Deep Down Dark
If you are even mildly claustrophobic you may want to think twice before reading this book. The thought of being buried alive under the mountain was difficult for me but I was very impressed by the story of survival. True stories, with real people who face real challenges are always inspiring and not only make me grateful for my own personal blessings but also make me ponder my strength and wonder at my reaction to being in a similar circumstance.
Historical Value – 5
Emotional Value – 4
Entertainment Value – 3
Personal Character Value – 4
Age Recommendation – 16+
“If you’re working, it’s the best therapy for posttraumatic stress,” Juan says. Studies have shown that the gravity of posttraumatic stress is directly proportional to the length of time one lives with the threat of death, and Juan slowly unwinds the trauma of the sixty-nine days he lived inside a thundering mountain by going to work, fixing machines, then going back home, and then returning to work again.”
― Héctor Tobar, Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free
“Omar realizes that the improbable fact of their survival also carries a hint of the divine. To be alive in this hole, against all odds, speaks to Omar of the existence of a higher power with some sort of plan for these still-living men.”
― Héctor Tobar, Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free
“It seems silly to Franklin for his fellow miners to think of themselves as national heroes when all they’ve done is gotten themselves trapped in a place where only the desperate and the hard up for cash go to suffer and toil. They are famous now, yes, but that heady sense of fullness that fame gives you, that sense of being at the center of everything, will disappear quicker than they could possibly imagine. Franklin tries to speak this truth to his fellow miners, but he does so halfheartedly, because he knows the only way to learn it is to live it.”
― Héctor Tobar, Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free
“addition to the stresses and sorrows of a miner’s life, there is the fortitude, brotherhood, and sense of self-worth mining’s hypermasculine culture”
― Héctor Tobar, Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free
“If you make a man a symbol of things that are bigger than any one person can possibly be, you risk stripping that man of his sense of who he really is.”
― Héctor Tobar, Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free
