Customer Reviews

Clouds from Both Sides

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read 'Clouds from Both Sides' after it was recommended to me by my father. Having recently started mountaineering myself, the book has given me lots of inspiration and determination to fulfil all of my ambitions. It is obvious that Tullis had a great passion for mountaineering and for also helping other people realise their abilities.

The book is easy to read if you have a basic knowledge of climbing and the stories of her life are told through humour and in a friendly manner. I would only rate it with four stars instead of five for one reason - Many stories that she mentions are only touched upon briefly which sometimes becomes a little tedious. However, this is understandable seeing as she accomplished so much in her life that she wanted to share. I can only imagine that fitting it all into a 300 paged paperback must have been a little difficult.

As you read this book Julie Tullis emerges as remarkable person. Initially she seems a gentle soul, who wishes for little more than to help other less fortunate than herself. She seems at peace with herself and the world around her.

But has you move through the book you begin to understand that there is a steel core to this seemingly gentle women. Martial arts and self discipline move to the fore and as opportunities present themselves so does her commitment to high attitude climbing. She travels to places where few women had been before, and was the first British women to climb a number of very high Himalayan peaks.

Although she never seems to lose touch with her family or her home, it becomes clear that she is drawn back to the mountains by an experience even she finds hard to describe. The sequence in the book where she returns home just before and departs just after her sons 18th birthday are at odds with the family centered women you meet at the start of the book.

There are moments in this book that make you question what was happening for her at the time. The first mention of the death of Takser and Boardman runs to just a single sentence. It is only later in the book they you discover that Boardman had been a friend who had stayed at her house on a number of occasions. That first, single, sentence seemed strange at the time, and that feeling remains.

Near the end of the book she says "If I could choose a place to die, it would be in the mountains" and just after she speaks of times where she could just "sit still and drift off into an eternal sleep". These are words that must haunt her family, for they haunted me after I had read them. On the 6th or 7th of August 1986 she did drift off into that eternal sleep, high on K2, along with many other people.

This is a stunning book, which manages to be frank without being brutal, but is full of reminders of the determination and risk that is required to achieve the height that she reached. Recommended.

Great to read a mountaineering book by a female, and one that occasionally mentions the down to earth unpleasantness. An ordinary person doing extraordinary things.

A very enjoyable read and a great and memorable record of this amazing ladies life. This book should inspire and encourage all who would dream of living life to the full.

Clouds from Both Sides - This was a favourite book of my boyfriend / fiancee / husband before we met. Now our daughter is 13 I have realised how seeing clouds from both sides while climbing mountains fed His (husband / dad's) spiritual side.
I have memories of Meditation / Aikido on a mountain in Wales as husband and wife.
I have memories of our new-born precious daughter at three weeks old - and the images we took of all three of us then.
I have memories of yesterday as we three met again - Mum and daughter walking quickly to meet Dad as Dad and daughter prepare to go skiing in Switzerland at half-term.
A must read book if you plan to climb Everest to see the clouds from both sides.
The highest I have climbed has been to the hut on the Matterhorn in summer - but still with old snow up to the winter entrance and the summer entrance not yet open! I was terriefied of the thunderstorm on the way down but we slept safely in Zermatt that night!