Travel Insights - Book reviews (Historical)

Book Reviews: Historical

Latest reviews first, then in alphabetical order of author

"Lost on Everest:
The search for Mallory & Irvine", Peter Firstbrook
BBC, 1999

Most of this book is a biography of George Mallory, followed by a short account of the expeditions after his death in 1924 which throw significant light on his and Irvine's fate. Only the last few chapters relate the events of the 1999 expedition which found his body.

There is more detail in the book than could be covered in the television programme, and this brings more evidence to the debate on whether or not Mallory and Irvine made the first ascent of Everest.

Before I read the book, I liked to think they probably did make it. For what it's worth, now I've read the book, I think they probably didn't. A string of factors - the non-functioning stove, Mallory's notorious late starts, the forgotten torches, the location of the oxygen bottles, the difficulty of the third step - all point towards time running out for two exhausted men. The only contrary evidence is Odell's sighting of the two figures at the third step "going strong for the top" at 1250pm. Odell was always confident in the accuracy of his sighting, but it is uncorroborated, and it is possible he was misled by the effects of perspective from his viewpoint.

Whatever the answer - and we shall probably only know for sure if Irvine's body and their camera is ever found - the book is worth reading for the picture it paints of a remarkable mountaineer and the story of the expedition that finally gave him a grave on the mountain. ART

Overall verdict: A biography with an adventure thrown in.
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"Hong Kong: Epilogue to an Empire", Jan Morris
Penguin, 2000

The 1997 edition of Jan Morris' well-loved, and re-issued Hong Kong book was updated just before the handover of the former British colony to the Chinese government. The new section attempts to deal with the emotions of the residents of this anomalous state on the eve of their migration to another government. The 2000 edition has a new introduction.

The majority of the book presents a remarkable picture of Hong Kong past and present as Morris weaves the views and street scenes of today into the colony's history. From ignominious beginnings as an opium port, Hong Kong has been based on one thing: money. Entrepreneurialism has always been rife, yet interlaced as it is with more traditional Chinese cultural concepts such as feng shui, capitalism Hong Kong-style has always been slightly different.

Morris' descriptions are, as ever, lucid. Some like her prose style, others find it ingratiating at times, and certain passages in this book are a little cloying. But overall, the quality of her research, observation and empathy for Hong Kongers comes across. Governor after Governor come under her writer's knife, and few emerge unscathed by the process. Yet all the while that she elaborates on how Hong Kong has survived and prospered under its colonial rulers, she never lets us forget that from its earliest days, this is a Chinese city, with a Chinese population dwarfing all others.

As a work of historical reference on Hong Kong, this has to be one of the more pleasurable to read. As a work of contemporary comment on a state in transition, it has to be one of the most grounded and apolitical. JT

Overall verdict: Insightful and colourful take on what makes Hong Kong special.

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"Terra Incognita", Sara Wheeler
Vintage, 1997

Anyone writing more than a simple account of a visit to Antarctica is faced with the problem of which aspects to cover - the narrative, descriptive, historical, scientific, political, and (for many) spiritual aspects of their experience. Sara Wheeler was lucky enough to spend several months in Antarctica, and her book sets out to cover most of these (although anyone looking for science, wildlife, or pictures will be disappointed!).

Despite what must be, I imagine, a strong temptation to try to describe the land- and sky-scapes of The Ice, and the impact they have on the writer, she is sparing with her descriptive passages. One of the longer descriptions is of the southern lights:

The sky was streaked with faint emerald shadows, splaying out in several directions to the horizon, changing shape, spreading, and bleeding into the blackness. Iridescent coppery beams roamed among the stars like searchlights, and soft ruby flames flickered gently above the glacier, sporadically leaping forward into the middle of the dark sky. Towards the east, a rich and luminous haze rolled lazily back and forwards like a tide. At one moment the whole sky was a rainbow, flaming with radiant mock suns.

Sara Wheeler's historical research is exhaustive - she seems to have read just about everything ever written about Antarctica - and she weaves the history into her narrative. This is generally successful, but occasionally intrudes too much for the impatient reader who wants her to get on with the story! Her evaluation of the achievements of the "Heroic Era" of Antarctic exploration - and more recent exploits - is tinged with a healthy scepticism about the motivation of people whose primary motivation seems to be "to see how dead they can get".

Antarctica clearly has a profound effect on many, if not most, of the people who spend time there, as the extensive quotations and extracts from historic and contemporary accounts show. Sara Wheeler does not shy away from describing the impact it has on her. She ends Chapter 5 on this note -

In Antarctica I experienced a certainty amid the morass of thoughts and emotions and intellectual preoccupations seething inside my balaclava'd head. ... It wasn't an answer ... it was something that put everything else ... in true perspective. ... The landscape was intact, complete and larger than my imagination could grasp. ... it was the scale, the unownedness, and the overpowering beauty that made Antarctica different. ... I felt certain that a higher power exists ... The glimpse left me with a deep and warm sense of calm and mental well-being, like the cosmic glow after some astronomical phenomenon.

She writes with humour, and a keen observation of character. Some of her thumb-nail descriptions are gems - I particularly liked the "sales rep from a computer company who attached himself to me for the whole journey [from Auckland to London]. He was wearing an Armani suit, and his face possessed none of those small wrinkles produced by thought." Her description of life on the various bases she stays in gives a much better impression of the real day-to-day life of the scientists and support staff than the usual television documentary.

In fact her book is more about the people of Antarctica, past and present, than any other topic - the way they live now, the way they lived and died in the past, and how they respond to the physical and psychological challenges of this most extreme environment.There is a sense of today's scientists carrying the baton of the great explorers of the past. Once you have become an Antarctican, it seems, you join a special group. As one of the New Zealand scientists says, "I hardly ever talk about Antarctica at home. No-one would understand." ART

Overall verdict: What a year on The Ice is really like.
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