Into the silence

A beautifully evocative exploration of the inchoate motives of a group of British climbers who attempted to scale Mount Everest in the early 1920s. There was patriotism, of course, but also a desire for cleansing redemption. That ascending the world’s tallest peak was of no practical use added immensely to its appeal; privation and the very real possibility of death, to men who had survived the trenches, was scarcely worth mentioning. The story is framed around the iconic figure of George Mallory, famous for his throwaway explanation of the climb (“Because it’s there”) and famous too for his disappearance—vanishing into the mountain mist on June 8, 1924, not to be seen again until his body was recovered 75 years later. But *Into the Silence* is really about the unbearable sadness and shock the Great War inflicted on an entire generation.