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Book Review: Cherry by Sara Wheeler
Feb. 23rd, 2026 02:23 pmTitle: Cherry: A Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Author: Sara Wheeler
Published: Random House Publishing Group, 2007 (2001)
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 380
Total Page Count: 564,085
Text Number: 2131
Read Because: reasons obvious, the cold boy who opened the door; ebook purchased! with dollars! from Kobo
Review: A biography of Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who was present on Scott's final Antarctic expedition and wrote the, can we safely say? best Arctic memoir; Cherry's the reason I got into this stuff, and I've been saving this memoir for a rainy day knowing I would probably love it too much. Delighted to say that I do. The slow start is not indicative; Cherry's family background is important, but this is really the least engaging way to present it. But things pick up, and remain engaging long after the highlight events in Antarctica or even the writing or publication of the book. Gossipy, but in a way I would call productive, primarily because it's more interested in accuracy than cogent character arcs, allowing a messy nuance in Cherry and his interpersonal relationships. He often comes off poorly, and his privilege is frequently unsympathetic; humbling that what did him in was at much trauma as his privileged ability to withdraw, self-isolate, and obsessively focus on trauma, which eroded his coping mechanisms. So, uh, jot that down. None of this undermines the thoughtful, retrospective efficacy and even the complicated hope of Worst Journey; there's a bitter beauty in that one great work that this larger context complicates but celebrates.
The highlight in my mental catalog of Antarctic exploration facts is Cherry's changing opinion on Scott; there are temptations, again, to build clear arcs re: Scott's public reception over time, but that reception has always been multifaceted, and Cherry had a particularly close and faceted view. There's something tender about grief and blame when allowed this consideration—a statement that can apply equally to Cherry's life and Scott's doomed expedition.
(Also in my mental catalog: Wheeler just comes out and says that the overwinter Crozier journey exhausted Birdie and Wilson (and, hey, Cherry too, who turned out to be one of the better sledgers despite *gestures*) and thus sabotaged the effort at the Pole, which was one of my first thoughts when reading Worst Journey. Actually, it's what tipped me from "this is interesting" to "wait, couldn't getting frostbite make you more susceptible to frostbite?" (answer: yes: frostbite causes vasomotor damage which impairs circulation which makes subsequent frostbite more likely) "and so couldn't Bad Sledging create More Bad Sledging and doesn't this explain some of the failure of the expedition?" This isn't groundbreaking, it's clear that Scott's failure was a combination of a dozen dozen factors and exhaustion &c. was just one facet, but I don't know if I've ever seen (in a fair bit of reading) someone straight up correlate the two journeys; it felt weirdly vindicating.)
Author: Sara Wheeler
Published: Random House Publishing Group, 2007 (2001)
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 380
Total Page Count: 564,085
Text Number: 2131
Read Because: reasons obvious, the cold boy who opened the door; ebook purchased! with dollars! from Kobo
Review: A biography of Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who was present on Scott's final Antarctic expedition and wrote the, can we safely say? best Arctic memoir; Cherry's the reason I got into this stuff, and I've been saving this memoir for a rainy day knowing I would probably love it too much. Delighted to say that I do. The slow start is not indicative; Cherry's family background is important, but this is really the least engaging way to present it. But things pick up, and remain engaging long after the highlight events in Antarctica or even the writing or publication of the book. Gossipy, but in a way I would call productive, primarily because it's more interested in accuracy than cogent character arcs, allowing a messy nuance in Cherry and his interpersonal relationships. He often comes off poorly, and his privilege is frequently unsympathetic; humbling that what did him in was at much trauma as his privileged ability to withdraw, self-isolate, and obsessively focus on trauma, which eroded his coping mechanisms. So, uh, jot that down. None of this undermines the thoughtful, retrospective efficacy and even the complicated hope of Worst Journey; there's a bitter beauty in that one great work that this larger context complicates but celebrates.
The highlight in my mental catalog of Antarctic exploration facts is Cherry's changing opinion on Scott; there are temptations, again, to build clear arcs re: Scott's public reception over time, but that reception has always been multifaceted, and Cherry had a particularly close and faceted view. There's something tender about grief and blame when allowed this consideration—a statement that can apply equally to Cherry's life and Scott's doomed expedition.
(Also in my mental catalog: Wheeler just comes out and says that the overwinter Crozier journey exhausted Birdie and Wilson (and, hey, Cherry too, who turned out to be one of the better sledgers despite *gestures*) and thus sabotaged the effort at the Pole, which was one of my first thoughts when reading Worst Journey. Actually, it's what tipped me from "this is interesting" to "wait, couldn't getting frostbite make you more susceptible to frostbite?" (answer: yes: frostbite causes vasomotor damage which impairs circulation which makes subsequent frostbite more likely) "and so couldn't Bad Sledging create More Bad Sledging and doesn't this explain some of the failure of the expedition?" This isn't groundbreaking, it's clear that Scott's failure was a combination of a dozen dozen factors and exhaustion &c. was just one facet, but I don't know if I've ever seen (in a fair bit of reading) someone straight up correlate the two journeys; it felt weirdly vindicating.)
