Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica | 
|  | | | Title: | Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica | | Author: | Sara Wheeler | | Publisher: | Modern Library | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 16 March, 1999 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0375753389 / 9780375753381 | | List Price: | $13.95 | | You Save: | $2.79 | | Amazon Price: | $11.16 | |
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Product Description
It is the coldest, windiest, driest place on earth, an icy desert of unearthly beauty and stubborn impenetrability. For centuries, Antarctica has captured the imagination of our greatest scientists and explorers, lingering in the spirit long after their return. Shackleton called it "the last great journey"; for Apsley Cherry-Garrard it was the worst journey in the world.
This is a book about the call of the wild and the response of the spirit to a country that exists perhaps most vividly in the mind. Sara Wheeler spent seven months in Antarctica, living with its scientists and dreamers. No book is more true to the spirit of that continent--beguiling, enchanted and vast beyond the furthest reaches of our imagination. Chosen by Beryl Bainbridge and John Major as one of the best books of the year, recommended by the editors of Entertainment Weekly and the Chicago Tribune, one of the Seattle Times's top ten travel books of the year, Terra Incognita is a classic of polar literature.
Amazon.com Review
When explorers such as Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen, and Robert Falcon Scott all set off to Antarctica in the early years of the 20th century, the polar regions were among the last truly unexplored areas of the world--and arguably the least hospitable. Scott lost his life, pinned down in a howling blizzard only 11 miles from his supply depot; Shackleton lost his ship, crushed in the ice. Even those who survived the icy wastes did so only with enormous effort. And yet, there is something about Antarctica that beckons people; eighty years after Shackleton's voyage, Sara Wheeler answered the call, leaving her comfortable home for "the Great White." Terra Incognita is the result of her sojourn in that legendary land. In addition to chronicling her own encounters with the people and the place, Wheeler brings the past alive as well, through vivid stories about the heroes of polar exploration: Shackleton, Scott, Amundsen, and others who practically become secondary characters in Wheeler's account. But it is her interactions with the living people who make up the community--scientists, drifters, and dreamers who have settled this forbidding landscape--that make Terra Incognita a rare and worthy book.
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Customer Reviews:
• Helplessly Hoping In The White South 28 April, 2007
After reading the thoroughly enjoyable Travels in a Thin Country, I figured on some entertaining travelogue action in Terra Incognita.
Didn't happen.
What ever happened to the adventurous Sara Wheeler of the Travels book? After slogging my way up to the middle of the book, my level of interest experienced a whiteout worthy of winter in Antarctica. I realized, as I laid the book momentarily aside, that the reading was getting pretty tedious. A bad sign, usually meaning a book is targeted for the pile heading for the used book store.
Most of this book comes across as journalizing that never got the attention of a re-write before heading off to the publisher. The lack of cohesion that should be glueing this narrative together is palpable; this is a narrative devoid of any sustaining "pull". Terra Incognita is a muddle through a pastiche of the historical events of Antarctica although it is interspersed with some pretty decent reportage of current life at the bottom of the world.
Still, there ain't much to redeem the tediousness of this book except Wheeler's wry British humour. But even that's not enough to keep one's attention from freezing to death. Wheeler is encamped with predomitably groups of scientists; as such, this isn't much of a travelogue but rather a logbook of how to hang out with the transients.
I think Sara Wheeler is worthy of producing some real decent travel writing; Travels in a Thin Country bears testimony to this. Terra Incognita, however, is a big hiccup; hopefully she will produce a better read the next book that comes our way.
Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts
The Cloud Reckoner
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3V0JZL2TNLRHE
• Words Worth A Thousand Pictures 26 July, 2007
Sara Wheeler relates her months in Antarctica with vivid discription that as an artist I can "see" her experience. Any one who loves to travel will take this trip with her.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A19QSQDKZWSDRE
• A Thoughtful And Intelligent Travel Book 06 March, 2007
This is a wonderful, beautiful book that takes you to a place that most of us can only dream of. The author has an intelligent and witty voice and can tell a good story well - there are some really memorable passages that stay with you long after you've put the book down.
This is one of those rare travel books that make you feel like you've been there yourself, so much so that I'll never have to pollute Antarctica with my presence, at least...
- Reviewed by customer ID: AFOPS877AKLWE
• Stumbling To The South Pole 13 December, 2006
As a lover of all things glacial (with Antarctica holding a particularly special place in my heart), I was thrilled to come across this book in my local library. The book promised to deliver an enjoyable blend of history, science and culture in an entertaining travelogue format. Sadly, I soon found myself disappointed. By the time I was halfway through, I was struggling to make progress through what should have been an engaging read.
Wheeler suffers for the most part from a lack of direction. Her "travels" consist of spur-of-the-moment helicopter rides to various locations on the ice that fail to be distinguishable after the fourth or fifth trip. Indeed, at times the book reads more like segments of a blog interspersed haphazardly with snippets of polar exploration history or the odd fact about glacial ice or penguins. This is further muddled with somewhat contrived musings on American culture (they're all depicted like they're ex-cowboys from Texas), or anomalous personal asides that try to be meaningful but come across as undeveloped filler material.
Individual chapters have no particular structure or purpose, and so the finished product feels a bit like slogging along through the variations of the same thing: funny anecdote, helicopter ride, historical bit, description of another station's toilet facilities or the food they eat, personal aside. After several chapters of this jumpy, disjointed writing style, following the narrative stops being fun and feels more like work. This is unfortunate; Wheeler's writing isn't necessarily poor, but seems to suffer from a bad editing job and a lack of planning.
The anecdotes are amusing, the history fascinating, but when it comes to the science and the researchers themselves Wheeler largely fails to make a case for their relevance. Instead, they come across as slightly eccentric guinea pigs with odd-but-quaint obsessions. Still, perhaps the book's greatest crime is that she largely fails to capture the beauty and utter wildness of this last frontier on Earth, and in the end I felt no closer to Antarctica than when I first picked up the book.
~ Jacquelyn Gill
- Reviewed by customer ID: A36JMZ3F7A56Y5
• This Book Changed My Life 16 September, 2008
I once had a discussion with a colleague who said, "I've never read a book that actually changed my life. I don't think books can do that." At the time, I disagreed, but couldn't articulate why.
Well, this book has been the one that changed my life. It was the first book I read about Antarctica, and it immediately peaked my interest in traveling there. I didn't want to go as a tourist (which is possible, by the way, if you can afford a $6000 cruise....) I wanted to see a science station for myself.
Well, it wasn't easy, but three years and SEVERAL job applications later, I've got a job at McMurdo Station (the US's main research station, and the largest one on the continent), and I leave for "the Ice" in two weeks. So "Thanks" Sara Wheeler! I owe you one!
This book was a pleasure to read because the author so effortlessly blends her experience with the stories of the early explorers. As a fellow, modern, female traveler I could empathize with her desire to get away to an empty, vast place. And her social descriptions are just as interesting. Funny that she is well received everywhere except by her own countrymen at the British base.
I definitely recommend it for anyone interested in Antarctica's past or present.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AX1IMV7KJPIQM
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