Posts

Non-fiction: Charles Swithinbank: Vodka on Ice (Book Guild, 2002) I’ve come across surprisingly few accounts of life in Antarctica written by scientists working there, especially since its supposed to be “the continent of science”. This is only the second one, the first being John C. Behrendt’s classic and undeservedly little Continue Reading

Fiction film: John Carpenter: the Thing (U.S.A. 1982) This is perhaps the single most classic Antarctica movie, so it was a high time I saw it also. Antarctic literature has often mentioned it as a special favorite at U.S. stations on the seventh continent, and it certainly deserves its reputation. Continue Reading

Non-fiction: Gretchen Legler: On the Ice (Milkweed, 2005) Does it say something about the point I’ve reached with this Antarctica stuff that I’m now reading lesbian Antarctic literature? I had some negative preconceptions about this book, but actually it’s quite good. It’s another of those books generated by the American Continue Reading

Fiction film: Charles Sturridge: Shackleton (U.K. 2002) A fictional dramatization of the same Shackleton story featured in the documentary of the previous entry. It’s a story that became very fashionable especially in Britain during the turn-of-the-millennium craze for Antarctica. Scott had been discredited, so the British needed a new Antarctic Continue Reading

Things’ve been piling up, and this time we’re further away from Antarctica than ever. First there’s an Antarctica movie, though: Documentary film: George Butler: the Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition (Sweden, U.K., Germany, U.S.A., 2000) I was very happy to see the movie because it features a large amount of Continue Reading

Non-fiction: Douglas Mawson: the Home of the Blizzard (the 1930 abridged edition) Douglas Mawson is the least known of the larger-than-life era of Antarctic exploration. A contemporary of Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton, he’s the scientists’ explorer. While Shackleton was the great leader, Amundsen the great sportsman, and Scott the great Continue Reading

Non-fiction: Anatoli Boukreev & G. Weston DeWalt: the Climb (St.Martin’s Press, 1997) This is one of those book-deal books, the ones where somebody makes the news and hires a journalist to help him write a book about it as fast as possible, to make some money. It’s hack work. Nevertheless, Continue Reading

Non-fiction: Roland Huntford: Nansen (Gerald Duckworth & co., 1997) Another peripheral Antarctica book, this is the biography of Fridtjof Nansen, whom many regard as the greatest polar explorer of all time and who was the hero of the great explorers of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Huntford’s book is Continue Reading

Non-fiction: Maria Coffey: Where the Mountain Casts its Shadow (Hutchinson, 2003) After reading so much Antarctic literature, I started to feel that they all drew their inspiration from a very limited canon of sources, the same canon I’m going through now. The same references come up all the time. To Continue Reading

Fiction: J.M. Coetzee: Elizabeth Costello (Secker & Warburg, 2003) I actually started to read this book to get a break from the endless procession of books about Antarctica. I was surprised, and somewhat dismayed, when it turns out that I can’t get out so easily; Antarctica is featured in this Continue Reading