In June of 1910, Robert Falcon Scott and a party of adventurous explorers left the British Isles for a scientific expedition to the Antarctic, intending to be the first ever to reach the South Pole. After many misfortunes and close calls, Scott and four others reached the Pole, only to find a note from Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer who had been there five weeks previously. The five men then faced a march of 800 miles to return to their ship. When food and fuel ran out and a blizzard and -40 degree temperatures made further travel impossible, all perished. Scott wrote his last journal entry on March 29, 1912.
Beryl Bainbridge tells the story of the journey through the journal entries of the five men, providing at the same time access into their personalities and life stories. One has to wonder what would induce men to voluntarily leave their families for two or more years to undertake a mission which would most certainly involve privation and danger and might possibly lead to death. This tale provides some of the answers.
It is interesting to learn of the details of the journey and something of the men who participated, but still, if one knows ahead of time that the mission failed in its intent and that all died, it is hard to become invested in the story and its characters. The novel is competently written, with some nice descriptions of the frozen landscape, but I would not recommend it except to someone with a previous interest in the subject matter.
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