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RIP Sir Edmund
Jan. 10th, 2008 11:37 pmPerhaps they thought that just being the first to climb a hill was hardly qualification for immortality; perhaps they instinctively realized destiny had another place for them. For they both became, in the course of time, representatives not merely of their particular nations but of half of humanity. Astronauts might justly claim that they were envoys of all humanity; Hillary and Tenzing, in a less spectacular kind, came to stand for the small nations of the world, the young ones, the tucked-away and the up-and-coming.
* Jan Morris in "Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay" in TIME magazine (14 June 1999) (quote taken from Wikipedia)
I've occasionally glanced at Hilary's interviews and memoirs, and found him fascinating and a little bit alien - he seemed almost unbelievably straightforward for a human being. I'm convinced his famous statement about climbing the mountain "because it was there" was not meant as wit, but an exact answer. I suppose it was that sort of attitude that let him and Tenzing Norgay make it to the summit.
Correction - apparently it was Mallory who said Because It Was There, which spoils my rhetoric, but I think my point about Hilary's attitude still stands.
* Jan Morris in "Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay" in TIME magazine (14 June 1999) (quote taken from Wikipedia)
I've occasionally glanced at Hilary's interviews and memoirs, and found him fascinating and a little bit alien - he seemed almost unbelievably straightforward for a human being. I'm convinced his famous statement about climbing the mountain "because it was there" was not meant as wit, but an exact answer. I suppose it was that sort of attitude that let him and Tenzing Norgay make it to the summit.
Correction - apparently it was Mallory who said Because It Was There, which spoils my rhetoric, but I think my point about Hilary's attitude still stands.
