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The Worst Journey In The World
Funny how things turn out, I watched Deliverance on TV last night and this was going to be a piece about Roger Ebert's two and a half star review of the film and how he got it so wrong about what is obviously a classic. But in reading Ebert's review I was pretty surprised to see that he spends most of it talking about one of my favourite books: The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard. ACG was a member of Scott's ill fated expedition to the South Pole and when he came back he wrote a book about the winter journey he made with two other men to get the eggs of the emperor penguin. It is really the stuff of nightmares: perpetual darkness, temperatures of -40 degrees, inadequate food and supplies and all for a scientific quest which turned out to be completely pointless. The two men he went with on the winter journey for the eggs, subsequently went with Scott on the summer journey to the South Pole and died with Scott and his entire team.
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I read The Worst Journey in the World in high school and didn't really appreciate it. But then I read it again when National Geographic Magazine picked it as the #1 adventure book of all time, calling it the War and Peace of travel narratives. I think they're right about that. It's an amazing book, telling a grim story in beautiful prose. You can read more about ACG's tragic life here and more about the disastrous Scott expedition here. Roger was wrong about Deliverance but I'm going to let him off this time because of our shared love for this strange, dark, brooding, lyrical, wonderful book.
15 comments:
Thanks for the recommendation of The Worst Journey in the World. It's available for Kinde for $0.00!! Just like that, I've got my copy!!!
I also recommend The Last Place on Earth by Roland Huntford which is about Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott's Antarctic expeditions. This is a great book as it describes what these men were like in very detailed fashion. The Norwegians come off much better than do the Brits.
It's a fantastic story, no doubt. Have you read Michael Smith's 'An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor"? It's another superb book, but obviously a much less personal account. It has enough amazing adventures to make your hair stand on end, but I particularly like the one where Crean hops along a collection of ice floes, avoiding killer whales, in order to climb an ice cliff and save Cherry-Garrard and Bowers. Mental stuff. And he served a mean pint of Guinness in later years.
Another good one is Endurance by Alfred Lansing, an account of Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated attempt to reach the South Pole. Shackleton and his men had to sail over a thousand miles across open ocean in a small boat and climb a mountain in order to be rescued. It defies belief, but Shackleton didn't lose a single man.
Speedskater
Thats a price which is hard to beat isn't it?
I read the Huntford book and approved. In fact I stole or a paraphrased a line from it in one of my books somewhere when I said something about the incompetent Brit officer class - "these are people who walked to the South Pole instead of taking dogs". Of course that was hyperbole but it is true that Amundsen didnt have to walk at all because he spent the year before learning how to use a dog team really well.
Conor
Havent read that one but I'll look for it. And let me throw out again a rec for Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World where I think they visit Scott's hut. Anyway its brilliant and you can watch the entire movie on youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J-W86-PSZo
Cary
Always meant to read that but never quite got round to it. I did watch the TV movie with Kenneth Branagh (appropriately) as the Irish born Shackleton. It was pretty good if I recall correctly.
We have sold a lot of copies of this book based on that National Geographic rec. I haven't read it.
I did see that Shackleton movie and came out thinking, I will never complain about anything ever again.
Of course, that didn't last.
Free on iPad too, awesome! Another ill fated trip I dug: "Skeletons on the Zahara."
Seana
That'll be your feeling after Worst Journey too.
Dennis
Its hard to beat free. Although just because it is free I hope no one undervalues it.
I struggle with tales of failure in the snow. I can cope with deserts and jungles etc but I think that there is something inherently melancholy about snow and winter to begin with; stories of hardship and death make it worse.
I used to kind of know Joe Simpson, the mountaineer, and I'd have to get him to change the subject when the bad stories came out.
This
book is the only one I've coped with, but then it is hilarious
I haven't seen the Lord Dufferin book, Rob, but I have read Tim Moore, whose Frost on My Moustache was his attempt to emulate him according to that article.
I read his book French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France, which is his attempt to do what the Tour cyclists do. I enjoyed it, although not with the same desire to replicate it that he felt for Dufferin's journey.
Rob
And speaking of mountain stories. The head of Intrade, an Irish guy from Cork died on Everest last week of a heart attack. He was only 41. He decided to go climbing Everest while his wife was 9 months pregnant.
A friend has just come back from Base Camp. She says she looked up and was glad she wasn't going any further.
Doing something that risky when a baby is on the way is just selfish.
Seana: I didn't know there was a book about the book. I've read Tim Moore's Monopoly book and that was great fun
Rob, yes, he's entertaining and very unpretentious. Seems to have found a niche by putting himself through hardships and then writing about them. Although Monopoly doesn't really sound like quite the same thing.
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