Alive

This is actually an old story but I have just really read the book. A real story about 40 people dropped in a plane crash on Andes mountain and only 16 of them as survivors. These 16 survivor ate on dead human flesh to survive in freezing snowy mountain before they were finally rescued after more than 3 months of search. It's an amazing story depicting how fragile the life of men is and how men react in facing their own death.

I try to imagine what it is like when I have to eat my friend's dead bodies to survive. I imagine I have to eat my best buddy, Jeremy 's dead flesh, how I would have to look into his dead eyes with all the memory of me and him. Not just all the disgust of eating human flesh or religious or moral belief but also about the spirit it once contains that remains in my brain.

The book also pictures each person's act and character, the good, the bad, the somewhere in between. What amazing is that people who were nothing in everyday life before the plane crash accident turned into heroes, they became the ones that knew what to do and what to react and they were the one who finally saved them all, and people who were best in everyday life turn out to be losers and evils. What a paradox! Parrado, for sample, was a shy simple guy who couldn't even get himself closed to a woman and he had less friends than other. But it turned out he was the bravest, the smartest, the toughest who couldn't just wait down for rescue and decided to take action to cross the Andes mountain to the west side. He was the one that respected by others. He was the one who finally found the civilization and rescued all his friends.
While others, people who used to be smart, intelligent, popular, rich, good, decent, etc in everyday life became nothing more than just animal when dealing with God's great hands of fate.

When faced with death, no mask can disguise what people really are. How death is honest, innocent, and fair.

It was really a good book.