Across the Northern Frontier: Spanish Explorations in Colorado Book

In the spirit of Manny I think it's important to immediately point out some parallels with Knausgard. Is there anything more heroically pointless and more boring than polar exploration? I don't mean for science but just rushing to the pole to say you've stood there. For Norwegians to get the world's attention, they have to do something huge and monstrous. Something spectacular that others have only dreamed of or dismissed as ludicrous. One can see Knausgard (that face! the intensity! those crags and ridges!) as a sort of Nansen of the page, an Amundsen of the pen, fighting his way to his own South Pole (so to speak) with demoniac fervour and holding the results to the world's nose in triumph.

Sharp corrective here to the Scott I remember from many a school assembly. The noble hero of the Antarctic. As depicted here (an utter hatchet job but a well-documented one) Scott led his men to death because he was arrogant, ignorant and wholly unprepared. Thinking British pep and vim and upper lip were all that's needed. Not bothering to learn to use skis or dogs. Insisting on man-hauling (agonising, inefficient) and ponies (utterly useless on snow). Not planning his depots. Not leaving any margin of error. Determined on ludicrous heroism for its own sake. Deciding at the last minute to take 5 men instead of the planned 4 to the pole, inevitably leaving food and fuel short. Amundsen on the other hand having spent decades learning snowcraft and icecraft, having the humility and good sense to learn from the Esquimaux and the Inuit, adopting their diet, their clothing, their techniques and equipment. Planning depots meticulously. Building in a huge margin of safety. His lean and hardened team of experts (including, in Bjaaland a world-champion cross-country skier) a brutal contrast to Scott's glory-seeking misfits, incompetents and tyros. As the Times of London was to sneer, "professionals". For Scott, the author puts it biblically: TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. Scott, slogging through the snow while Fridtjof Nansen casually screwed his (Scott's) wife in a Berlin hotel.

As the author brutally has it, Scott was adopted as a hero in failure and death - a hero for a nation of losers, a necessary hero for a dying empire, a shining example of pointless self-sacrifice for the great war to come. A fascinating book. Much here not touched upon. Recommended.