View From The Summit

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"Somewhat vigorous activity" is how Sir Edmund Hillary summarises the first 79 years of his life, and that modest and gentlemanly appraisal sets the tone for this most understated of memoirs. It's nearly half a century since Hillary became an integral part of the last real gasp of British Commonwealth pride, when the news of his ascent of Mount Everest, with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, reached London in time for the coronation of their new young queen. That legendary achievement launches View from the Summit, but Hillary's life since has hardly been all downhill. Sir Ed has also been the impetus behind a massive building programme in Nepal, where he was his country's High Commissioner, received a knighthood and the Order of the Garter from the Queen, and ended up with that rare tribute for a man still alive--his face on the New Zealand five-dollar bill. His story is also one of personal pain, most touchingly conveyed in his simple and moving account of the tragic plane crash deaths of his first wife and 16-year-old daughter. But this is a story which is not over by a long chalk: as Hillary writes on the last page, "There is so much still to do." --Alan Stewart