Alec Wilkinson

I acutally finished this ages ago but forgot to write a review. Ooops.

I thought I would be prepared for this. I have read plenty about people freezing to death on mountains, and I loved The Expedition so I assumed it would be fine reading this. It's about the same thing as The Expedition after all!

Yeah, I was wrong. It is about the same expedition, but it also gives a lot of context (that is not in The Expedition) about Arctic Exploration in general. Other expeditions, why it was so important, stuff like that, which was super-interesting, don't get me wrong. Kinda hard to keep up sometimes with all the names, dates and different expeditions, but still interesting.

So what am I hinting about? The starvation. People freezing to death is not pleasant, but people starving to death? That's disgusting. Reading about people so starved, so desperate, that they're literally eating their own boots? For some reason the boots stuck with me more than the cannibalism, because if I were dead and someone else was starving I would not get mad or haunt them if they ate me, but imagine being so hungry that you're biting into the leather of your boots! I cannot get over that.

So yeah, not the same as reading about mountaineering accidents. But still interesting, though not as much about Andrée as maybe I would have preferred.… (más)

The telling of this very interesting story left me disappointed. This may be due to the lack of significant primary source material about the actual adventure, or possibly the author's lackluster writing style.

In any case, the majority of this book does not concern the main character, but instead consists of digressions about other explorations which are tangentially related.

Although I think this is a very interesting story indeed, for some reason the author's account was not compelling. A mediocre telling of an exceptional adventure.… (más)

I was interested in reading more about Poppa Neutrino because he is the father of New Orleans singer Ingrid Lucia. I have read Ingrid's Facebook posts her father and found him to be a very interesting man. I wanted to compare the impression given by his daughter to that of a person who was not "family".

I did enjoy learning more about Poppa Neutrino, and his adventures, but I did not care for the writing style of Alec Wilkinson. He traveled with Poppa Neutrino for short periods, I assume to research for this book. He would throw in random sentences about things like scenery. (one about plastic bags caught on a barbed wire fence comes to mind), which would just make me wonder why he chose to do that. Wilkinson also used the words "as if" so many times, it became a source of irritation for me. I am no expert on writing styles. The following blurbs on the book jacket make me wonder why I thought Wilkinson's writing style was not great. The only person I was familiar with is Garrison Keillor.

From Keillor: "The writing is elegant, and the book, I think, is a masterpiece."
Other blurbs on the writing of this book are from Sebastian Junger, "Wilkinson's writing is so flawless and engaging..." and Edward Hirsch, "Alec Wilkinson has been preparing all his life to write this masterpiece of joy..."… (más)

The polar regions of our planet are the harshest and most unforgiving places that man has visited. Even with modern equipment and clothing humans still face great challenges venturing into the area.

Imagine then how it was undertaking polar exploration in the Victorian age. The expedition equipment was very primitive, and in some cases dangerous, they did not have years of study and understanding of the human body in these conditions. Wilkinson has looked at the story of S A Andrée, a Swedish explorer who took of in a hydrogen filled balloon in 1897 with the aim of being the first man to go over the North Pole.

He has written this account based on the diaries of Andrée, and contemporary accounts of the time. He was a hero of his age when he departed, following in the footsteps of many explorers who tried and failed to make it there. The journey was not straightforward, as you would imagine, and of all the expeditions they were probably the wine who got the closest. After the balloon landed, they unpacked and set about trying to return across the ice.

This was a fascinating book in lots of ways, Andrée was a true gentlemen, and the description of the meals that they ate were almost unreal, for example champagne at one meal. The thing that I didn't like about the book was that there was too much material on other attempts and journeys in the Arctic. I understand to set the context, but it just felt like it was padded a little.… (más)