The
Worst Journey in the World
by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Amazon.com
As Apsley Cherry-Garrard states in his introduction to
the harrowing story of the Scott expedition to the South Pole, "Polar
Exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad
time which has been devised." Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the
World is a gripping account of an expedition gone disastrously wrong. The
youngest member of Scott's team, the author was later part of the
rescue party that eventually found the frozen bodies of Scott and three
men who had accompanied Scott on the final push to the Pole. These deaths
would haunt Cherry-Garrard for the rest of his life as he questioned the
decisions he had made and the actions he had taken in the days leading
up to the Polar Party's demise.
Prior to this sad denouement, Cherry-Garrard's account
is filled with details of scientific discovery and anecdotes of human resilience
in a harsh environment. Each participant in the Scott expedition
is brought fully to life. Cherry-Garrard's recollections are supported
by diary excerpts and accounts from other teammates. Despite the
sad fate of Scott, the reader will grudgingly agree with the closing words
of The Worst Journey in the World: "Exploration is the physical expression
of the Intellectual Passion. And I tell you, if you have the desire
for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and
explore.... If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward,
so long as all you want is a penguin's egg."
Introduction to the British 1994 edition
"A masterpiece. ... When people ask me (I get the question about twice
a month), 'What is your favorite travel book?' I nearly always name
this book. It is about courage, misery, starvation, heroism, exploration,
discovery, and friendship. It vividly illustrates the demands of
science and the rigors of travel. It is a record of the coldest darkest
days that can be found on our planet. It is written beautifully but
not obviously, with a subtle artistry. ... It is rare to find a person
who is at once a great traveler, recounting an overwhelming experience,
and who is also such an accomplished writer. ... Everywhere his voice is
clear, articulate and humane and sometimes startling."--Paul
Theroux. |
Scott's
Last Expedition The Journals
by Robert Falcon Scott, Beryl Bainbridge
Amazon.com
In November 1910, a ship called Terra Nova left New Zealand on its way
south to Antarctica. On board was an international team of explorers
led by Robert Falcon Scott, a man determined to be the first to reach the
South Pole. A year and a half later, Scott and three members of his
team died during a brutal blizzard. Their dream of reaching the Pole first
had already been dashed by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen,
and now on their return trip--slowed by ill health and bad weather--Scott's
party found themselves trapped in a tent without sufficient provisions,
while the wind howled endlessly outside. Even in his final hours, Scott
found the strength to continue the journal he'd started at the beginning
of his adventures; the diary was found beside his frozen body.
Scott's Last Expedition: The Journals is the explorer's
detailed account of his time in Antarctica. The team's daily progress towards
their final goal is recorded in Scott's vivid, personal narrative, as well
as his impressions of the harsh conditions, the stark beauty of the
tundra, and his own increasingly desperate ambition to beat his rivals
to the Pole. Shortly before he died, Scott wrote: "Had we lived, I
should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage
of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman."
Robert Falcon Scott and his men died, but their story lives on in his journals.
Scott
of the Antarctic
by Elspeth Josceline Huxley.
|
The
Last Place on Earth
(Modern Library Exploration)
by Roland Huntford
Amazon.com
On December 14, 1911, the classical age of polar exploration ended when
Norway's Roald Amundsen conquered the South Pole. His competitor for the
prize, Britain's Robert Scott, arrived one month later--but died on the
return with four of his men only 11 miles from their next cache of supplies.
But it was Scott, ironically, who became the legend, Britain's heroic failure,
"a monument to sheer ambition and bull-headed persistence. His achievement
was to perpetuate the romantic myth of the explorer as martyr, and ...
to glorify suffering and self-sacrifice as ends in themselves." The
world promptly forgot about Amundsen.
Biographer Ronald Huntford's attempt to restore
Amundsen to glory, first published in 1979 under the title Scott and Amundsen,
has been thawed as part of the Modern Library Exploration series, captained
by Jon Krakauer (of Into Thin Air fame). The Last Place on Earth is a complex
and fascinating account of the race for this last great terrestrial goal,
and it's pointedly geared toward demythologizing Scott. Though
this was the age of the amateur explorer, Amundsen was a professional:
he left little to chance, apprenticed with Eskimos, and obsessed
over every detail. While Scott clung fast to the British rule of "No skis,
no dogs," Amundsen understood that both were vital to survival, and they
clearly won him the Pole.
Amundsen in Huntford's view is the "last great Viking"
and Scott his bungling opposite: "stupid ... recklessly incompetent," and
irresponsible in the extreme--failings that cost him and his teammates
their lives. Yet for all of Scott's real or exaggerated faults, he
understood far better than Amundsen the power of a well-crafted sentence.
Scott's diaries were recovered and widely published, and if the world
insisted on lionizing Scott, it was partly because he told a better story.
Huntford's bias aside, it's clear that both Scott and Amundsen were
valiant and deeply flawed. "Scott ... had set out to be an heroic example.
Amundsen merely wanted to be first at the pole. Both had their prayers
answered." --Svenja Soldovieri. |
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