Endurance
by Frank Arthur Worsley, F.A. Worsley, Patrick O'Brian
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Book Summary Information
Author: F.A. Worsley, Frank Arthur Worsley, Patrick O'BrianEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2000-02-17
ISBN: 0393319946
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.
Book Reviews of Endurance
Book Review: Good for the first 200 pages, then hits an ice patch
Summary: 3 Stars
I was inspired to read this book after seeing the TV movie starring Kenneth Branaugh years ago. It is truly one of the greatest recorded true adventures in history. The fact that everyone in his party survived that long under those conditions is a fact not lost to most. Virtually all of the people reading the account wouldn't last a day.
I'm going to be fair in my review of the book because it was not written by a professional author. It was written by the captain of the vessel, Endurance.
The account is recaptured with lots of heart and emotion. However, it seems that the events seem a little disjointed, especially when it recounts the hardships endured by the party on the other side of Antarctica. It was hard to follow the who's who and where are they in my minds' eye as narrated by Worsley.
After all accounts of the Antarctic adventures are told, we follow Worsley and Shackleton to Russia, New Zealand and beyond. I expected the entire book to be about the Antarctic expedition only; after that the book seemed to drag until Worsley recounts Shackleton's passing and his influence.
Another challenge happened to be the pages and pages of geologic, natural and other scientific aspects of the Arctic poles. Snore!! The book is also crammed with some nautical and sailing terms that the landlubber won't understand or appreciate.
It also struck me odd that Captain Worsley remembered so many lengthy conversations with his comrade in such detail! Of course many of us can remember the essence of conversations we've had with people - even from years ago. Since the tape recorder hadn't been invented yet, I find it very difficult to believe the level of detail in these dialogues.
I'm not sorry I read the book - I just think it could have been better written and more concise.
Summary of Endurance
The legendary tale of Ernest Shackleton's grueling Antarctic expedition, recounted in riveting first-person detail by the captain of HMS Endurance. "You seriously mean to tell me that the ship is doomed?" asked Frank Worsley, commander of the Endurance, stuck impassably in Antarctic ice packs. "What the ice gets," replied Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition's unflappable leader, "the ice keeps." It did not, however, get the ship's twenty-five crew members, all of whom survived an eight-hundred-mile voyage across sea, land, and ice to South Georgia, the nearest inhabited island. First published in 1931, Endurance tells the full story of that doomed 1914-16 expedition and incredible rescue, as well as relating Worsley's further adventures fighting U-boats in the Great War, sailing the equally treacherous waters of the Arctic, and making one final (and successful) assault on the South Pole with Shackleton. It is a tale of unrelenting high adventure and a tribute to one of the most inspiring and courageous leaders of men in the history of exploration."If we were killed, at least we had done everything in our power to bring help to our shipmates. Shackleton was right. Our chance was a very small one indeed, but it was up to us to take it."
The voyage of HMS Endurance is legendary in the annals of polar exploration. In August 1914 the ship set sail for Antarctica, where she became trapped in the pack ice and eventually sank. The last of her stranded men were not rescued until August 30, 1916. Originally published in 1931, this tale by F.A. Worsley, captain of the Endurance, captures all the tension of the doomed expedition. Written in the first person, Worsley's prose makes you feel as if you were struggling alongside him as he watches two icebergs plowing their way through the pack ice toward their camp; desperately slides down an icy mountainside in pitch darkness, traveling some 3,000 feet in less than three minutes; and wrestles with the admiralty bureaucracy when trying to rescue the remainder of the crew. His relief is palpable when, after a series of setbacks, triumphs, and narrowly avoided disasters, all hands survive the two arduous years.
While this book is filled with adventures, its real strength is the highly affectionate portrait of Sir Ernest Shackleton, leader of the expedition to cross Antarctica, by his "good old Skipper." In Worsley's words, Shackleton "did the most dangerous things but did them in the safest way"--and his leadership and careful planning saved the lives of his men. Patrick O'Brian, author of the popular Aubrey-Maturin saga of the 19th-century English navy, has written a new introduction for this edition. Worsley's tale of survival against all odds will thrill sea dogs and landlubbers alike. --C.B. Delaney
Shackleton, Ernest Books
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