Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In that memoir, he attributes the spark of the idea to a head nurse named Irène
Kravchenko, whose blue eyes, blond hair, and “ravishing” smiles boosted the invalid's
morale. Kravchenko's beauty, writes Herzog, camouflaged “an inflexible will.” One
day she let her patient know that she considered him psychologically as well as phys-
ically damaged. What he needed, she counseled, was a purpose in life.
“A purpose?” Herzog protested. “My god, what? Reading? Is that your idea?”
“Why not write?” proposed Kravchenko.
“You're joking. What about my hands?”
“You could dictate a book. Your book. Your life, your death. A new life. . . . You
must do it. You
can
do it!”
Is this story disingenuous? Is it a complete fiction? How could Herzog not have
planned to write the topic a voracious public was already clamoring for? In its portrait
of the maimed victor of Annapurna as a reluctant celebrity, the Kravchenko vignette
mirrors a stance Herzog would come to perfect in his lecture appearances.
As soon as its editors could put together a story, on August 19
Paris-Match
ran
its exclusive account of the expedition. The cover featured the now-famous summit
photo of Herzog holding aloft the Tricolor attached to the shaft of his ice axe; inside
were splashed sixteen pages of color and black-and-white photos. (These photos were
credited to Ichac, although Rébuffat took the ones high on the mountain, Lachenal the
summit photo.) The issue broke all the magazine's previous sales records.
On January 25, 1951, 2,500 spectators crowded into the Salle Pleyel in Paris to
watch the premiere of the film Ichac had brought back from Annapurna. The audience
included the president of France, Vincent Auriol, and five ministers. Herzog, holding
the stumps of his hands pressed together before him, limped across the stage, with his
eight teammates following in single file, to the wild applause of the congregation.
In
L'Autre Annapurna
the reluctant celebrity gives us a glimpse of the climbers
nervously lingering backstage before their procession. Everyone feels intimidated by
the grand occasion. His friends counsel Herzog to lead the procession on stage, but he
demurs, urging they appear as a group. Terray clinches the debate: “You were the first
on the summit. Here, you should be first as well. Go ahead.”
After the premiere on January 25, it would require thirty more showings of the film
in Paris, and some 300 lectures and individual appearances by the climbers in other
French cities, to satisfy the public's passion for details of the great adventure.
On February 17,
Paris-Match
ran another cover story on Annapurna, focusing on
the film premiere at the Salle Pleyel. This time the cover photo showed a still ema-
ciated Herzog, clean-shaven and dapper in jacket and tie, holding his truncated hands
out toward the audience as he spoke into a microphone. The cover blurb announced,
