should stop off next at the palm reader. Well I did buy the book and the reason is that this type of myth still provides me and others with some kind of fun fictional hope that weird things like this are out there roaming around. Maybe it brings out the kid in me, who knows, I bought the book because I thought it would be a fun escape.
Well the book was just ok. No big creatures were found and the author basically dispels the myth. The best part of the book was the author's descriptions of the areas he was in and the people he encountered. He trekked around some of the most beautiful and rugged places in the world and he does a better then average describing them in the book. I also found that the details of his encounters with the locals were interesting. Overall the book was ok. I expected more trashy excitement and the book was just one that dispelled the rumors.
Rating: 3
Summary: The Yeti, a bear ?
Comment: Messner, probably the greatest climber in history (e.g. climbing Everest solo without Oxygen) tells the story of his search for an explanation governing the so-called Yeti or Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas. It all started with his attempt to retread the steps of the ancient cultural treks of the Tibetan people. On the way he meets, in a moonlit forest, a dark form with great nightvision and the ability to move very quietly and with great speed through the undergrowth. Messner's description of his encounter is simply superb, so gripping and personal it must be real. One is left in no doubt at all that he has met a creature of unknown origin who moves in an upright position much like a man and makes unusual whistling sounds.
Messner, so gripped by his phenomenal encounter is driven to find out more of this enigmatic being, which he considers to be the mythical Yeti of Himalayan fame. It is the case that the first description of this meeting is the most important part of the book, it being a powerful experience beyond any other abstractions he undertakes in the remainder of the book. Over some ten years and much searching as well as research and the retelling of the experiences of Tibetans he meets, Messner comes to the conclusion that the Yeti and the Chemo are the same beast, an unusual and rare kind of Tibetan bear. Although most of the book is taken up with descriptions from history of Yeti encounters, and the denial of the possibility that the Yeti is anthropoid in nature, he fails to completely convince in his definitive statement that all of the mythical creatures of Tibetan legend used to describe such incidents e.g. Yeti, Chemo, Dremo etc are the same being. I felt his conclusion to be a little hurried. Although there must be no doubt that his observation of the Chemo is a bear this does not mean that the Yeti, as such, is also a bear. It is doubtful that a bear can spend so much time walking upright as a Yeti has been known to do and that his footprints do not show claws which are the hallmarks of a bear. Nonetheless Messner convinces in the fact that at least some common encounters must be bear encounters with a very real, but rarely seen, kind of Tibetan bear.
Rating: 2
Summary: abominable messner
Comment: Has Reinhold Messner climbed one too many mountains?
The man who could arguably lay claim as the greatest of mountaineers - at least in the modern era - offers a slightly different view of his highland exploits in MY QUEST FOR THE YETI.
As the first person to scale all the world's 8000m peaks, Messner immortalised himself in climbing history. Unfortunately, he is better known outside such circles for daring to tell the world he stumbled across a creature known to the Western world as a Yeti in 1986.
Messner came across the creature on a solo climb that year, and made the mistake of telling the story of his encounter at a press conference in India.
``The news of my conquering the last two of the 14 eight-thousanders was lost among yeti hysteria, jeering comments, and absurd speculation,'' he laments.
He even became something of a joke in his Austrian homeland, but now, 16 years later, Messner seems determined to clarify his position once and for all.
But was it a Yeti, or actually a type of highly-intelligent bear known to the Tibetan natives as the chemo?
He asks the question early in the piece, but his inability to clearly express his line of reasoning for the remainder of the books makes for frustrating, and at times boring reading.
It does not help his case that the chemo itself is yet to be scientifically classified, or even proven to exist.
Messner is obviously no scientist, and the quantum leaps of logic that he makes to prove his claim often leave the reader more inclined to believe the Yeti theory.
However, it does not make MY QUEST FOR THE YETI an unworthy read.
Few Westerners know more about Tibetan culture and landscape than Messner, and, perhaps inadvertently, his latest book provides an engaging window through which to view it.
His battle to travel through Tibet undetected by Chinese officials, helped by a number of old friends in towns and nomadic enclaves, often contrasts starkly with what is obviously a stunning backdrop, both physical and spiritual.
Like Messner, the reader keeps one eye on the road for trouble, and the other wide open in wonder at the setting.
He also peppers the book with intriguing historical accounts of Yeti sightings _ more than enough ``facts'' to keep the myth alive, albeit it at the expense of Messner's bear theory.
Still, this remains the self-indulgent work of a somewhat righteous and often annoyingly conceited man who should stick to doing what he does better than anyone else in his field - climbing big rocks.
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Title: In Search of Giants: Bigfoot Sasquatch Encounters by Thomas Steenburg ISBN: 0888394462 Publisher: Hancock House Publishing Pub. Date: 01 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Locals: A Contemporary Investigation of the Bigfoot/Sasquatch Phenomenon by Thom Powell ISBN: 0888395523 Publisher: Hancock House Pub Ltd Pub. Date: 01 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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