Somewhat Unique Punctuation In "Into Thin Air"

  Krakauer writes in a very literal and to the point manner.  Despite the blunt writing style, Krakauer has a message he is trying to get across in every chapter.  Krakauer rarely outwardly states his opinion in his writing.  Rather, he lets the reader see the necessary information in a neutral manner.  This passage shows his style well.

The weather deteriorated as the afternoon wore on.  Lopsang Jangbu, Fischer's sirdar, showed up bearing a back-wrenching eighty-pound load, some thirty pounds of which consisted of a satellite telephone and its peripheral hardware: Sandy Pittman was intending to file Internet dispatches from 26,000 feet.

  It is clear that Krakauer holds some disdain for this Sandy Pittman, a wealthy socialite/mountaineer, who found it necessary to access the internet while on the tallest mountain in the world.  Not only that, but she also had her Sherpa drag up the weight of her nonessential equipment.  The use of punctuation in this passage gives us this impression that Krakauer has towards Pittman, without directly stating it.  The colon inserted after the primary sentence highlights the absurdity of what Pittman is having Jangbu do.

  I enjoy Krakauer's to-the-point method of writing, as it doesn't tell the reader what they are supposed to believe-it only suggests it.  This creates the illusion of an unbiased book, but subtlety inserts the author's belief's into the passage.  It is clever, and breaks the trend of clear bias that we find in so many other sources.