Jul 182013
The Wall
A half mile up the sunlit walls of Yosemite, a rope breaks, a young woman plunges to her death, and the rescue from hell begins. Thirty-five years ago, Hugh Glass found glory on El Cap, and met the woman he would marry and lose. Now he’s back to climb the wall again, and make a fresh start. But when disaster strikes a team of women high above, Hugh finds himself drawn into a dead vertical race against time. Plagued by fire, ice, and old demons, he reaches the wreckage of the fall, where the re
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Awesome thrill ride–I recommend “The Wall” by Jeff Long,
Jeff Long takes an already terrifying scenario of climbing the notorious “El Capitan” in Yosemite Valley, CA and mixes in an even more terrifying storyline involving falling bodies, stolen corpses, violent storms and not to mention emotional angst.
It’s part “Sideways” (the movie) as two buddies relive the past as they’re both about to embark on a life changes and part “The Shining” with a heaping table spoon of “Touching the Void”.
Long puts you on that rock and makes you feel that you’re right there–and “there” is one VERY scary place to be!
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|Recommended to Anyone Who Appreciates Great Fiction,
Best friends since childhood, Hugh Glass and Lewis Cole share a love of mountain climbing that borders on obsession. They return to Yosemite’s El Cap, the wall they christened more than thirty years ago. Their wives, whom they met at the base of the mountain, are lost to them now. One leaving. The other dead. Each man has his own reason for attacking El Cap again.
As Hugh readies their supplies, he discovers the dead body of a beautiful, fallen climber. A crazed, raving caveman appears but serves only to delay Hugh’s efforts to tell rangers about the apparent accident. Once Lewis leaves him at the lodge’s bar later, Hugh finds himself tempted by his buddy’s estranged wife.
Something about their climb doesn’t feel right. Doubt looms between them and even their old rituals and scripted utterances don’t heal the rupture. Something is beckoning Hugh upward while warning Lewis to abort. In the meantime, the lunatic caveman who has stolen the dead woman’s body, reappears.
Things are further complicated when they are joined by Augustine, a young, showy member of the rescue crew who is determined to locate the surviving two members of the ill-fated but gutsy three-member climb. Without adequate sleep or nourishment, Augustine is a danger to himself and to his spooked partner who abandons him and descends with Lewis.
Hugh, still lured by sirens, joins Augustine for a more dangerous mission than he imagines. The demons that frightened Lewis back down the mountain begin to emerge. Voices, shadows, rain, fire and ice threaten to send them flying into the abyss. Just about five-hundred feet from the summit, the ropes that have held them together begin to unravel.
The Wall is a flawlessly written story of man versus nature, his fellow man and himself. The action is intense. The characters hang on the edge of life and death, always fighting the urge to look directly into the bright light of uncertainty. When the story is finished, all of the expertly inserted clues come to the fore.
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|exciting thriller,
Thirty-five years ago buddies Hugh Glass and Lewis Cole climbed Yosemite’s El Cap Mountain where they also met their future wives. However, now Hugh’s wife is gone and Lewis’ spouse is divorcing him. Yearning for a repeat of their greatest triumph, the two friends agree to climb El Cap again though they do not expect to find the respective highlight film of their lives when they met their beloveds.
Hugh and Lewis are lonely, missing their wives, as they begin the ascent. However, they soon find a corpse of an apparent person who fell off the cliff. Shocked already, a wild caveman Joshua attacks the two climbers and abducts the body they found. They continue their trek when they run into a search and rescue guide Augustine who hunts for his missing fiancée. Lewis abruptly leaves the climb while Hugh joins the SAR guide on his quest to find lost climbers even as a nasty storm is coming and Joshua stalks the two men.
The key element to this exciting thriller is the treatment of THE WALL; the mountain side seems like the prime protagonist with Hugh and Lewis acting more like major support players. For instance the description of the impact of gravity on a woman falling off the wall will shake the audience. The tension picks up as Hugh helps the SAR guide while Lewis leaves and never slows down through a shocking final twist that will leave the audience longing more natural thrillers like this tense tale.
Harriet Klausner
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