Limits of the Known

November 13, 2017
Roberts, an adventurer and author of nearly 30 books (Alone on the Ice, etc.), movingly reflects on his life prior to undergoing throat-cancer treatment that made physical exertion nearly impossible for him. The diagnosis led him to consider the meaning of his own adventures and those of other explorers, such as Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay and British Arctic explorer Henry Worsley. Interspersed with these vivid retellings of other’s adventures are reminiscences about Roberts’s own outdoor pursuits, many of which were life-or-death undertakings. Roberts’s initial revelation while undergoing chemotheraphy was that when he looked at explorers, he saw “little point... in trying to unearth an overarching purpose in our madness,” yet he eventually surmises that his love for adventure was “encoded” in his DNA; he felt an inherent need for the knowledge and companionship that dangerous situations require. Roberts also reflects on life’s bittersweet joys, such as when he looks at a recent photo, taken with his wife on a short hike, that captures “my emaciated feebleness but also the happiness of that day.” Roberts conveys the exhilaration and vitality of adventuring as well as the agony and anger of a cancer diagnosis with equal aplomb, making for a moving narrative that speaks to the glories of the human spirit and the limitations of the human body.