Paths of Glory – Jeffrey Archer

Paths Of Glory is a semi-biographical story of George Mallory and his attempt to be the first person ever to climb to the top of Mt. Everest. The story covers a thirty-two year period of George Mallory’s life beginning, of course, with his childhood and ending with his third, and un-known to him-his final attempt to climb Mt Everest in 1924 aged thirty-seven. Unfortunately it shall always remain a mystery as to whether the real George Mallory ever achieved this goal as he was last seen four hundred feet from the top.

Jeffrey Archer manages to go into great detail about Mallory’s life, being careful not to miss out a single, important moment. He finds a way to mix fact with fiction that works extremely well. Archer covers each part of Mallory’s life including his relationship with his father who always encouraged his love for climbing and adventure and his school years when climbing took a back seat to education until he found friends with and equal amount of enthusiasm for climbing. Although Archer does go into great detail, I also liked how he leaves the reader wanting to find out more about George Mallory and his exciting life, especially his mysterious disappearance.

The audio-book version of Archer’s story works very well. His language is descriptive and interesting and this comes across quite nicely. Roger Allam does a very good job with the narration and keeping the novel alive and exciting, perhaps more so than in its original book form.

Paths of Glory audio book (11 hours and 9 minutes in duration) is available to download now to your iPod, Mp3 Player, Computer or CD.