Spufford, Francis (Ed.). Ends of the Earth: An Anthology of the Finest Writing on the Antarctic. Bloomsbury, 2007.
Reason read: Ernest Shackleton was born on February 15th, 1874. Read in his honor.
The Antarctic is a place of mystery. In The Ends of the Earth (Antarctic) Spufford curated a collection of writings so detailed you can almost feel the biting wind, blinding snow, and vast emptiness of snow-covered landscape. Like a siren, it drew explorers like Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott to its icy region. What attracted these men to this forsaken place? Discovery. But, they weren’t the only ones fascinated with the South Pole. Historians, scientists, explorers, tourists, and naturalists have continued to flock to experience the Antarctic for themselves. We armchair travelers get to benefit from the words of writers like Amundsen, Mawson, Byrd, Ackerman, and Diski, to name a few, thanks to Spufford’s collection.
Confessional: I have always held a special place in my heart for the Antarctic. My father was stationed there on an ice cutter while in the Coast Guard. I have always known the gist of the Antarctic Treaty of 1961, but never really understood how it all came about. I like the idea of an ecological quarantine; a suspension of territorial claims for the sake of research.
As an aside, I am not a wine drinker (I prefer porters, stouts, sours, mezcal, and vodka. Thank you very much.). But! I did not know you are supposed to store wine on its side so that the liquid keeps the cork from drying out and ruining the wine. Who knew I would learn that from reading Ends of the Earth?
Quotes to quote, “There is something extravagantly insensate about an Antarctic blizzard at night” (The Blow by Richard Byrd p 114) and “In a strange world hardened by routine, the rub between the fantastic and the mundane creates a spellbinding itch” (p 188).
Author Editor fact: Spufford is a writer as well as editor. He has written quite a bit of fiction and nonfiction. I only had The Child That Books Built on my Challenge list which I read back on 2013.
Book trivia: Ends of the Earth (Antarctic) is bound with Ends of the Earth (Arctic). To tell them apart, one text is upside down.
Music: Elvis, “Blue Skies”, Glenn Miller, “Mood Indigo”, Beethoven, Pink Floyd’s “One of These Days (I am Going to Cut You Into Little Pieces”, Debussy, “I am a Little Teapot”, Haydn, and Bach,
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the obvious chapter called “To the Ends of the Earth: North and South Pole” (p 230).
~*LunaSea*~ 