Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 189 pages
- Published by: Carroll & Graf March 30, 1995
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0786702079
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0786702077
-
Book Dimensions:
8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
- Weighs: 9.1 ounces
From Publishers Weekly
Bainbridge, the idiosyncratic English author whose best-known books here are probably The Bottle Factory Outing and The Dressmaker , has never gained the American audience she deserves. The fact that this gripping, moving and hair-raisingly readable novel has taken three years to achieve publication here--and then only by a courageous and enterprising smaller publisher--suggests that Americans are still slightly wary of her. Readers should abandon such caution immediately, for this is by far her best book to date: a riveting account told in shifting first-person narratives by the key members of the doomed Antarctic expedition led by Captain Scott in 1912. It has been written about often before, and memorably filmed, but Bainbridge's cunningly fictionalized account leaves others standing. She takes on, in turn, the voices of burly, roistering Welsh Petty Officer Taff Evans; sweet-natured, scholarly, all-forgiving Dr. Edward (Uncle Bill) Wilson; Captain Robert Falcon Scott himself, a memorably complex man with a strong gift for command overlying deep inner fears and anxieties; Lieut. Henry (Birdie) Bowers, an endlessly energetic, curious, squat adventurer who has roved the world's perilous places alone; and aloof, sardonic, aristocratic Capt. Lawrence (Titus) Oates, a rich man beginning to realize his essential humanity in the months before his death. Every Englishman knows the agonizing end of their story, only hinted at in the book by a schoolgirl's map of their final death march back from the South Pole after being beaten there by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. A whole lost era of fantastic courage, determination, idealism, curiosity, boyish foolishness and class mores is brought brilliantly and touchingly back by Bainbridge's penetrating psychological acumen and her superb scene and action painting. The beauty and horror of the desolate landscapes, the painful limits of human endurance and bravery, are unforgettably caught in prose that is as swift, cool and clear as ice melt. A masterly achievement, not to be missed by anyone who cherishes a strong, meaningful story gorgeously told.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
YA-A riveting fictionalized account of Robert Falcon Scott's doomed British expedition to the South Pole in 1910, related through the diary entries of five of its members. Bainbridge conveys a vivid sense of the era and of the pride, idealism, and bravado of the explorers as they prepare for their adventure. Once they reach Antarctica, their attention turns to the excitement and pleasure in the scenic and scientific discoveries that await them. But in the final analysis, it is their courage and fortitude that shine through in the face of failure (the Norwegian Amundsen beat them to the South Pole by a month) and the realization that they will not survive.
Pamela B. Rearden, Centreville Regional Library, Fairfax County, VACopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader ReviewsBainbridge does a fine job dramatizing the deaths of the five doomed members of Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic Polar Expedition, in five separate chapters, each written in the voice of a different one of the five men. Bainbridge is obviously well-versed in the details of the true story, and the book hews closely to the facts of the case. She's at her best in articulating the sort of self-absorbed England-forever attitude of the officers, but her depiction of ordinary seaman Edgar "Taff" Evans falls short; he speaks with almost the same Oxbridge vocabulary as his captain. Despite this weaker one-fifth of the book, the book overall is quite appealing in the way it conveys a strong sense of the physical place, Antarctica. You can just imagine the sharp intake of frozen air into your lungs as you fall down a crevasse to the end of your harness, waiting for your companions to pull you back to safety.
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