Extreme

Subtitled 'why some people thrive at the limits', this engrossing study investigates the psychological and emotional qualities of people who willingly expose themselves to extreme hardship and harsh conditions, sometimes losing their lives in the process. The first few chapters recount experiences of life at the edge in terms of bravery, hardship, sleep deprivation, monotony and boredom, loneliness and the difficulty of relating to other people in extreme conditions. Then there are chapters on some of the qualities required: teamwork, expertise, resilience and focus, all with vivid and sometimes spine-chilling examples. One person who appears early in the book is Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who was a member of the 1910 to 1913 Antarctic expedition, for which 8,000 men applied. He remarked that it was the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time that has been devised. He and another two men embarked on a horrendous journey of five weeks during the Antarctic winter hauling to sledges wearing a third of the ton in complete darkness at temperatures of -60°C. The cold was so intense that that their teeth split and they experienced frostbite inside their sleeping bags. We should also remember that they had no way of communicating with anyone. This shows almost unimaginable endurance, and, interestingly, Cherry-Garrard kept himself going with an apt mantra 'you've got it in the neck - stick it, stick it!' You can say that again.

In the light of this, one can understand the remark that the motivation for people climbing Everest is about enduring pain and seeking, perhaps, something like a state of grace. One form of hardship is squalor, and there is a graphic description of the NASA 'urine management system' inside the capsules where there were sometimes free-floating faeces due to the lack of gravity. Then there is hunger and thirst as well as sheer pain. Chronic shortage of sleep can have drastic effects - and you can imagine the extreme exhaustion of Cherry-Garrard and his colleagues. Then what about Ellen MacArthur spending three months at sea while circumnavigating the globe? She documented taking 891 naps lasting an average of 36 minutes. The explorer Wilfred Thesiger makes a number of appearances, including in the chapter on the monotony as he trudged across the desert day after day. At the end of each chapter there are some general observations about the conditions and how to cope with them – sometimes, like resilience, scaled-down to more everyday life situations. These are on the whole brief, and could well have been elaborated, but one can appreciate the sense of having lived life to the full and the benefits of developing focus, endurance and resilience. Read from the comfort of an armchair, this book can provide a vicarious experience of precarious situations most of us would rather not be in.