Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worst Journey in the World, 6 Oct 2003
This moving book of human courage, companionship and self sacrifice is the greatest I have ever read. The haunted, emotive words of the youngest man of the expedition, Cherry Garrard, leap across the years, making it both tragic and gripping, heroic and uplifting, and with final diary enteries of his dying comrades included, heart rendering. A true story of not only the toughest expediton to the South Pole but an account full of human warmth for the men who undertook the journey. At its conclusion one is left by the sense of deep admiration for those who reached beyond their normal selves, against overwhelming odds to achieve the impossible, not for riches, nor fame, but for the sake of universal human knowledge and achievement. My favourite book of all.
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best travel book ever - and then some., 28 Sep 2003
There is a recurrent weakness among travel books, which is this: they all too often give the impression that the author set out on his travels for no better reason than to write about them. This is - emphatically - not one of those books. Polar explorers, these days, are often dismissed as self-glorifying adventures. There is a case for this as far as, say, Shackleton, is concerned, for all his heroic achievements once he was in a tight spot. Scott, on the other hand, merely used the quest for the pole as a selling point for an expedition of scientific research, a reason he felt was very worthwhile indeed. Cherry makes it clear in this book that everyone in the expedition - himself included - was prepared to endure hardships that are almost beyond the imagination of most of us for the sake of adding to mankind's store of knowledge - and in doing so inspires our awed respect and admiration. What they went through in merely reaching the Antarctic continent in the first place is enough to chill the blood. Also, Scott himself is too often dismissed as an incompetent leader who got himself and his men killed - but Cherry redresses that view, and surely no-one is better qualified to make that assessment.
It's unfortunate that the legacy of this expedition, in the public mind, is that of a botched attempt to secure a scrap of glory for the British Empire. If you want to know better, this is the book to read. I may buy another copy just so that I can read it again for the first time.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Moving and revitalising, 30 Sep 2004
It is absolutely impossible, without actually being there, to fully appreciate what the likes of Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton went through on their quests to the South Pole. The very fact that it took 3 years of back-breaking, teeth-shattering work, day in day out, just to get five people to the tip of the world suggests that it was tough. But the fact that it was all carried out in sub-zero temperatures, gale-force winds and six months of perpetual darkness demonstrates that these men were a breed apart. Cherry-Garrard's book is humble, vivid and like the Antarctic air, exceptionally pure. All the emotion is implied rather than told and is more affecting for it. The characters are strong and the setting is described in a matter-of-fact way that avoids flowery prose and hints at the mundanity and monotony of months spent in a freezing tent. The sheer scale of the effort and the tireless fortitude of the men and animals is truly epic. The book is undoubtedly one of the finest works of travel writing and confirmed my suspicions that people today generally have it far too easy.
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