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Biography & Autobiography.
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HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ? The ??exquisitely researched and deeply engrossing? (The New York Times) true survival story of an early polar expedition that went terribly awry??with the ship frozen in ice and the crew trapped inside for the entire sunless, Antarctic winter ??The energy of the narrative never flags. . . . Sancton has produced a thriller.???The Wall Street Journal
In August 1897, the young Belgian commandant Adrien de Gerlache set sail for a three-year expedition aboard the good ship Belgica with dreams of glory. His destination was the uncharted end of the earth: the icy continent of Antarctica. But de Gerlache??s plans to be first to the magnetic South Pole would swiftly go awry. After a series of costly setbacks, the commandant faced two bad options: turn back in defeat and spare his men the devastating Antarctic winter, or recklessly chase fame by sailing deeper into the freezing waters. De Gerlache sailed on, and soon the Belgica was stuck fast in the icy hold of the Bellingshausen Sea. When the sun set on the magnificent polar landscape one last time, the ship??s occupants were condemned to months of endless night. In the darkness, plagued by a mysterious illness and besieged by monotony, they descended into madness. In Madhouse at the End of the Earth, Julian Sancton unfolds an epic story of adventure and horror for the ages. As the Belgica??s men teetered on the brink, de Gerlache relied increasingly on two young officers whose friendship had blossomed in captivity: the expedition??s lone American, Dr. Frederick Cook??half genius, half con man??whose later infamy would overshadow his brilliance on the Belgica; and the ship??s first mate, soon-to-be legendary Roald Amundsen, even in his youth the storybook picture of a sailor. Together, they would plan a last-ditch, nearly certain-to-fail escape from the ice??one that would either etch their names in history or doom them to a terrible fate at the ocean??s bottom. Drawing on the diaries and journals of the Belgica??s crew and with exclusive access to the ship??s logbook, Sancton brings novelistic flair to a story of human extremes, one so remarkable that even today NASA studies it for research on isolation for future missions to Mars. Equal parts maritime thriller and gothic horror, Madhouse at the End of th… (plus d'informations)
This book is a narrative account of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–99, its “planning”, execution, and aftermath. The expedition was Led by Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery aboard the RV Belgica, and was the first Belgian Antarctic expedition. It is considered to be the first expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Madhouse at the End of the Earth is a well-researched and competently-written book, but for me it failed to convey the claustrophobia and dread that is so often engendered in such sea tales.
There’s a lot of detail of the members of the crew and their quarrels that threatened the success of the expedition, but I just didn’t get the feel of the sea and the extreme conditions of Antarctica that I was expecting. There was no fire for me in this book, despite the catchy title.
But perhaps I had unrealistic expectations. One of my earliest memories is of listening to Douglas Stewarts’s play, Fire on the Snow on the radio in Australia. Australians are perhaps more aware than others of Antarctica. Especially those of us from the southern coast. We feel Antarctica’s cold winds in winter. And even travelling by boat from the mainland to Tasmania can be a rough experience. All things considered please take my 3.5 rating with a grain of sand. ( )
a really interesting book . The author provides background on just a few of the main characters, just enough to get you interested in their fate, and then you're off and running. primary sources are used throughout, but usually without extensive quotes. That is the one thing I'd have preferred, a little more of the men's own voices.all in all, very satisfying read about one of the early Antarctic explorations." ( )
In 1897, Belgium tried to make history by being the first ship to find the South Magnetic Pole. The author focused on 3 important men on the trek: Commandant Adrien de Gerlache, Norwegian Roald Amundsen, and American Dr Frederick Cook—all heroes in their own right. But the Commandant purposefully took the ship too far onto the continent in the year, causing it to get locked in ice for a long long winter. He thought it’d put him that much closer to his goal once the ice thawed. What he didn’t take into account that it could stay iced in for years. And he told his men they were heading north when in fact they were heading south (the readings were all messed up thanks to their location and the lack of GPS in 1897). Then it became a matter of life and death and sanity. The Commandant became so ill from scurvy he rarely made an appearance. Thanks to Amundsen’s leadership and Cook’s ingenuity, very few died or became insane and they were able to escape the ice at the beginning of the next winter—but a harsh existence otherwise. It was the excellent training though for Amundsen to eventually be the first man to reach the South Pole. A few years back I toured the Fram Museum in Oslo, and to see the ship he took to Antarctica, an extraordinary experience. This was an excellent book backed by exhaustive research. ( )
A very well researched historical account -- that just tended to get a little too monotonous. I also struggled to keep track of all of the characters. ( )
I'm fascinated by journeys on the sea. Give me a good crew with an interesting captain and a few remarkable crew members, and I'm in heaven. Add a daring journey, an almost impossible mission, and the kind of harsh circumstances that would test the human spirit, and I know I've got a recipe for a page-turning read.
MADHOUSE AT THE END OF THE EARTH was fascinating, but the writing left a bit to be desired. It was surprisingly dry for such an engaging topic. Sancton's writing style, described on the cover as having "novelistic flair," is sadly repetitive, monotonous and laborious. As much as I loved reading about de Gerlache and his men, the writing tested my patience. I'm glad I stuck with it, as the story was genuinely harrowing and remarkable, but I won't be in a hurry to pick up anything written by this author again. ( )
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
For Jess, Maya, and Leila (and Suki)
Premiers mots
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
(Prologue) The light of a cold gray dawn filtered through the grating that covered the narrow windows of the Leavenworth penitentiary hospital.
The river Scheldt wound languidly from northern France through Belgium, taking a sharp westward turn at the port of Antwerp, where it became deep and wide enough to accommodate oceangoing ships.
Citations
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
Sometimes science is the excuse for exploration. I think it is rarely the reason.
- George Leigh Mallory
But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul. . . . Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as the visible absence of colour, and at the same time the concrete of all colours; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows - a colourless, all-colour of atheism from which we shrink? - Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
Derniers mots
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
The old man thought of his journeys with his friend and let himself drift, on a floe of memory, to the pack ice of the Bellingshausen Sea.
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▾Descriptions de livres
Biography & Autobiography.
History.
Nonfiction.
HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ? The ??exquisitely researched and deeply engrossing? (The New York Times) true survival story of an early polar expedition that went terribly awry??with the ship frozen in ice and the crew trapped inside for the entire sunless, Antarctic winter ??The energy of the narrative never flags. . . . Sancton has produced a thriller.???The Wall Street Journal
In August 1897, the young Belgian commandant Adrien de Gerlache set sail for a three-year expedition aboard the good ship Belgica with dreams of glory. His destination was the uncharted end of the earth: the icy continent of Antarctica. But de Gerlache??s plans to be first to the magnetic South Pole would swiftly go awry. After a series of costly setbacks, the commandant faced two bad options: turn back in defeat and spare his men the devastating Antarctic winter, or recklessly chase fame by sailing deeper into the freezing waters. De Gerlache sailed on, and soon the Belgica was stuck fast in the icy hold of the Bellingshausen Sea. When the sun set on the magnificent polar landscape one last time, the ship??s occupants were condemned to months of endless night. In the darkness, plagued by a mysterious illness and besieged by monotony, they descended into madness. In Madhouse at the End of the Earth, Julian Sancton unfolds an epic story of adventure and horror for the ages. As the Belgica??s men teetered on the brink, de Gerlache relied increasingly on two young officers whose friendship had blossomed in captivity: the expedition??s lone American, Dr. Frederick Cook??half genius, half con man??whose later infamy would overshadow his brilliance on the Belgica; and the ship??s first mate, soon-to-be legendary Roald Amundsen, even in his youth the storybook picture of a sailor. Together, they would plan a last-ditch, nearly certain-to-fail escape from the ice??one that would either etch their names in history or doom them to a terrible fate at the ocean??s bottom. Drawing on the diaries and journals of the Belgica??s crew and with exclusive access to the ship??s logbook, Sancton brings novelistic flair to a story of human extremes, one so remarkable that even today NASA studies it for research on isolation for future missions to Mars. Equal parts maritime thriller and gothic horror, Madhouse at the End of th
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Read by Vikas Adam
Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
This book is a narrative account of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–99, its “planning”, execution, and aftermath. The expedition was Led by Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery aboard the RV Belgica, and was the first Belgian Antarctic expedition. It is considered to be the first expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Madhouse at the End of the Earth is a well-researched and competently-written book, but for me it failed to convey the claustrophobia and dread that is so often engendered in such sea tales.
There’s a lot of detail of the members of the crew and their quarrels that threatened the success of the expedition, but I just didn’t get the feel of the sea and the extreme conditions of Antarctica that I was expecting. There was no fire for me in this book, despite the catchy title.
But perhaps I had unrealistic expectations. One of my earliest memories is of listening to Douglas Stewarts’s play, Fire on the Snow on the radio in Australia. Australians are perhaps more aware than others of Antarctica. Especially those of us from the southern coast. We feel Antarctica’s cold winds in winter. And even travelling by boat from the mainland to Tasmania can be a rough experience. All things considered please take my 3.5 rating with a grain of sand. (