Deep Deep Deep Underground

Blind Descent
by James M Tabor

I hear about books from various sources.  I read reviews, browse books at the library, read articles, and get personal recommendations among other things.  I am an adventurous reader for the most part, but rarely do I actually read the adventure genre.  Travel is adventure, of course, but travel to the depths of the earth?  That is an adventure of exploration I am never ever going to take and not particularly interested in reading about if I am honest.  Blind Descent, however, showed up on several "best travel writing of 2010" lists and that intrigued me.  It was on the shelf at the library so I checked it out.

The story starts out with a death, displaying how truly unforgiving an environment is found in extreme caving.  The inexperienced need not apply or they will never become experienced.  From that doomed expedition the story divides up into two separate quests to discover the deepest place on earth.  One takes place in Oaxaca, Mexico and the other in the Ukraine.   The two expeditions are near opposites in terms of the people who lead them, the cave environment, and the end result of the mission.  Both, however, involve unbelievably dangerous risks. 

Much of the story focuses on the cavers, in the case of Bill Stone, a driven, almost obsessive personality who comes to dominate the book even when the pages were deep underground in the Ukraine.  His quest to conquer the sumps and invent a re-breather for cave diving was fascinating and very illustrative of the dangers of the Chevre Cave in Mexico.  At the same time, Alexander Klimchouk in the Ukraine, was so solid and resolute the actual cave itself seemed to lack drama despite the fact that it was the deepest place on earth at more than 2100 meters below the surface.

Because of the focus on the cavers, I never really felt transported by this book.  It was simply too grounded in the reality of the earthbound personalities.  At the same time, I will admit that caves are not likely the most vivid of environments.  How do you paint a picture of a place that has no light to illustrate it?  How do you capture the oppressive nature of the weight of thousands of feet of rock above you?  It is so alien, so forbidding, it sometimes literally drives people crazy.  I just didn't feel that as I read this book, though it was a good story.  Then again, I don't know that I want to go that far underground, so perhaps it was for the best.