What follows is a nightmare scenario from which emerges an internet sensation as the pictures are posted on the web site; journey To The Dark Side. Which would not have been a bad name for the book given what follows. Simon Newman, the person who journeyed into the dark to get the pictures then looks to higher climes for more subject matter. Viral success proves to be something of a first world problem as he has to top the sensation that drew in the hits. He decides to follow his pot holing disaster pictures with some Himalayan disaster pictures. He decides to scale Everest and photograph the many fallen on the mountain paths. For the bodies of those who died trying to scale the heights of Everest are still there
He poses as an adrenalin junkie, hiding his true purpose for being on the mountain from the other climbers. Who despite their many personal faults or personality short comings at least aspire to a purity of intent when it comes to climbing. Simon Newman is not a very nice person and we know this as Sarah Lotz provides us with a window to his personal intent. He cloaks his shallow and selfish agenda in a polyester jacket of casual goodness, almost at every turn his agenda being something other than the one he projects. This is a child of Facebook and instagram, where "seeming" is everything.as he aspires to the split second lie of being that is a selfie. This is a man willing to climb over the bodies of the dead in order to enhance his social media profile. as long as he can photograph them. I suppose in that respect he shares much in common with many modern day celebrities or those who see themselves as social media influencers...ugh..the levels of delusion.....
In a sense Sarah Lotz peoples the mountain with those who embody some of the worst aspects of modernity, at least the ones still up on their feet.The depths social media figures will descend to would swallow a Himalayan mountain range.
I find myself drawn to stories set in remote locations but I much prefer those stories to be filled with the kind of empathic misanthropes a writer like Algernon Blackwood would create. Bookish loners who stray into the dark corners of the world.in many respects simon newman has it coming to him. The baggage he carries, the unforgiving ghosts of bad decisions.
We probably all have it coming.
The White road is a fast, entertaining read. Like the mountain range at the heart of the tale it has a tough surface. Take from that what you will.
Everest endures.
A good piece of prep before attempting a read would be to consider this excert from TS Elliot's The Waste Land and Other Poems;
"Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I Count, there are only you and i together.
But when i look ahead up the White Road
There is always another one walking beside you
gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
- But who is that on the other side of you?
