Patrick's review of Endurance

Endurance
by Alfred Lansing

Patrick's review

rating:

bookshelves: 5q-book-group

recommended for: 5Q Book Group

status: Read in February, 2008 — I have a copy to sell/swap

** spoiler alert ** An amazing book. I knew the general details of Shackleton's 1914 expedition to be the first to cross Anarctica on foot, and of course I'd see the famous photos of his ship The Endurance tilted on its side, trapped in the ice.

http://www.shackleton-enduranc...

But that doesn't even begin to tell the story of what these 28 men went through in order to survive (and they all did, astonishingly enough). In fact, it turns out that their days trapped aboard their ship were the "good old days" in this adventure story. After Shackleton decided to abandon the ship after it was damaged to the point that it eventually sink, that's when their adventure truly became insane.

I won't give away much else, as this review should focus on the merits of Lansing's book, as you can find the details of Shackleton's expedition elsewhere. But I doubt you'll find a much more thrilling version of the events than La...more An amazing book. I knew the general details of Shackleton's 1914 expedition to be the first to cross Anarctica on foot, and of course I'd see the famous photos of his ship The Endurance tilted on its side, trapped in the ice.

http://www.shackleton-enduranc...

But that doesn't even begin to tell the story of what these 28 men went through in order to survive (and they all did, astonishingly enough). In fact, it turns out that their days trapped aboard their ship were the "good old days" in this adventure story. After Shackleton decided to abandon the ship after it was damaged to the point that it eventually sink, that's when their adventure truly became insane.

I won't give away much else, as this review should focus on the merits of Lansing's book, as you can find the details of Shackleton's expedition elsewhere. But I doubt you'll find a much more thrilling version of the events than Lansing's book. He writes with a wonderful style, constantly describing how the physical experience of the men became worse and worse with nearly each passing day. Yet he also does a superb job in relating how they were able to maintain their focus on their collective survival with but few episodes of despair, cowardice, or animosity. He also does a fine job of describing the various personalities and how they interacted with each other.

And he really keeps the story moving, which is exactly what a book like this should be all about. I had some trouble with a lot of the nautical terms and some of the things the men on a regular basis (in fact, I think I'd rather not know what some of those things were), but generally I could follow the action despite being unfamiliar with some terminology.

My consistent reaction to this book, which I found to be a very quick, was an almost constant mixture of disbelief, horror, and amusement. Life was SOOOO bad for these guys than I found myself just shaking my head in amazement at Lansing's descriptions. Lansing maintains a wonderfully understated style throughout the text, and so the book is full of hundreds of great sentences and paragraphs that succicntly describe sheer human misery. I felt that, every time I turned the page, just as things seemed to get as bad as they could possibly be, i could count on Lansing to tell me about how things actually got worse. And of course, they inevitably did. Things got so bad so routinely that I frequently took breaks to turn up the heat in my house and take a nice long look in my refrigerator whenever I read a particularly compelling passage about the intense cold or crazy things they ate.

I was lucky enough to find a free library discard copy of this book from 1959 (this book is so old that it doesn't have an ISBN number, so the edition I picked from Goodread's choices is not the edition I read). This is important because my copy was good enough to include excellent photos throughout the text. The inside front and back covers also featured detailed maps depicting the various major events of this adventure, as well as the dates that each occurred. I found that to be extremely helpful in following along with the action and in maintaining my enthusiasm for what was coming next.

I would recommend that, whichever edition of this book you choose to read, that you also download yourself a few maps to accompany your reading. Here's one that I found online after a quick search:

http://www.south-pole.com/shac...

The one in my book was more detailed, though. I think having a very detailed map handy will definitely maintain your interest in this tale.

I will make my copy available to anyone else in my 5Q group who wants to read it. I didn't do any of my ususal highlighting on this read-through, so it's a clean copy!...less

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message 1: by Vanessa

02/03/2008 09:36AM

A great review of a great book! You capture what makes this book an incredible read without giving anything away. I'll just mention again here, for the benefit of anyone reading your review, that Caroline Alexander's 1998 follow-up "The Endurance" is a great companion to Lansing's book, as it includes details that Lansing left out of his work, as well as a wealth of Hurley's eye-popping photos. But read Lansings first!

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