Ben Fogle – Up

One of my heroes has to be Ben Fogle.  I admire his courage and his perseverance in tackling physically demanding challenges.  I am slightly jealous and in awe of the way in which he has built his career and life around his passion for travel and adventure.  I love his TV series on people who have managed to escape “normal life”, the rat race and are living differently.  So “Up” was definitely on my list of books to read.

I actually ended up getting it as my free audible book.  It was a different experience for me – listening to a book rather than reading it.  I listened whilst walking Pretzel on her daily / sometimes twice daily walks so finished it in a few days.

I enjoyed it.  I liked the fact that it was read by Ben and Marina – it brought something special to the account.  I was intrigued by his internal debates on being a good father whilst being true to himself.  His respect for his fellow climbers and for Victoria was evident throughout as was his love for his family.  I was interested in the process of climbing Everest.  The book portrayed a man who was very aware of his responsibilities towards others – sometimes overly so!  He seemed to think that other people – his father-in-law, Victoria – were his responsibility when in fact they had made the decision themselves to join the trip.  It showed someone who struggled at school but has managed to be successful despite that.  It showed someone who actually lives a very privileged middle class sort of life with lots of holidays to exotic places.  I think that his children are very fortunate to have Ben and Marina as parents.  They encourage physical activity and taking risks; they are able to travel and see a lot of the world.  Marina’s chapters were a definite asset to the book.  I liked her writing style and she came across as a very strong, likable woman obviously devoted to her family.

But – I was left feeling a little dissatisfied with “UP”.  Ben’s TV programmes always leave me wanting to know more.  He only seemed to scratch the surface of the monk’s solitary life and the nomadic life of the couple walking the world.  The TV programme on Everest felt the same so I was hoping that the book would go deeper.  I wanted to know more about the process, about the practice climbs.  I wanted to hear more about Victoria and her struggles – in some ways her experience would be more interesting than Ben’s.  I wanted to hear more about his life when he got home.  The book was a little repetitive.  Ben came back to the same topics (fatherhood v travel for example) many times without going any deeper, without developing his thoughts; using the same words and phrases.

I did enjoy this book and would recommend it.  I just felt that Ben could have gone deeper.  It is almost as if he needed to have someone there when he was writing to ask him searching questions, to make him think.

So now I need to listen to another audible book.  But I can only have one free one a month (I am taking advantage of the free Amazon Prime 3  month trial) and they look to be quite expensive.  Until next month I will have to continue to listen to Podcasts on my Pretzel walks.