Book Review: Scott's Last Expedition, Volume I by Robert Falcon Scott

Title: Scott's Last Expedition, Volume I
Author: Robert Falcon Scott
Published: 1913
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 440
Total Page Count: 533,730
Text Number: 1954
Read Because: y'all we are so far down this rabbit hole I can't see sunlight, ebook via Project Gutenberg but also OpenLibrary has scans! of multiple publications! with all sorts of appendixes and Volume II if you happen to need that for Reasons
Review: Scott's diary as a follow-up to Cherry-Garrard's Worst Journey in the World (which is how I read it) is damned to be unsatisfying, because there are no answers here to lingering questions: Scott does not write of his position, particularly excluding the specificities of (and the crucial logic behind) the orders he gave. (Why five men, Scott. Why??) But what remains is not entirely private: the diary is a potential public document, either directly or in adaptation to travelogue, and as such this is both personal and edited: evocative impressions of daily life and the landscape, a sincere investment in the scientific aims of the expedition, and a fine tension between anxiety, determination, and hope that gives each setback a tragic cast. The polar run and particularly the return journey feel markedly different, aware and despairing of the potential future audience and yet painfully raw.

Diary of the "Terra Nova" Expedition to the Antarctic, 1910-1912 by Edward Adrian Wilson

Title: Diary of the "Terra Nova" Expedition to the Antarctic, 1910-1912
Author: Edward Adrian Wilson
Published: Humanities Press, 1972
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 280
Total Page Count: 534,000
Text Number: 1955
Read Because: rabbithole; borrowed from OpenLibrary and Interlibrary Loan (I really thought I wouldn't finish it before my ILL arrived, and yet...; still, ILL helps for looking at the pictures)
Review: Unlike Scott's, this diary is edited to include relevant pre-expedition content, which means: Wilson out in the world, being racist. It's a productive reminder of the culture framing these particular men, especially as racism and exploration are entwined; indeed, racism (via a lack of furs and dogs) helped get Wilson dead.

Wilson wrote primarily for family, and that audience feels present and limiting: this is anecdotes and birds, but the anecdotes are active and chock full of social dynamics from Wilson's frustrated and bemused position as science team lead. Insofar as a certain kind of restrained suffering was both holy and masculine, Wilson got top marks; both understated and honest, profoundly self-abnegating, and unexpectedly funny, this more than anything that I've read about the Terra Nova expedition thus far makes me want to reach for a biography, because the man is almost absent his own narrative, which is fascinating and frustrating and insightful.