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Ladataan... Mawson: And the Ice Men of the Heroic Age: Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen. (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 2011; vuoden 2012 painos)– tekijä: Peter FitzSimons (Tekijä)
Teoksen tarkat tiedotMawson: And the Ice Men of the Heroic Age: Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen. (tekijä: Peter FitzSimons) (2011)
   - Ei tämänhetkisiä Keskustelu-viestiketjuja tästä kirjasta. 1   SunUp | Sep 26, 2014 |  If you have not yet read numerous accounts of the voyages of Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen, this book will prove a great introduction. In FitzSimons’ usual style, he breathes life into tales that have either been long forgotten, or told and retold a hundred times. The title is misleading. I think it was the publisher’s attempt to carve out a niche in a period of exploration that is well documented. However, the book does make a compelling case that Mawson was the equal of Scott and Shackleton. Unfortunately, while referencing the scientific work that Mawson brought back from Antarctica, the reader is never given a detailed account of his research - but I guess that’s the author’s style. FitzSimons’ excels when writing accounts of heroism, bravery and character. (  ) kenno82 | Mar 30, 2012 | näyttää 2/2 ei arvosteluja | lisää arvostelu
Douglas Mawson, born in 1882 and knighted in 1914, was Australia's greatest Antarctic explorer. On 2 December 1911, he led an expedition from Hobart to explore the virgin frozen coastline below, 2000 miles of which had never felt the tread of a human foot. After setting up Main Base at Cape Denision and Western Base on Queen Mary Land, he headed east on an extraordinary sledging trek with his companions, Belgrave Ninnis and Dr Xavier Mertz. After five weeks, tragedy struck. Ninnis was swallowed whole by a snow-covered crevasse, and Mawson and Mertz realised it was too dangerous to go on. With the scant food and provisions they had left, turning back was almost equally perilous. Their dwindling supplies forced them to kill their dogs to feed the other dogs, at first, and then themselves. Hunger, sickness and despair eventually got the better of Mertz, and he succumbed to madness and then to death. Mawson found himself all alone, 160 miles from safety, with next to no food. Peter FitzSimons tells the staggering tale of Mawson's survival, despite all the odds, arriving back just in time to see his rescue ship disappearing over the horizon. He also masterfully interweaves the stories of the other giants from the Heroic Age of Polar Exploration, Scott of the Antarctic, Sir Ernest Shackleton and Roald Amundsen, to bring the jaw-dropping events of this bygone era dazzlingly back to life. No library descriptions found. |
 Google Books — Ladataan...Suosituimmat kansikuvatArvio (tähdet)Keskiarvo: (3.75)
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The subject matter is compelling on its own and was enough to get me through this astonishingly large volume (perhaps it's the edition I have, but this thing is huge). It's a poorly chosen title, however, as I didn't feel Mawson was the central figure as it implies. Rather, he was one of a group of extraordinarily courageous men who explored the Antarctic.
FitzSimons' writing, however, is intensely irritating. His frequent interjections of "don't you know" and "old chap" are distracting to say the least. I presume it's meant to be jolly, and friendly maybe, a way of pulling the reader in to the way people spoke in those days, but it comes off (to me) as being disrespectful mimicry. This is serious stuff, not to be mocked in any way, and clearly I missed whatever point the author was trying to make by doing this.
Short version: fascinating story, but the author's personality got in the way of it for me. (