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juushikaTitle: Antarctica, or Two Years Amongst the Ice of the South Pole
Author: Otto Nordenskjöld
Published: 1904
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 610
Total Page Count: 539,650
Text Number: 1981
Read Because: I'm still working through the heroic age of Antarctic exploration in chronological order, skipping the ones where everything basically went fine unless they're directly connected to the British expeditions; this one did not go basically fine, and thus this is cold boys: extra niche edition; the Internet Archive has this one
Review: The Swedish Antarctic Expedition (1901–1903) made the first consistent study of the opposite-ish side of the Antarctic continent, breaking new ground; but its real claim to fame is that the ship sank when returning for the overwinter party, resulting in three (!) groups stranded for a second Antarctic winter. No wonder that this got a contemporary English translation, and it's an admirably complete and extremely readable telling, shuffling the slower contextualizing chapter into the middle third of the text to avoid the slow start that many Expedition memoirs have, including PoVs from the other overwinter parties, and willing (almost to excess) to skim and omit repetition in order to maintain flow. I want more and crunchier details re: overwintering and the single death, and multiple authors means multiple avenues towards bathos as the parties are miraculously reunited. But I can't fault this: an extremely satisfying telling of one hell of an expedition; fans of Scott's Northern Party should come read about some more men living in miserable stone huts in Antarctica.
Author: Otto Nordenskjöld
Published: 1904
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 610
Total Page Count: 539,650
Text Number: 1981
Read Because: I'm still working through the heroic age of Antarctic exploration in chronological order, skipping the ones where everything basically went fine unless they're directly connected to the British expeditions; this one did not go basically fine, and thus this is cold boys: extra niche edition; the Internet Archive has this one
Review: The Swedish Antarctic Expedition (1901–1903) made the first consistent study of the opposite-ish side of the Antarctic continent, breaking new ground; but its real claim to fame is that the ship sank when returning for the overwinter party, resulting in three (!) groups stranded for a second Antarctic winter. No wonder that this got a contemporary English translation, and it's an admirably complete and extremely readable telling, shuffling the slower contextualizing chapter into the middle third of the text to avoid the slow start that many Expedition memoirs have, including PoVs from the other overwinter parties, and willing (almost to excess) to skim and omit repetition in order to maintain flow. I want more and crunchier details re: overwintering and the single death, and multiple authors means multiple avenues towards bathos as the parties are miraculously reunited. But I can't fault this: an extremely satisfying telling of one hell of an expedition; fans of Scott's Northern Party should come read about some more men living in miserable stone huts in Antarctica.
