I’ve written about Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic adventures before when I reviewed Frank Worsley’s Endurance: An Epic of Polar Adventure. Caroline Alexander’s coverage of the story couldn’t be more different–but is still perfectly satisfactory.
While Worsley’s memoir focuses on the main characters involved in the adventure (from Worsley’s point of view), Alexander’s history gives a clear chronology of the events of the failed Antarctic Expedition. Alexander makes liberal use of the various adventurers’ journals and memoirs to compile a straightforward history of the events the Expedition endured.
Although I’ve read several books and watched several movies and documentaries covering this story, I still learned a good deal as I read The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Adventure. I was able to get a feel for the boredom of being stuck in the ice, for the distress and loss of hope after being stranded on a floating pack for months on end, for the tireless vigor with which several men stepped up to overcome impossible odds.
Worsley’s memoir brought the leaders of the expedition into sharp relief and emphasized the acute attacks of the elements. Alexander’s history helped me understand the less exciting, but certainly no less perilous odds the men had to overcome: the monotony of daily life on a floating pack, the weariness of seeing the same landscape day in and day out, the shock having to kill daily in order to eat, the delirium of seeing land for the first time in a year. This history brought the psychological elements of the Expedition into focus, emphasizing the delicate path Shackleton was forced to trod to maintain morale.
Frank Hurley’s breath-taking photos of the Endurance, its crew, and the Antarctic landscape are sprinkled throughout this book, increasing the depth of its already fantastic coverage of Shackleton’s Expedition.
Rating: 4 Stars
Category:History
Recommendation: A spectacular overview of Shackleton’s Antarctic adventure, this is a must read for lovers of history and adventure.
