Alone on the Wall: Alex Honnold and the Ultimate Limits of Adventure

Product Information

I didn’t really like the narrators tone, it was somewhat too casual, like he was pretending to speak as if he’s telling a story rather than reading it from an actual book. David Foster Wallace, himself very accomplished at tennis, once wrote of the problem he found with the vast majority of autobiographies of pro athletes: You pick up such a book hoping the greatest of greats, the person whom you know of for their ability to hit a ball or kick a ball or run faster than you or .

If you’ve seen the films where he climbs ropeless thousands of feet above the ground they tell the stories better than this book does. Again, when it's all over, we're still left wondering whether climbing is, or is not, a form of insanity. They are not necessarily admirable, some are not good and fine people, but their perseverance, grit and laser-like focus are fascinating.Coincidentally, just as I was finishing this book, the National Geographic movie, "Free Solo" was being screened at a local theater, and I watched the film, which is a perfect complement to this book. I had long followed Honnold on Facebook and noticed that unlike many pro athletes I follow, he posted not simply stunning photos of himself doing awesome stuff, but lengthy, pithy, musings on the outdoors, environmentalism, and related topics. Alex Honnold's book is 'Alone on the Wall', with the 2018 edition having three extra chapters covering his El Cap climb. In 2016, he was subjected to functional magnetic resonance imaging scans that revealed that, unlike other high sensation seekers, [24] his amygdala barely activates when watching disturbing images.

I am both in awe of what has been accomplished by climbers like Honnold, Tommy Caldwell, and others, but also understand that I would never take unnecessary risks that they subject themselves to on these climbs. As good as the film Free Solo was, this book really shows Honnold as a deep thinker, and as a refreshingly honest and considerate individual, not as glib has he can sometimes appear on camera. stars for the half of the book that actually talks about Alex Honnold and his amazing free solo of El Capitan. Synnott seems torn between writing a memoir of his own adventures in climbing (in kind of a self-deprecating way), and writing this “free solo of El Cap” centered story.career, vocation, whatever we wish to say of someone who became the most famous person in his sport but simply dropped out of school to head for the hills and climb to his heart’s content sees himself and his journey. I enjoyed reading about a subject that I previously knew nothing about and really had little interest in. My biggest take away is probably to think about the world in terms of 4 levels of development, instead of trying to break it down into west/global south or developed/developing or whatever else. I definitely found that it enhanced the book but the book alone is an incredible experience that tells the story of Alex honnold in great detail.

At times I got a little tired of all the technical talk about climbing but overall enjoyed learning about the history of climbing a many of the major players in the climbing world! Neurodiversity: sometimes we find the other person's mental processes hard to fathom because they are just so different. Honnold was born in Sacramento, California, the son of community college professor Dierdre Wolownick (b. I listened to most of this book on audio while training on a campus board, so it was extra fun and motivating to learn about some of the most epic climbs attempted to date. As an ex boundary pushing alternative athlete from the seventies I'm able to vicariously understand how badass this achievement truly is.In 2015, he won a Piolet d'Or in alpine climbing with Tommy Caldwell for their completion of the enchainment (known as the Fitz Traverse) of the Cerro Chaltén Group (or Fitzroy Group) in Patagonia over 5 days. Even though from the outside perspective his life seems to be on the cutting edge, to Honnold it’s just what he does. The climbing community had long considered a "free solo" ascent of El Capitan an impossible feat so far beyond human limits that it was not worth thinking about.