“Alive a must read for anyone interested in learning what being human really means”

Time has not diminished the drama of the tale of the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes Mountains on October 12, 1972. Of the forty-five people on the plane, thirty-five initially survived but only sixteen came down from the mountain 72 days later with a saga of survival that is still remembered 37 years later.

Piers Paul Read unfolds a tale that is gripping in the telling, as enthralling as it is almost unbelievable. Masterfully written, it is a well-balanced narrative that takes great pains to ground the experience of the survivors deep into your mind. I must admit there were a few parts I skipped over due to the fact I was a little bit squeamish (yes can you believe that?) but nonetheless I felt this story would somehow make a difference in my life so I continued on and I am so glad I did.

What most of the world remembers about this story is that after their food supply had run out and realizing that their days were numbered and if they didn’t have sustenance they would never get off that mountain, they all made a decision. Digging deep into their conservative, religious souls, they found a way to justify what they were about to do. Their fallen comrades would now provide the means of their nourishment. At first some refused but all eventually succumbed to this only means of survival.

As horrifying as it was, there is an upbeat message in this book about the unshakable will to live, about the utility of human solidarity in the face of death (and some 30 years later all these men are still very close with one another), and the mystical communion between the survivors and their dead comrades who saved their lives by providing the nourishment to survive.

A movie was made about these events, which is on DVD, included in the special features is a documentary about the 16 survivors 25 years later. One of the survivors, Nando Parrado, (one of the two who actually hiked through the perilous mountains to find help) has written about his experiences on the mountain the memoir is called Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home. This is an excellent read as well due to the fact you get to actually hear from one of the survivors and what was going on in his mind during those 72 grueling days.

The means that these men took to let the world know that indeed they were still ALIVE will astound even the most jaded of readers. It is an account of human endurance that is thought provoking and compelling, a quest to reconcile physical needs with the spiritual. It is, above all a testament to life.