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The Birthday Boys
In this stunning novel, award-winning author Beryl Bainbridge offers a fictionalized account of the doomed Antarctic expedition led by Captain Scott in 1912. At once hair-raising and beautiful, here is an astonishing tale of misguided courage and human endurance. The Birthday Boys of the title are Scott and four members of his team, each of whom narrates a section of the book. As the story progresses the reader discovers that these men may not be reliable reporters. Their cocky optimism is both ghastly and dangerous. Brought up to despise professional expertise, their enterprise is lunatic, amateur and gentlemanly. Beryl Bainbridge makes it hauntingly clear: the men are fatally doomed in their bravery, the very stuff of heroes. Captain Scott's poignant trek becomes, in this remarkable novel, an historical event which prefigures the terrible new world dawning in Europe. It was an inept rehearsal for the carnage of the first world war, the ultimate challenge for the arrogant generals who shared Scott's skewed notion of courage that led men qualmlessly into harm's way. Subtle, poetic and unforgettable, The Birthday Boys is impossible to read without experiencing that magical shiver up the spine which is caused when great writing touches the soul.
189 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
63 people are currently reading
1960 people want to read
About the author
Beryl Bainbridge
57 books181 followersDame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge DBE was an English writer from Liverpool. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often set among the English working classes. Bainbridge won the Whitbread Award twice and was nominated for the Booker Prize five times. In 2008, The Times newspaper named Bainbridge among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
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January 29, 2019
ON SALE THIS WEEK FOR $1.99! Trust me - the most gorgeous, cold weather book you can find. This lady could write!
No spoilers. When their glassy, yellow bodies were found frozen solid some eight months later, the men's journals and letters to their mothers were quietly removed from the still-intact tent. Its poles were taken down, and the canvas collapsed to cover them like a shroud. Antarctic rocks were stacked on them in a cold cairn, and all of England wept. This information is not in the book, but knowing it gives it a proper place in our minds.
TIDBIT: My friend Laura attended an author event with Donald Ray Pollock and noted that among the books he found as highly impactful on his writing career, this obscure little novel was listed. The final chapter left a huge impression with Pollock and obviously, with me too.
When a reader starts a book like "Into the Wild" or even "A Fault in Our Stars," he knows things are not going to end well. I confess that this doomed expedition to Antarctica was something I vaguely had a notion of but honestly couldn't even recall the name of its leader. But then again, I'm an average, somewhat ignorant American.
This incredible book - a short mesmerizing piece of historical fiction - was written 25 years ago by an Englishwoman who was seemingly a cross between Ann Patchett and Jodi Picoult... gorgeous writing crossed with prolific publishing. Beryl Bainbridge was a quirky, outspoken woman with a life-size statue of Jesus in her living room along with a stuffed bison she named Eric. The Beatles once partied at her house for three days and nights solid, causing her to take her two young children and stay with the neighbors until the boys had had their fill.
When she wrote The Birthday Boys, everybody in England already knew the story well. Newspapers, magazines, and books aplenty had already dissected this ill fated "race" to the South Pole. The expedition leader, Robert Falcon Scott (called Con by his friends), was largely eviscerated for errors in judgement that endangered his men and took lives. That he would even choose to return to Antarctica (the 1910 exploration was his second there) after having been in its unrelenting cold for three years is way beyond my reckoning.
Think about how cold we feel today with neoprene sock liners, Goretex boots, and literally space-age protection against the elements. What did they have from 1901 through 1912? Leather. The lowest temperatures measured were - hold on to your long johns - minus 77 degrees Fahrenheit (-60 Celsius). Falcon Scott was after the science of the place and wanted to go back.
I think it says something about him that his crew was made up in part of repeat offenders. By that, I mean that the young men who'd been along for the first scientific expedition from 1901 to 1904 signed up a second time. When people say they'd follow someone to the ends of the earth, they are merely echoing the feelings of 36 year old Taff Evans who had, in the 1901 trip "south" come close to death, dangling inside a crevasse along with Capt. Scott. Taff, a heavy-partying petty officer adored Scott and always referred to him as the Owner.
Beryl Bainbridge writes this passage about their near death experience: "I was scared for my life, but at the same time I couldn’t help noticing how bright everything was, the ice not really blue at all but shot through with spangled points of rosy light so dazzling that it made me crinkle up my eyes as though I had something to smile about, and there was a shadow cast by the Owner’s shoulder that washed from seagreen to purple as he twisted in his traces."
The author writes an entire chapter from the perspective of Taff - the big, hardworking party-boy, and his style of speaking is something that is part him (from his letters) and part author. His voice, by way of grammar or his habit of noticing pretty little things about the world around him, was clearly different from the other four whose chapters are also here. Until I opened the book and started poking around the internet for background facts, I didn't realize that there were a total of five men - including sweet Taff - that split from the large main group to attempt reaching the South Pole before a Norwegian crew. The five of them died (sorry about the spoiler if you are as ignorant of history as I am) on their trudge back from the pole, and Beryl's five-chaptered book is a way of giving each of them a voice from the ice.
Because Con Scott has been disparaged over the past century, I was really interested in how his voice would be portrayed. He had a thick journal with him when his remains were found, along with letters to his wife and others. His affection for the men and his frustration with having to balance science with the "race" are heard in Beryl's words for him but taken from his own writing. He has a conversation with Oates - another of the five voices - that is a bit of foreshadowing of their deaths.
The ponies they had brought along to haul the supply sledges were not doing well, despite the fact that other little horses had fared extremely well in an exploration by Shackleton. Scott was intent on saving the ponies, especially an old one named Weary Willie. Scott and Oates got to talking about survival in the cold, and specifically about an earlier Arctic expedition where some of the survivors, soon to be dead anyway, were forced to eat their deceased comrades to stay alive. Oates argued against instinct for survival and said that he would put a bullet in his head. Scott, although a firm and fearless leader, was known to be emotional. He was brought to tears easily. He offered Oates the promise of an easier, gentler way out, God forbid it should ever come to that. As we know that his life did end, read for yourself as to how they said their eternal goodnights.
‘In the unlikely event of its being necessary,’ I said, ‘we have more up-to-date methods. Bill has opium and morphia.’
‘Damn it, no,’ he said. ‘I want to be in control. I don’t want to drift into death.'
I am a scientist by training and by 20 years of experience - Scott's dedication to science touched me. He knew the trip was dangerous, as did the men. Like the astronauts and cosmonauts who circle above us today, they believed that the risk was worth it. It galls me a bit that he has been vilified so much. The expedition itself was never intended as a race to the South Pole, but as a series of carefully made scientific experiments - much like Scott's first trip to Antarctica.
Regardless of the race for the pole, offshoot mini-expeditions were conducted - as planned - after they made landfall in 1910 and hit their primary base camp. Scientists were dispatched out in smaller parties to study geology, meteorology (thus we know about the -77 degrees), physics, and biology. In order to facilitate later expeditions, Capt Scott was also testing the efficiencies of using new fangled "polar" motor cars, dog teams, and the aforementioned sturdy ponies. He had to privately raise all of the money for the men, equipment, and supplies, and when he was about to launch was informed that - guess what? A Norwegian expedition to the North Pole - truly just racing to plant the country's flag - had done an about-face because they'd been beaten in the Arctic.
Before Scott and his men even left British soil, the Norwegian leader had fired all his scientists and loaded up on 100 sled dogs so he could make a dash to the South Pole. The Norwegian blew off all and every experiment just for bragging rights to set his flag there first. Scott was, at the 11th hour, challenged with beating him on top of completing all the pure science that was his primary aim.
Before his dash for the pole, three of Scott's team took a side trip to go after the eggs of Emperor penguins on the coast. It was believed in the early 1900s that these particular embryos would show the link between the evolution of birds and of reptiles. You know how today paleontologists will tell you that dinosaurs were more closely related to birds than, say, alligators? These scientists were trying to glean that sort of information by half-crawling in total darkness (Antarctic winters are night time all day long, remember), hauling sledges, and camping in blizzards for WEEKS on end in temperatures that were 70 something below zero. Just to gather five lousy eggs that might unravel evolution. These men chose to go - they were not ordered.
How far would you crawl for science? These guys survived this little side trip, but were exhausted and punch drunk. Beryl writes this when one of them seems entirely happy to be alone at the bottom of the world, lying in the icy black for a rest, watching the aurora borealis: "Ever obliging, Cherry croaked, ‘What are you doing here, Uncle Bill?’ And he replied, ‘I’ve never liked crowds’, and then we all squealed, because we could see the humour of it: three ragged, frosted figures lying on their backs in the darkness of nowhere, emitting cries like stuck pigs as God’s own paintbrush splashed among the stars."
Beryl writes gorgeously, as shown in these excerpts, but one last thing about The Birthday Boys might intrigue you. I wondered how a highly popular Englishwoman author came to write a work of historical fiction about a well documented and failed trip that happened 80 years earlier. Seriously, what else was there to write about after eight decades?
It turns out that she had just penned a book about JM Barrie - the guy who wrote Peter Pan. In researching Barrie, Beryl discovered that he had been really good friends with Captain Falcon Scott. Wait. A seemingly egotistical polar explorer (who led his men to death) and a playwright? Friends? Their kinship seemed odd to her until she started reading Scott's journal and his letters home. Then she read the letters written by his crew. Suddenly the "lost boys" from Peter Pan's Neverland seemed to take on life. And death. Those lost boys were, in Beryl's mind, the birthday boys of Antarctica.
Five stars. On my favorites shelf.
It is hard to find, but one can buy it for one cent from Amazon with $3.99 shipping.
"I left him and went up on deck to look out at the slithering city, its glitter of street lamps fizzy under the rain. There’s something wrong about a ship in dock, something pathetic, like a bird fluttering in a spill of oil. The Nova was tethered to her berth by ropes and chains, caught in a pool of greasy water. I could feel her shifting under my feet, tugging to be free."
"I don’t think any of us were in our right minds. None of us will forget that nightmare scene – the ice chunks heaving in the black water amidst the bucking whales, Birdie grotesquely riding that dying pony, Titus swinging the pickaxe against a sky the colour of blood."
."And then she embraced me, and I thought it was her tears that rolled down my cheeks until the pain in my legs jerked me into consciousness, and I realised it was my own eyes that spilled with grief."
No spoilers. When their glassy, yellow bodies were found frozen solid some eight months later, the men's journals and letters to their mothers were quietly removed from the still-intact tent. Its poles were taken down, and the canvas collapsed to cover them like a shroud. Antarctic rocks were stacked on them in a cold cairn, and all of England wept. This information is not in the book, but knowing it gives it a proper place in our minds.
TIDBIT: My friend Laura attended an author event with Donald Ray Pollock and noted that among the books he found as highly impactful on his writing career, this obscure little novel was listed. The final chapter left a huge impression with Pollock and obviously, with me too.
When a reader starts a book like "Into the Wild" or even "A Fault in Our Stars," he knows things are not going to end well. I confess that this doomed expedition to Antarctica was something I vaguely had a notion of but honestly couldn't even recall the name of its leader. But then again, I'm an average, somewhat ignorant American.
This incredible book - a short mesmerizing piece of historical fiction - was written 25 years ago by an Englishwoman who was seemingly a cross between Ann Patchett and Jodi Picoult... gorgeous writing crossed with prolific publishing. Beryl Bainbridge was a quirky, outspoken woman with a life-size statue of Jesus in her living room along with a stuffed bison she named Eric. The Beatles once partied at her house for three days and nights solid, causing her to take her two young children and stay with the neighbors until the boys had had their fill.
When she wrote The Birthday Boys, everybody in England already knew the story well. Newspapers, magazines, and books aplenty had already dissected this ill fated "race" to the South Pole. The expedition leader, Robert Falcon Scott (called Con by his friends), was largely eviscerated for errors in judgement that endangered his men and took lives. That he would even choose to return to Antarctica (the 1910 exploration was his second there) after having been in its unrelenting cold for three years is way beyond my reckoning.
Think about how cold we feel today with neoprene sock liners, Goretex boots, and literally space-age protection against the elements. What did they have from 1901 through 1912? Leather. The lowest temperatures measured were - hold on to your long johns - minus 77 degrees Fahrenheit (-60 Celsius). Falcon Scott was after the science of the place and wanted to go back.
I think it says something about him that his crew was made up in part of repeat offenders. By that, I mean that the young men who'd been along for the first scientific expedition from 1901 to 1904 signed up a second time. When people say they'd follow someone to the ends of the earth, they are merely echoing the feelings of 36 year old Taff Evans who had, in the 1901 trip "south" come close to death, dangling inside a crevasse along with Capt. Scott. Taff, a heavy-partying petty officer adored Scott and always referred to him as the Owner.
Beryl Bainbridge writes this passage about their near death experience: "I was scared for my life, but at the same time I couldn’t help noticing how bright everything was, the ice not really blue at all but shot through with spangled points of rosy light so dazzling that it made me crinkle up my eyes as though I had something to smile about, and there was a shadow cast by the Owner’s shoulder that washed from seagreen to purple as he twisted in his traces."
The author writes an entire chapter from the perspective of Taff - the big, hardworking party-boy, and his style of speaking is something that is part him (from his letters) and part author. His voice, by way of grammar or his habit of noticing pretty little things about the world around him, was clearly different from the other four whose chapters are also here. Until I opened the book and started poking around the internet for background facts, I didn't realize that there were a total of five men - including sweet Taff - that split from the large main group to attempt reaching the South Pole before a Norwegian crew. The five of them died (sorry about the spoiler if you are as ignorant of history as I am) on their trudge back from the pole, and Beryl's five-chaptered book is a way of giving each of them a voice from the ice.
Because Con Scott has been disparaged over the past century, I was really interested in how his voice would be portrayed. He had a thick journal with him when his remains were found, along with letters to his wife and others. His affection for the men and his frustration with having to balance science with the "race" are heard in Beryl's words for him but taken from his own writing. He has a conversation with Oates - another of the five voices - that is a bit of foreshadowing of their deaths.
The ponies they had brought along to haul the supply sledges were not doing well, despite the fact that other little horses had fared extremely well in an exploration by Shackleton. Scott was intent on saving the ponies, especially an old one named Weary Willie. Scott and Oates got to talking about survival in the cold, and specifically about an earlier Arctic expedition where some of the survivors, soon to be dead anyway, were forced to eat their deceased comrades to stay alive. Oates argued against instinct for survival and said that he would put a bullet in his head. Scott, although a firm and fearless leader, was known to be emotional. He was brought to tears easily. He offered Oates the promise of an easier, gentler way out, God forbid it should ever come to that. As we know that his life did end, read for yourself as to how they said their eternal goodnights.
‘In the unlikely event of its being necessary,’ I said, ‘we have more up-to-date methods. Bill has opium and morphia.’
‘Damn it, no,’ he said. ‘I want to be in control. I don’t want to drift into death.'
I am a scientist by training and by 20 years of experience - Scott's dedication to science touched me. He knew the trip was dangerous, as did the men. Like the astronauts and cosmonauts who circle above us today, they believed that the risk was worth it. It galls me a bit that he has been vilified so much. The expedition itself was never intended as a race to the South Pole, but as a series of carefully made scientific experiments - much like Scott's first trip to Antarctica.
Regardless of the race for the pole, offshoot mini-expeditions were conducted - as planned - after they made landfall in 1910 and hit their primary base camp. Scientists were dispatched out in smaller parties to study geology, meteorology (thus we know about the -77 degrees), physics, and biology. In order to facilitate later expeditions, Capt Scott was also testing the efficiencies of using new fangled "polar" motor cars, dog teams, and the aforementioned sturdy ponies. He had to privately raise all of the money for the men, equipment, and supplies, and when he was about to launch was informed that - guess what? A Norwegian expedition to the North Pole - truly just racing to plant the country's flag - had done an about-face because they'd been beaten in the Arctic.
Before Scott and his men even left British soil, the Norwegian leader had fired all his scientists and loaded up on 100 sled dogs so he could make a dash to the South Pole. The Norwegian blew off all and every experiment just for bragging rights to set his flag there first. Scott was, at the 11th hour, challenged with beating him on top of completing all the pure science that was his primary aim.
Before his dash for the pole, three of Scott's team took a side trip to go after the eggs of Emperor penguins on the coast. It was believed in the early 1900s that these particular embryos would show the link between the evolution of birds and of reptiles. You know how today paleontologists will tell you that dinosaurs were more closely related to birds than, say, alligators? These scientists were trying to glean that sort of information by half-crawling in total darkness (Antarctic winters are night time all day long, remember), hauling sledges, and camping in blizzards for WEEKS on end in temperatures that were 70 something below zero. Just to gather five lousy eggs that might unravel evolution. These men chose to go - they were not ordered.
How far would you crawl for science? These guys survived this little side trip, but were exhausted and punch drunk. Beryl writes this when one of them seems entirely happy to be alone at the bottom of the world, lying in the icy black for a rest, watching the aurora borealis: "Ever obliging, Cherry croaked, ‘What are you doing here, Uncle Bill?’ And he replied, ‘I’ve never liked crowds’, and then we all squealed, because we could see the humour of it: three ragged, frosted figures lying on their backs in the darkness of nowhere, emitting cries like stuck pigs as God’s own paintbrush splashed among the stars."
Beryl writes gorgeously, as shown in these excerpts, but one last thing about The Birthday Boys might intrigue you. I wondered how a highly popular Englishwoman author came to write a work of historical fiction about a well documented and failed trip that happened 80 years earlier. Seriously, what else was there to write about after eight decades?
It turns out that she had just penned a book about JM Barrie - the guy who wrote Peter Pan. In researching Barrie, Beryl discovered that he had been really good friends with Captain Falcon Scott. Wait. A seemingly egotistical polar explorer (who led his men to death) and a playwright? Friends? Their kinship seemed odd to her until she started reading Scott's journal and his letters home. Then she read the letters written by his crew. Suddenly the "lost boys" from Peter Pan's Neverland seemed to take on life. And death. Those lost boys were, in Beryl's mind, the birthday boys of Antarctica.
Five stars. On my favorites shelf.
It is hard to find, but one can buy it for one cent from Amazon with $3.99 shipping.
"I left him and went up on deck to look out at the slithering city, its glitter of street lamps fizzy under the rain. There’s something wrong about a ship in dock, something pathetic, like a bird fluttering in a spill of oil. The Nova was tethered to her berth by ropes and chains, caught in a pool of greasy water. I could feel her shifting under my feet, tugging to be free."
"I don’t think any of us were in our right minds. None of us will forget that nightmare scene – the ice chunks heaving in the black water amidst the bucking whales, Birdie grotesquely riding that dying pony, Titus swinging the pickaxe against a sky the colour of blood."
."And then she embraced me, and I thought it was her tears that rolled down my cheeks until the pain in my legs jerked me into consciousness, and I realised it was my own eyes that spilled with grief."
March 20, 2017
This fictional account of Robert Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole is chilling (no pun intended) because you know how it ends. It is told from the viewpoint of the 5 men from the crew who made the final trek from the camp to the pole, only to find that Roald Amundsen had gotten there before them. Heartbreaking to say the least, it read almost like a horror story. Fighting the elements, hunger, and exhaustion with nothing more than courage and character, these men are finally beaten by bad decisions and poor planning. That's where the horror comes in, because it could have been a different story had Scott simply listened to those of his crew who knew more than he did, instead of insisting on total obeisance to his role as leader. The final chapter was incredible, and the closing scene was powerful in it's understatement.
November 14, 2016
I think I turned this 5 star read into a 3 star read for myself by not doing a little research before I started it. This is a fictionalized account of a doomed expedition to Antartica led by Captain Scott in 1912, told in 5 parts by various team members. Unfortunately our various narrators are a bit unreliable though extremely interesting. However by not knowing the facts of the true story, I found it a little confusing. It's a short book that gets much better by the end which is when I started to figure it out. One's dilemma here is whether to study first and perhaps spoil the end of the story, or study after to make more sense of the beginning chapters. Either way a worthy read.
November 10, 2016
I have to admit most of the historical fiction that I have read is related to WWII. This historical fiction novel was a nice change. It is a story told by 5 points of view about a south pole expedition. Each account is unique and gives a different account of the same journey. This is one talented author. I highly recommend. It is very engaging even knowing what the outcome will be. Note to self: One of the books Donald Ray Pollock mentioned as an inspiration, more specifically the death of Oates.
November 9, 2016
This is the best historical fiction I have read. To be able to be a part of this grueling adventure as revealed through the narratives of five of the explorers is an experience not to be missed. Each of the five describe a portion of the Antarctic expedition and the feeling is that of looking over their shoulders as they describe the experience in their journals. A huge adventure in a mere 168 pages. Bainbridge's skill is phenomenal!
January 9, 2018
Trust me, I'll never set foot in the South Pole after reading this book but doubt I'll ever forget the voices of these five men who did.
"I dare say that you think you've known what it is to be cold . . . But you can't know . . . Not until you've been south. To be cold is when the temperature sinks to -60F and . . . the snot freezes in your nostrils and your breath snaps like a fire-cracker on the air and falls to ice in your beard."
~ Petty Officer Edgar Evans, June 1910
". . . any doubts I may have had about coming south again have evaporated like snow under sunlight. After five weeks at sea I'm fit as a fiddle and have actually put on weight. It's a blessing to be driven by hard work, because one never feels the want of exercise."
~ Dr. Edward Wilson, July 1910
"There is nothing on earth so vast, so glorious, as the southern heavens. In the ordinary world a man measures himself against the height of buildings, omnibuses, doorways; here, scale blown to the four quarters, he'd be a fool not to recognize he's no more significant than a raindrop on an ocean."
~ Captain Robert Falcon Scott, March 1911
"I was speaking no more than the truth, having always found that willpower overcomes all adversities. One just has to believe that it's within one's spiritual domain to conquer difficulties. That is not to say that I don't recognize there has to be a time to submit, possibly a time to die, merely that I'd never yet been taken to the brink."
~ Lt. Henry Bowers, July 1911
"Then Teddy called for three cheers and Scott gave the order to start. With what great excitement we set off, what optimism!"
~ Captain Lawrence Oates, March 1912
This gem of historical fiction is based on the true events of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica in 1910 - 1913 and his race to be the first to reach the South Pole. Most of us already know the outcome of this tragic journey, but reading about it from the individual perspectives of these five explorers, each soon to die, makes the story very personal and even more heartbreaking. Absolutely brilliant writing that vividly captures the harsh, spectacular polar environment and the minds and souls of these brave, pioneering men. Recommend to all.
"I dare say that you think you've known what it is to be cold . . . But you can't know . . . Not until you've been south. To be cold is when the temperature sinks to -60F and . . . the snot freezes in your nostrils and your breath snaps like a fire-cracker on the air and falls to ice in your beard."
~ Petty Officer Edgar Evans, June 1910
". . . any doubts I may have had about coming south again have evaporated like snow under sunlight. After five weeks at sea I'm fit as a fiddle and have actually put on weight. It's a blessing to be driven by hard work, because one never feels the want of exercise."
~ Dr. Edward Wilson, July 1910
"There is nothing on earth so vast, so glorious, as the southern heavens. In the ordinary world a man measures himself against the height of buildings, omnibuses, doorways; here, scale blown to the four quarters, he'd be a fool not to recognize he's no more significant than a raindrop on an ocean."
~ Captain Robert Falcon Scott, March 1911
"I was speaking no more than the truth, having always found that willpower overcomes all adversities. One just has to believe that it's within one's spiritual domain to conquer difficulties. That is not to say that I don't recognize there has to be a time to submit, possibly a time to die, merely that I'd never yet been taken to the brink."
~ Lt. Henry Bowers, July 1911
"Then Teddy called for three cheers and Scott gave the order to start. With what great excitement we set off, what optimism!"
~ Captain Lawrence Oates, March 1912
This gem of historical fiction is based on the true events of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica in 1910 - 1913 and his race to be the first to reach the South Pole. Most of us already know the outcome of this tragic journey, but reading about it from the individual perspectives of these five explorers, each soon to die, makes the story very personal and even more heartbreaking. Absolutely brilliant writing that vividly captures the harsh, spectacular polar environment and the minds and souls of these brave, pioneering men. Recommend to all.
December 4, 2015
When you think of the most famous words uttered in the heroic age of exploration, two lines stand out from the rest. One is Stanley with his greeting "Dr Livingstone, I presume?" on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. The other is Titus Oates walking out to his death in the middle of a polar storm in March 1912 with these deathless words:
"I'm just going outside and may be sometime."
What happened to Captain Oates in the moments after he emerged from the tent into the whiteness of Antarctica for the last time forms the final painful paragraphs of Beryl Bainbridge's terrific novel.
*
When The Birthday Boys first came out in 1991, I remember it was greeted with a helluva lot of critical acclaim. A few years later, I managed to get my mittens on the book, but for some reason I failed to progress much beyond the first chapter.
At some level, however, I am glad of it now because back then my reading was, would have been rather callow and superficial. 15 years or so down the road, I have a much clearer understanding of certain matters that form the warp and weave of the book but that are not really explicitly spelled out. In particular, these would be:
- the English class system that irrevocably separated working-class men like Petty Officer Evans from their supposed 'superiors', and
- the hidebound set of Victorian values that these superiors often clung to, 'gentlemen' such as Dr Wilson, Birdie Bowers and Captain Scott himself.
*
This short novel then recounts the story of Scott's second and last polar journey, the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition between 1910 and 1912, the one that made the very words "Captain Scott" synonymous with tragedy, heroism and self-sacrifice. Except that it becomes pretty clear early on that Bainbridge hews closer to the Roland Huntford school of thought, and paints a fairly scathing portrait of the doomed 'hero', showing him up for the prissy, stubborn, thin-skinned incompetent that he really was. 'Revisionist historical fiction' one might call it, but it's impeccably researched and reads incredibly believable, uncannily true all the way through.
The book is also a model of organization and a miracle of empathy and imagination, a small yet perfectly-formed example of the novelist's art. Bainbridge proves herself a formidable ventriloquist, dividing up her narrative into five chapters, each chapter narrated by one of the men who eventually made it to the Pole and who died on the return journey, cold, hungry and desperately short of safety.
And so Chapter 1 is narrated by the Welshman Taffy Evans who kicks off the story in south Wales in the summer of 1910, describing the preparations preliminary to the voyage, the round of parties and civic receptions thrown in honour of the officers and the men, the intimate leave-takings and the hollering, hallooing farewell of the crowds. It's all very prelapsarian, all in the full flush of that hat-throwing Edwardian innocence - two years before the Titanic, two years before the disaster that befell Scott's party, and a full four years before the mass slaughter of the Great War got underway.
Still, Taffy Evans' no-nonsense narrative voice is a thing to marvel at - taciturn and pragmatic, the salt of the working class who lets his actions do the talking and has little time for sentiment. This extraordinary act of channeling sets up the rest of the book. Dr Wilson, Scott's friend and ally, takes over in Chapter 2, describing the sea voyage down to the southern latitudes. An idealistic man of learning, a woolly dreamer if one were to be unkind, he looks past Scott's manifest follies and character failures and chooses to look at the good in the man he calls Con. (The devoted Taffy calls Scott 'the Owner'.)
The man himself gets his say in Chapter 3. His whiny blame-shifting and pompous finger-pointing takes up the next 40-odd pages and grates throughout. He really must have had some force of personality, a kind of inner magnetism to induce so many to follow in his suicidal footsteps. (BB sheds some charitable light on this aspect in the last chapter through the normally-jaundiced eyes of Captain Oates.) The catalogue of Scott's stubborn incompetence (dereliction even!), often in the teeth of opposition from those around him, makes for sad reading:
- using ponies instead of dogs to begin with, when Nansen and everyone else had urged otherwise, the ponies being not just dumb beasts but dumb useless beasts past their sell-by date bought by none other than Scott's own brother-in-law;
- sentimental attachment to and foolish concern for these same ponies long after their limited utility had been exposed to all, added to Scott's reactionary contempt for the dogs, even as Amundsen himself was riding dog teams all the way to the Pole and glory from the other side of Antarctica;
- Scott's persistent, arrogant self-justification - sure, there was bad luck and bad weather, but the bulk of it (as the master planner Amundsen proved) was down to Scott's worship of plucky amateurism and harsh Victorian discipline, all the while playing dice with the lives of his fellow men. When he sneers at Amundsen you can call it undigested jealousy, but pretty soon you realize that Scott sneers at anyone who doesn't kow-tow or see eye-to-eye with him. Such an invincible superiority complex mixed up with a penchant for serial bungling could only ever be a recipe for disaster in the unforgiving climes of Antarctica.
*
Chapter 4 is luminous stuff: Birdie Bowers' account of one of the most singular adventures ever undertaken by man, Bowers, Wilson and Cherry-Garrard's trek to Cape Crozier to collect Emperor penguin eggs, forever immortalized in C-G's epic work The Worst Journey in the World .
(This book too I have a personal relationship with. A sunny day in the late 1990s, I was wandering about Motijheel in Dhaka when I stepped into the office/showroom of the publishers UPL. Sitting behind the glass of a display case was a fat Penguin Travel book with a stark cover and a most curious title. The name of the author was, if anything, even more curious: Apsley Cherry-Garrard.
I had found it at last. Alongside Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, this was one of my two touchstones of those years, epics of adventure, heroism and the limits of human endurance.
The book cost 400 takas, if memory serves. I didn't have the dough with me then, so I came back the next day and bought it and started to read it that same night, snug in the warmth and comfort of my bed in dusty, tropical Nakhalpara. Ah, what times we had.)
Bowers' evocation of the polar landscape, of the stormy nights and the spangled skies makes this my favorite chapter of the book. When one imagines the very unlikelihood of it, three men plodding across the surface of Antarctica's immensity in utter darkness, their way lit only by a single candle, relentlessly battered by blizzards and temperatures unheard of - all to collect some bird eggs! - when one thinks of those tiny specks in that white eternity, I don't know about you but something lifts inside of me. That such men lived through such days and nights on this planet of ours...
And so, on to the inexorable disaster of the last chapter, like a train of doom rushing down the tunnel. Titus Oates describes how the four-man team for the final push became five, how they got to the South Pole only to find that the superbly professional Amundsen had got there before them, how the despondent slog back to safety turned instead into a death-march. Taffy Evans went first, and when Oates walked out into the stormy night, he was only the second to go, the deaths of Scott and the other two were still a fortnight away.
But that's where Bainbridge ends her story. Because really, all that needs to be said has already by then been said. An epic tale.
"I'm just going outside and may be sometime."
What happened to Captain Oates in the moments after he emerged from the tent into the whiteness of Antarctica for the last time forms the final painful paragraphs of Beryl Bainbridge's terrific novel.
*
When The Birthday Boys first came out in 1991, I remember it was greeted with a helluva lot of critical acclaim. A few years later, I managed to get my mittens on the book, but for some reason I failed to progress much beyond the first chapter.
At some level, however, I am glad of it now because back then my reading was, would have been rather callow and superficial. 15 years or so down the road, I have a much clearer understanding of certain matters that form the warp and weave of the book but that are not really explicitly spelled out. In particular, these would be:
- the English class system that irrevocably separated working-class men like Petty Officer Evans from their supposed 'superiors', and
- the hidebound set of Victorian values that these superiors often clung to, 'gentlemen' such as Dr Wilson, Birdie Bowers and Captain Scott himself.
*
This short novel then recounts the story of Scott's second and last polar journey, the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition between 1910 and 1912, the one that made the very words "Captain Scott" synonymous with tragedy, heroism and self-sacrifice. Except that it becomes pretty clear early on that Bainbridge hews closer to the Roland Huntford school of thought, and paints a fairly scathing portrait of the doomed 'hero', showing him up for the prissy, stubborn, thin-skinned incompetent that he really was. 'Revisionist historical fiction' one might call it, but it's impeccably researched and reads incredibly believable, uncannily true all the way through.
The book is also a model of organization and a miracle of empathy and imagination, a small yet perfectly-formed example of the novelist's art. Bainbridge proves herself a formidable ventriloquist, dividing up her narrative into five chapters, each chapter narrated by one of the men who eventually made it to the Pole and who died on the return journey, cold, hungry and desperately short of safety.
And so Chapter 1 is narrated by the Welshman Taffy Evans who kicks off the story in south Wales in the summer of 1910, describing the preparations preliminary to the voyage, the round of parties and civic receptions thrown in honour of the officers and the men, the intimate leave-takings and the hollering, hallooing farewell of the crowds. It's all very prelapsarian, all in the full flush of that hat-throwing Edwardian innocence - two years before the Titanic, two years before the disaster that befell Scott's party, and a full four years before the mass slaughter of the Great War got underway.
Still, Taffy Evans' no-nonsense narrative voice is a thing to marvel at - taciturn and pragmatic, the salt of the working class who lets his actions do the talking and has little time for sentiment. This extraordinary act of channeling sets up the rest of the book. Dr Wilson, Scott's friend and ally, takes over in Chapter 2, describing the sea voyage down to the southern latitudes. An idealistic man of learning, a woolly dreamer if one were to be unkind, he looks past Scott's manifest follies and character failures and chooses to look at the good in the man he calls Con. (The devoted Taffy calls Scott 'the Owner'.)
The man himself gets his say in Chapter 3. His whiny blame-shifting and pompous finger-pointing takes up the next 40-odd pages and grates throughout. He really must have had some force of personality, a kind of inner magnetism to induce so many to follow in his suicidal footsteps. (BB sheds some charitable light on this aspect in the last chapter through the normally-jaundiced eyes of Captain Oates.) The catalogue of Scott's stubborn incompetence (dereliction even!), often in the teeth of opposition from those around him, makes for sad reading:
- using ponies instead of dogs to begin with, when Nansen and everyone else had urged otherwise, the ponies being not just dumb beasts but dumb useless beasts past their sell-by date bought by none other than Scott's own brother-in-law;
- sentimental attachment to and foolish concern for these same ponies long after their limited utility had been exposed to all, added to Scott's reactionary contempt for the dogs, even as Amundsen himself was riding dog teams all the way to the Pole and glory from the other side of Antarctica;
- Scott's persistent, arrogant self-justification - sure, there was bad luck and bad weather, but the bulk of it (as the master planner Amundsen proved) was down to Scott's worship of plucky amateurism and harsh Victorian discipline, all the while playing dice with the lives of his fellow men. When he sneers at Amundsen you can call it undigested jealousy, but pretty soon you realize that Scott sneers at anyone who doesn't kow-tow or see eye-to-eye with him. Such an invincible superiority complex mixed up with a penchant for serial bungling could only ever be a recipe for disaster in the unforgiving climes of Antarctica.
*
Chapter 4 is luminous stuff: Birdie Bowers' account of one of the most singular adventures ever undertaken by man, Bowers, Wilson and Cherry-Garrard's trek to Cape Crozier to collect Emperor penguin eggs, forever immortalized in C-G's epic work The Worst Journey in the World .
(This book too I have a personal relationship with. A sunny day in the late 1990s, I was wandering about Motijheel in Dhaka when I stepped into the office/showroom of the publishers UPL. Sitting behind the glass of a display case was a fat Penguin Travel book with a stark cover and a most curious title. The name of the author was, if anything, even more curious: Apsley Cherry-Garrard.
I had found it at last. Alongside Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, this was one of my two touchstones of those years, epics of adventure, heroism and the limits of human endurance.
The book cost 400 takas, if memory serves. I didn't have the dough with me then, so I came back the next day and bought it and started to read it that same night, snug in the warmth and comfort of my bed in dusty, tropical Nakhalpara. Ah, what times we had.)
Bowers' evocation of the polar landscape, of the stormy nights and the spangled skies makes this my favorite chapter of the book. When one imagines the very unlikelihood of it, three men plodding across the surface of Antarctica's immensity in utter darkness, their way lit only by a single candle, relentlessly battered by blizzards and temperatures unheard of - all to collect some bird eggs! - when one thinks of those tiny specks in that white eternity, I don't know about you but something lifts inside of me. That such men lived through such days and nights on this planet of ours...
And so, on to the inexorable disaster of the last chapter, like a train of doom rushing down the tunnel. Titus Oates describes how the four-man team for the final push became five, how they got to the South Pole only to find that the superbly professional Amundsen had got there before them, how the despondent slog back to safety turned instead into a death-march. Taffy Evans went first, and when Oates walked out into the stormy night, he was only the second to go, the deaths of Scott and the other two were still a fortnight away.
But that's where Bainbridge ends her story. Because really, all that needs to be said has already by then been said. An epic tale.
December 8, 2025
An imaginative, brilliantly realized evocation of the thoughts and voices of Captain Scott and the four men with him, who suffered extraordinary hardships before finally dying during their 1912 attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole.
This was a fictional account of the Antarctic expedition that actually occurred 1910-1913, led by Captain Scott in a race to be the first to the South Pole. Scott and four companions made it to the South Pole, only to realize they were not the first; they were one day short of that fame. Tragically, they all died on their return journey.
Each chapter is written from the point of view of the men who died on that last push to the South Pole. While these men come from varied stations in life, their underlying themes are very similar. Taff Evans, Dr. Wilson, Captain Scott, Lt. Bowers and Captain Oates each describe a different stage in the journey as part of the Terra Nova expedition in 1910-1913 and the often, horrific conditions that the entire team endured. The men come across as optimistic, confident, and courageous, and finally to the point of, misguided.
They were amateurs playing a dangerous game of life and death, where missteps could lead to life changing, and tragic consequences.... which it did.
This was an arrogant expedition composed of men, who despite their professional expertise, they believed in the romantic notion that heroes are those who overcome anything through sheer force of will. Throughout their story lies a tale of a man who for years was seen as a "tragic hero". Here he was portrayed more as a reckless adventurer in pursuit of the glory no matter what the costs.
When disasters continued to occur one after another, rather than turn around and try to return later, he shifted the blame onto the others and continued in his dangerously rash pursuit of his goal. He didn't think, and brushed off the dangers he knew could occur, knowing these men who were accustomed to following the given command, would follow him to their deaths, and they everyone, did. This wasn't his first expedition in these dangerous deadly conditions. The author of this book is fairly scathing in his view of Scott, even if you have hold on to the view of Scott as a tragic hero who died in a moment of self-sacrifice you have to realize that it wasn't just his sacrifice...it was the sacrifice of the men that he led to their deaths with very little thought given to the act.
By the end of this well researched and thought-out book, previous beliefs, as well as history, may be reweighted, rethought and reassigned and rewritten. The final chapter in Captain Oates’s words was by far the most poignant and so well worth a read.
Again, a warning: This book will appeal to readers who enjoy history as well as historical fiction, and novels with extremely dark subject matter. Keep in mind that there is NOT in any way, a happy ending and the struggles of all who were involved is not for the faint of heart.
This was a fictional account of the Antarctic expedition that actually occurred 1910-1913, led by Captain Scott in a race to be the first to the South Pole. Scott and four companions made it to the South Pole, only to realize they were not the first; they were one day short of that fame. Tragically, they all died on their return journey.
Each chapter is written from the point of view of the men who died on that last push to the South Pole. While these men come from varied stations in life, their underlying themes are very similar. Taff Evans, Dr. Wilson, Captain Scott, Lt. Bowers and Captain Oates each describe a different stage in the journey as part of the Terra Nova expedition in 1910-1913 and the often, horrific conditions that the entire team endured. The men come across as optimistic, confident, and courageous, and finally to the point of, misguided.
They were amateurs playing a dangerous game of life and death, where missteps could lead to life changing, and tragic consequences.... which it did.
This was an arrogant expedition composed of men, who despite their professional expertise, they believed in the romantic notion that heroes are those who overcome anything through sheer force of will. Throughout their story lies a tale of a man who for years was seen as a "tragic hero". Here he was portrayed more as a reckless adventurer in pursuit of the glory no matter what the costs.
When disasters continued to occur one after another, rather than turn around and try to return later, he shifted the blame onto the others and continued in his dangerously rash pursuit of his goal. He didn't think, and brushed off the dangers he knew could occur, knowing these men who were accustomed to following the given command, would follow him to their deaths, and they everyone, did. This wasn't his first expedition in these dangerous deadly conditions. The author of this book is fairly scathing in his view of Scott, even if you have hold on to the view of Scott as a tragic hero who died in a moment of self-sacrifice you have to realize that it wasn't just his sacrifice...it was the sacrifice of the men that he led to their deaths with very little thought given to the act.
By the end of this well researched and thought-out book, previous beliefs, as well as history, may be reweighted, rethought and reassigned and rewritten. The final chapter in Captain Oates’s words was by far the most poignant and so well worth a read.
Again, a warning: This book will appeal to readers who enjoy history as well as historical fiction, and novels with extremely dark subject matter. Keep in mind that there is NOT in any way, a happy ending and the struggles of all who were involved is not for the faint of heart.
December 17, 2020
The MPV approach works very well with this novel, as it allows Bainbridge to illustrate how we are able to view the same people, and the same circumstances, in an entirely different light than others. Our lenses, the context in which we perceive our experiences, provides each of us a wholly unique perspective.
Bainbridge's novel presumes the readers familiarity with Scott's journey to reach the Pole. It is a slim novel, which is surprising given the grand nature of the events. Cherry's memoirs about his experiences as a member of the team, 'The Worst Journey in the World', is several hundred pages longer. But Bainbridge isn't interested in covering the exact details of Scott's journey, she is more interested in how individual team members might have perceived those events. Accompanied with her impressive prose, this makes for a great read.
My only complaint pertains to her decision to end the novel prematurely. It is no spoiler to say that Scott and several members of his team meet with demise, yet Bainbridge decides to end her novel before Scott meets his end. It is an opportunity missed. Imagine a closing chapter from the perspective of a surviving team member, one who might wistfully look back at the friends they lost, the mistakes that were made, and maybe the appreciation of a man's willpower. It would have been a powerful ending.
Nonetheless, I found this to be excellent. There's some wonderful character building, even with the limited page count, and plenty of the dry humor that one might expect from the Brits. I highlighted several passages detailing the landscape, sunsets, sunrises and the Aurora night sky. Bainbridge can set a scene but never flaunts her talents with long winded descriptions. I believe Mustich included this in his 1,001 books to read before you die, and I can see why he did so. High four stars.
Bainbridge's novel presumes the readers familiarity with Scott's journey to reach the Pole. It is a slim novel, which is surprising given the grand nature of the events. Cherry's memoirs about his experiences as a member of the team, 'The Worst Journey in the World', is several hundred pages longer. But Bainbridge isn't interested in covering the exact details of Scott's journey, she is more interested in how individual team members might have perceived those events. Accompanied with her impressive prose, this makes for a great read.
My only complaint pertains to her decision to end the novel prematurely. It is no spoiler to say that Scott and several members of his team meet with demise, yet Bainbridge decides to end her novel before Scott meets his end. It is an opportunity missed. Imagine a closing chapter from the perspective of a surviving team member, one who might wistfully look back at the friends they lost, the mistakes that were made, and maybe the appreciation of a man's willpower. It would have been a powerful ending.
Nonetheless, I found this to be excellent. There's some wonderful character building, even with the limited page count, and plenty of the dry humor that one might expect from the Brits. I highlighted several passages detailing the landscape, sunsets, sunrises and the Aurora night sky. Bainbridge can set a scene but never flaunts her talents with long winded descriptions. I believe Mustich included this in his 1,001 books to read before you die, and I can see why he did so. High four stars.
March 24, 2019
There are many fine reviews of this book already in the Goodreads database. I can add very little except to emphasize that a basic understanding of the events surrounding the Terra Nova Expedition led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott in 1910 was essential to my appreciation of this short novel.
The author does not provide any sense of the chronology of the expedition. The novel consists of five “chapters”, each written in the voice of one of the five men who died on the return trip from the South Pole to the base camp at Cape Evans. The chapters are dated June 1910, July 1910, March 1911, July 1911, and March 1912. Obviously, there are huge gaps in the story.
The effect for me was of having parachuted into the chronology and, after two chapters, I was scratching my head in confusion. My choice was to abandon the book or risk spoiling the ending by doing basic historical research. I chose the latter and then began again at the beginning of the book.
I am happy with that decision. The novel really is a fascinating character study of the five men and a scathing commentary on Scott’s “military” style of leadership, as well as a heart-rending and horrific account of pure bad luck, multiplied many times over. The contrast between the patriotic send-off of the ship in June 1910 and the ultimate defeat is beyond tragic. This is one of the most memorable stories that I have ever read.
The author does not provide any sense of the chronology of the expedition. The novel consists of five “chapters”, each written in the voice of one of the five men who died on the return trip from the South Pole to the base camp at Cape Evans. The chapters are dated June 1910, July 1910, March 1911, July 1911, and March 1912. Obviously, there are huge gaps in the story.
The effect for me was of having parachuted into the chronology and, after two chapters, I was scratching my head in confusion. My choice was to abandon the book or risk spoiling the ending by doing basic historical research. I chose the latter and then began again at the beginning of the book.
I am happy with that decision. The novel really is a fascinating character study of the five men and a scathing commentary on Scott’s “military” style of leadership, as well as a heart-rending and horrific account of pure bad luck, multiplied many times over. The contrast between the patriotic send-off of the ship in June 1910 and the ultimate defeat is beyond tragic. This is one of the most memorable stories that I have ever read.
September 26, 2017
Gets inside the heads of the fated explorers of Scott's doomed polar expedition.
June 4, 2016
If not for the GRI continental challenge I would never have come across this book. That would have been a shame because for such a short book it gives a fascinating overview of the Terra Nova Expedition 1910-1913 from the point of view of Taff Evans, Dr Wilson, Captain Scott, Lt. Bowers and Captain Oates. Each chapter charts a different stage of the journey to the South and the awful conditions the team endured. I am in awe of anyone who would undertake such a journey knowing all the risks and brutal conditions involved. While this is a fictional account, it is clear the Bainbridge has done her research and the five men come alive on the page and tug at your heart. Delighted I came across this book and would recommend it as a good starting point for finding out about the polar expedition.
November 12, 2016
A fine historical novel of the “failed” voyage to the south pole, Bainbridge as a woman is adept at capturing male camaraderie (there’s yet another frenchified word!) and tension during the team’s journey. Cleverly, each of the five victims who made the final assault tells a segment of the chronology. This makes for a variety of viewpoints as the reader is treated to the inner dialogue of each after hearing that of the other – a perspective-shifting device. This story is about teamwork in the harshest of conditions (almost incomprehensible, if anything the author does not include enough of the physical deprivations and use of senses) and will resonate with anyone familiar with sport or adventure teams. For example, the leader Scott is forever assayed for his decisions and, according to the author, quite wracked with self doubt, perhaps fatally. Being a person who dislikes being cold, the accounts of severe conditions in 1910-11 were rather terrible, and I learned of fresh horrors such as losing all ones teeth (spitting out like ice chinks) once the nerves in the jaw are damaged by severe low temperatures. Apparently the travel to collect Emperor Penguin eggs was the first attempt to travel (20 miles in 60 days!) in the dead (nearly literally) of winter. Ultimately this story ends tragically – spoiler alert if you’ve not followed the last century – and tragically this team was defeated by a Norwegian team by a few days. But this is a very brisk read, well told, and entertaining as an adventure tale to nearly everyone.
About the title: I can’t know if this was a diversion by the author or rooted in fact, but apparently these bold adventurers were very put off if their birthdays were not celebrated and got into petty scraps if this wasn’t recognized by the captain. Perhaps it is one of those little things that men hold onto when all the rest of their world is foreign, threatening and upside down. A nice touch, I thought. Slang and turns of phrase were very delightful in this book, derived from British, Scotch and Welsh, yet not entirely lost as some of these relics can be found today in American English.
This book is kind of hard to find, from a British publisher. And I want to thank my goodreads friends for turning me on to this, something I would never have found or read. Apparently Donald Ray Pollock is a fan. Perhaps this little seed of inspiration will spark a movement and this book from 1991 will become re-discovered and spark a whole movement or movie series!
About the title: I can’t know if this was a diversion by the author or rooted in fact, but apparently these bold adventurers were very put off if their birthdays were not celebrated and got into petty scraps if this wasn’t recognized by the captain. Perhaps it is one of those little things that men hold onto when all the rest of their world is foreign, threatening and upside down. A nice touch, I thought. Slang and turns of phrase were very delightful in this book, derived from British, Scotch and Welsh, yet not entirely lost as some of these relics can be found today in American English.
This book is kind of hard to find, from a British publisher. And I want to thank my goodreads friends for turning me on to this, something I would never have found or read. Apparently Donald Ray Pollock is a fan. Perhaps this little seed of inspiration will spark a movement and this book from 1991 will become re-discovered and spark a whole movement or movie series!
October 4, 2016
1 OCT 2016 - earlier this week I received an email from Netgalley inviting me to a free download of The Birthday Boys. The summary sounded appealing and last evening I downloaded the book. How can I say No? A free book in exchange for a review - that is a no-brainer.
I had full intentions to begin reading last evening; but, Showtime was showing The Hound of the Baskervilles. So, even though I have viewed this film many times, I got suckered in. I should have read instead. With my Cinderella chores completed, I will begin reading today.
Many Thanks to Netgalley for this opportunity. Netgalley always sends just the right book recommendation at just the right time.
3 OCT 2016 - with a sick-day today, I finished my reading of The Birthday Boys. Please give me a day or two and I will post a proper review. Thanks!
4 OCT 2016 - review submitted as submitted to NetGalley
A fabulous read! Ms. Bainbridge captured the thoughts of the men of the Terra Nova Expedition on point. Each of the five narrators relays his story in his own words and these stories and words ring true. I felt as though I were a part of this ill-fated Expedition. Please do yourself a favor and read this well-written book. Together, you and I will share our reading experience and ensure that the men of the Terra Nova Expedition are not forgotten. Thank you, NetGalley, for this wonderful opportunity. Thank you.
Quote from The Birthday Boys as voiced by "Birdie" --
'It seems to me,' Birdie said, 'that we have to make a choice between the spiritual and the material world, and if we can't become saints, then we must find a sort of balance which will allow us to be at peace with ourselves. All I know is, nothing matters a damn except that we should help one another." Well said, Birdie. (He was my favorite character.)
I had full intentions to begin reading last evening; but, Showtime was showing The Hound of the Baskervilles. So, even though I have viewed this film many times, I got suckered in. I should have read instead. With my Cinderella chores completed, I will begin reading today.
Many Thanks to Netgalley for this opportunity. Netgalley always sends just the right book recommendation at just the right time.
3 OCT 2016 - with a sick-day today, I finished my reading of The Birthday Boys. Please give me a day or two and I will post a proper review. Thanks!
4 OCT 2016 - review submitted as submitted to NetGalley
A fabulous read! Ms. Bainbridge captured the thoughts of the men of the Terra Nova Expedition on point. Each of the five narrators relays his story in his own words and these stories and words ring true. I felt as though I were a part of this ill-fated Expedition. Please do yourself a favor and read this well-written book. Together, you and I will share our reading experience and ensure that the men of the Terra Nova Expedition are not forgotten. Thank you, NetGalley, for this wonderful opportunity. Thank you.
Quote from The Birthday Boys as voiced by "Birdie" --
'It seems to me,' Birdie said, 'that we have to make a choice between the spiritual and the material world, and if we can't become saints, then we must find a sort of balance which will allow us to be at peace with ourselves. All I know is, nothing matters a damn except that we should help one another." Well said, Birdie. (He was my favorite character.)
April 25, 2023
Bainbridge takes a well-known historical event (the expedition to reach the South Pole led by Robert Falcon Scott) and uses the background material to explore the inner landscape of several of the participants.
No spoiler to disclose that Roald Amundsen was actually the first to reach the South Pole, and that Scott's doomed South Pole party perished on the return trip.
The resulting tale is intriguing and intimate.
No spoiler to disclose that Roald Amundsen was actually the first to reach the South Pole, and that Scott's doomed South Pole party perished on the return trip.
The resulting tale is intriguing and intimate.
May 11, 2011
This is an oddly perfect book about Scott's trip to the South Pole.
There are five sections, each one written in the voice of one the men making the final journey.
The perspective keeps shifting, and it's left to the reader to try and work out the 'true' nature of the expedition. Was it an act of folly? A piece of heroism? Or both?
I love Beryl Bainbridge's work because she dispenses with so many conventions. The only 'plot' is the story of the journey itself. And like the journey there are unexpected turns, digressions.
But not a word is wasted.....
There are five sections, each one written in the voice of one the men making the final journey.
The perspective keeps shifting, and it's left to the reader to try and work out the 'true' nature of the expedition. Was it an act of folly? A piece of heroism? Or both?
I love Beryl Bainbridge's work because she dispenses with so many conventions. The only 'plot' is the story of the journey itself. And like the journey there are unexpected turns, digressions.
But not a word is wasted.....
September 25, 2016
I was about twelve when I picked up The Great White South from Dad's bookshelf and started reading. It was written by the Scott Antarctic expedition photographer Herbert Ponting.
In 1910, Captain Robert Falcon Scott sailed from Cardiff. His scientific expedition hoped to be the first to reach the South Pole. Everything went wrong, "the first great catastrophe on the record of Antarctic exploration," wrote the editor of Everybody's Magazine, which shared Ponting's photos and Scott's diary excerpts six months after Scott and his men were found dead.
During my junior high years, Capt. Robert Falcon Scott was my ideal tragic hero. I read The Great White South several times until the aged cover and pages began to separate. I was the only one of my friends who had even heard of the failed Scott expedition to the South Pole, just fifty years past.
I last read about Scott in The Worst Journey in the World by expedition member Aspeley Cherry-Garrard and I May Be Some Time by Frances Spurfford, but that was about 10 years ago.
When I saw The Birthday Boys cover with its ship and masts on NetGalley, I clicked on it to see what it was (as I love sea stories) and as soon as I saw it was about Scott I put in my request to read.
The story is told through first person narratives of the five men who died trying to reach the Pole: Petty Officer Taft Evans, Dr. Edward Wilson, Capt. Robert F. Scott, Lt. Henry 'Birdie' Bowers, and Capt. Lawrence Oates. Bainbridge has created unique personalities for each narrator, vivid and full. From fundraising to setting sail to arrival at Antarctica to the last words spoken by Oates, the various impressions each had and the experiences of the men are revealed.
The challenges the men faced were overwhelming. A mistake, an accident, is fatal in the Antarctic. Scott's choice of machines and horses was a failure. The scientific research was curtailed by weather and the specimens lost. The men kept a stiff upper lip in their devotion to the old English standard of duty.
But the men also saw the coming end of the values of the old world. Dr. Wilson muses,"All the things we were taught to believe in, love of country, of Empire, of devotion to duty, are being held up to ridicule." Birdie responds that men are caught between the spiritual and material world, and "if we can't become saints then we must find a sort of balance which will allow us to be at peace with ourselves. All I know is, nothing matters a damn except that we should help one another."
The Antarctic demands the men help one another to survive. Although 'providence' seems to have saved the day several times, it is the men's devotion to the common good, "the missing link between God and man"--brotherly love--that keeps them going.
Each narrator's birthday is celebrated during their story. Oates story comes last, dated March 1912. Frostbite has turned to gangrene, and he knows his days are numbered, but he's kept it to himself. Oates has no love for Scott and credits his mistakes for causing misery. Life has become hellish and he recalls better times on the Terra Nova, when he shared his Boer War experience and injury, his homecoming, and his adventures across the world. He was certain Scott won't include him on the last leg of the journey to the Pole, and is surprised to be chosen.
Amundson, a Norwegian, had beaten them, his flag already planted when Scott and his men arrive. Then Taff showed his gangrenous hand. Wilson was snow-blind. Evans was 'soft in the brain' and under morphia. Birdie still worked hard to keep things going. But now, Oates has come to appreciate Scott and his strength of empathy.
On his birthday, Oates foot was far gone. He'd had a fretful night's sleep on morphia. That morning he tried to slip out of the tent, but was caught by Birdie. Oates told him, "I'm just going outside, and may be some time." And he walked into the blizzard.
I still get chocked up and teary.
Eight months after Scott, Wilson, and Bowers died in a cabin after burying Evans, and after Oates wandered into the cold and snow, their men found them. And in February 1913 the Terra Nova returned to New Zealand bearing the news of the brave comrade's deaths. Scott's diary and photos were turned over to his widow. Soon after, Everybody's Magazine received the documents, and supervised by Mr. Leonard Huxley, was preparing the story that was published in July 1913.
The Birthday Boys is a short novel, but if you don't know about the Scott expedition everything you need to know is contained in the story. It is a compelling and emotional journey. I highly recommend it.
I received a free e-book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.co...
for photos see my blog
In 1910, Captain Robert Falcon Scott sailed from Cardiff. His scientific expedition hoped to be the first to reach the South Pole. Everything went wrong, "the first great catastrophe on the record of Antarctic exploration," wrote the editor of Everybody's Magazine, which shared Ponting's photos and Scott's diary excerpts six months after Scott and his men were found dead.
During my junior high years, Capt. Robert Falcon Scott was my ideal tragic hero. I read The Great White South several times until the aged cover and pages began to separate. I was the only one of my friends who had even heard of the failed Scott expedition to the South Pole, just fifty years past.
I last read about Scott in The Worst Journey in the World by expedition member Aspeley Cherry-Garrard and I May Be Some Time by Frances Spurfford, but that was about 10 years ago.
When I saw The Birthday Boys cover with its ship and masts on NetGalley, I clicked on it to see what it was (as I love sea stories) and as soon as I saw it was about Scott I put in my request to read.
The story is told through first person narratives of the five men who died trying to reach the Pole: Petty Officer Taft Evans, Dr. Edward Wilson, Capt. Robert F. Scott, Lt. Henry 'Birdie' Bowers, and Capt. Lawrence Oates. Bainbridge has created unique personalities for each narrator, vivid and full. From fundraising to setting sail to arrival at Antarctica to the last words spoken by Oates, the various impressions each had and the experiences of the men are revealed.
The challenges the men faced were overwhelming. A mistake, an accident, is fatal in the Antarctic. Scott's choice of machines and horses was a failure. The scientific research was curtailed by weather and the specimens lost. The men kept a stiff upper lip in their devotion to the old English standard of duty.
But the men also saw the coming end of the values of the old world. Dr. Wilson muses,"All the things we were taught to believe in, love of country, of Empire, of devotion to duty, are being held up to ridicule." Birdie responds that men are caught between the spiritual and material world, and "if we can't become saints then we must find a sort of balance which will allow us to be at peace with ourselves. All I know is, nothing matters a damn except that we should help one another."
The Antarctic demands the men help one another to survive. Although 'providence' seems to have saved the day several times, it is the men's devotion to the common good, "the missing link between God and man"--brotherly love--that keeps them going.
Each narrator's birthday is celebrated during their story. Oates story comes last, dated March 1912. Frostbite has turned to gangrene, and he knows his days are numbered, but he's kept it to himself. Oates has no love for Scott and credits his mistakes for causing misery. Life has become hellish and he recalls better times on the Terra Nova, when he shared his Boer War experience and injury, his homecoming, and his adventures across the world. He was certain Scott won't include him on the last leg of the journey to the Pole, and is surprised to be chosen.
Amundson, a Norwegian, had beaten them, his flag already planted when Scott and his men arrive. Then Taff showed his gangrenous hand. Wilson was snow-blind. Evans was 'soft in the brain' and under morphia. Birdie still worked hard to keep things going. But now, Oates has come to appreciate Scott and his strength of empathy.
On his birthday, Oates foot was far gone. He'd had a fretful night's sleep on morphia. That morning he tried to slip out of the tent, but was caught by Birdie. Oates told him, "I'm just going outside, and may be some time." And he walked into the blizzard.
I still get chocked up and teary.
Eight months after Scott, Wilson, and Bowers died in a cabin after burying Evans, and after Oates wandered into the cold and snow, their men found them. And in February 1913 the Terra Nova returned to New Zealand bearing the news of the brave comrade's deaths. Scott's diary and photos were turned over to his widow. Soon after, Everybody's Magazine received the documents, and supervised by Mr. Leonard Huxley, was preparing the story that was published in July 1913.
The Birthday Boys is a short novel, but if you don't know about the Scott expedition everything you need to know is contained in the story. It is a compelling and emotional journey. I highly recommend it.
I received a free e-book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.co...
for photos see my blog
April 3, 2015
Mesmerizing. Everyone knows this story, but this narrative, taken from the perspectives of different members of the expedition, is beautifully written and a vivid insight into a world that is lost forever. I wonder whether Scott was even aware of the mistakes that were made? A noble adventure?
January 5, 2017
I'm not really sure how I feel about this book. It took me awhile to get into it. I started liking it when Birdie was the one talking, so more then half way in is when I got into it. I had so high hopes for it and it didn't become to story I was hoping for.
October 12, 2016
Many books have been written about Robert Falcon Scott’s fatal expedition to the South Pole, but none I’ve read is more gripping than Beryl Bainbridge’s novel, The Birthday Boys. From the outset, we know the conclusion: the five men on the final run will reach the Pole, will find that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen has beat them to it, and will die returning to camp. But Bainbridge brings the men so fully to life, we feel we’re with them in their present, unaware of what lies ahead.
The novel is ingeniously constructed. Bainbridge gives each man his own narrative, a monologue that reads like a journal entry. Spaced out over time, from the Terra Nova’s celebratory departure from Cardiff in June 1910 to the journey’s last days in March 1912, these narratives move the story forward, while each man’s reflections—on his life, the expedition, his companions—are fleshed out or contradicted by the others. By the end, we have a multidimensional view of all five and of the expedition itself.
If the men share a single fate in this five-part tragedy, each has a distinctive personality and voice:
“Taff” Evans, the big, rough, hard-drinking Welshman, who is utterly devoted to Scott and—unaccountably to the others—is regarded by Scott with great affection. Dr. Wilson, “Uncle Bill,” the expedition’s scientist, a deeply religious, spiritual man, who is always doing for others, is also totally devoted to Scott, and early on has a weird vision that he views as a “harbinger of death.” “Birdie” Bowers, modest, religious, an indefatigable worker, who is so homely he’s never had the girlfriend he dreams of finding when he gets home. And “Titus” Oates, a laconic, enigmatic former soldier, the member of the group most critical of Scott, who concludes the book with his famous line, uttered as he leaves to die alone on the ice, “I’m just going outside and may be some time.”
And of course there is Scott himself, “Con,” the leader who has planned this expedition, a man of action and a dreamer, a competitive, sentimental, romantic figure so charismatic that others are willing to die for him, and such a firm believer in old-fashioned honor and courage that he makes fatal mistakes.
Like all of Bainbridge’s novels, The Birthday Boys is concise: not a sentence, not a word is wasted. But for all its brevity, the book has a grand sweep. While providing her own interpretation of this expedition, which has been so analyzed for a century, she sets it in the broad history of exploration. Scott’s principled ideas of what makes for an honorable expedition, ideas largely shared by his men, were already becoming outdated, along with notions about Empire, love of country, class.
As Wilson remarks, “It often strikes me that Con and myself, Birdie and Oates, even Peter Pan Evans with his penchant for swinging one round by the seat of the trousers, are the misfits, victims of a changing world.” And as we see, it is Amundsen, the pragmatic explorer for whom the journey to the Pole is a race rather than a noble endeavor, who is the winner.
First published in 1991, The Birthday Boys has just been reissued in a digital edition by Open Road Media, and I hope this terrific book will reach a large new audience.
The novel is ingeniously constructed. Bainbridge gives each man his own narrative, a monologue that reads like a journal entry. Spaced out over time, from the Terra Nova’s celebratory departure from Cardiff in June 1910 to the journey’s last days in March 1912, these narratives move the story forward, while each man’s reflections—on his life, the expedition, his companions—are fleshed out or contradicted by the others. By the end, we have a multidimensional view of all five and of the expedition itself.
If the men share a single fate in this five-part tragedy, each has a distinctive personality and voice:
“Taff” Evans, the big, rough, hard-drinking Welshman, who is utterly devoted to Scott and—unaccountably to the others—is regarded by Scott with great affection. Dr. Wilson, “Uncle Bill,” the expedition’s scientist, a deeply religious, spiritual man, who is always doing for others, is also totally devoted to Scott, and early on has a weird vision that he views as a “harbinger of death.” “Birdie” Bowers, modest, religious, an indefatigable worker, who is so homely he’s never had the girlfriend he dreams of finding when he gets home. And “Titus” Oates, a laconic, enigmatic former soldier, the member of the group most critical of Scott, who concludes the book with his famous line, uttered as he leaves to die alone on the ice, “I’m just going outside and may be some time.”
And of course there is Scott himself, “Con,” the leader who has planned this expedition, a man of action and a dreamer, a competitive, sentimental, romantic figure so charismatic that others are willing to die for him, and such a firm believer in old-fashioned honor and courage that he makes fatal mistakes.
Like all of Bainbridge’s novels, The Birthday Boys is concise: not a sentence, not a word is wasted. But for all its brevity, the book has a grand sweep. While providing her own interpretation of this expedition, which has been so analyzed for a century, she sets it in the broad history of exploration. Scott’s principled ideas of what makes for an honorable expedition, ideas largely shared by his men, were already becoming outdated, along with notions about Empire, love of country, class.
As Wilson remarks, “It often strikes me that Con and myself, Birdie and Oates, even Peter Pan Evans with his penchant for swinging one round by the seat of the trousers, are the misfits, victims of a changing world.” And as we see, it is Amundsen, the pragmatic explorer for whom the journey to the Pole is a race rather than a noble endeavor, who is the winner.
First published in 1991, The Birthday Boys has just been reissued in a digital edition by Open Road Media, and I hope this terrific book will reach a large new audience.
April 20, 2019
I discovered Beryl Bainbridge because she was one of the authors in this year's Mookse Madness. I had not heard of her, even though she had, I think, five novels on various Man Booker long/short lists. The Birthday Boys was not one of those, but it certainly could have been. It was first published in 1991 and concerns the ill-fated second attempt of Captain Robert Conrad Scott to reach the South Pole in 1910-1913. While Captain Scott did make it, he was not the first and he and his companions did not make it back alive. I'm not giving anything away, because that is what happened. Bainbridge, relying on the journals and letters of the men discovered with their bodies, tells the story of the undertaking. The book has five chapters, one narrated by each of the five men who went on the final push to the Pole. The men were Petty Officer Taft, Captain Scott, Captain Oates, Lieutenant Bowers (called "Birdie"), and Dr. Edmund Wilson (called "Uncle Bill").
Bainbridge tells the story from the very beginning - the attempt to make the ship ready, dinners to raise money, the men leaving their wives - events during the voyage and once reaching Antarctica, and the final push to the pole. It was a horrid journey but the men wanted to go. Four of the five on the final push had been on the Scott's failed first attempt, when only one man was lost. The weather was worse on this trip. The ship leaked, the ponies died, the motorized vehicles failed to work. Fingers, toes, hands, and feet froze. It was cold - very cold. And this was 1912, so they had none of Patagonia's slick, and light weight, base layers, mid layers, or coats to keep the cold out. They did not have thermal boots.
Even knowing the end in advance does not make the journey this book relates any less harrowing.
Bainbridge tells the story from the very beginning - the attempt to make the ship ready, dinners to raise money, the men leaving their wives - events during the voyage and once reaching Antarctica, and the final push to the pole. It was a horrid journey but the men wanted to go. Four of the five on the final push had been on the Scott's failed first attempt, when only one man was lost. The weather was worse on this trip. The ship leaked, the ponies died, the motorized vehicles failed to work. Fingers, toes, hands, and feet froze. It was cold - very cold. And this was 1912, so they had none of Patagonia's slick, and light weight, base layers, mid layers, or coats to keep the cold out. They did not have thermal boots.
Even knowing the end in advance does not make the journey this book relates any less harrowing.
July 27, 2017
Most people first read this book and after that get interested in the actual expedition and start reading the diaries. Well, for me it was the other way around and I read it after already knowing much about the Terra Nova expedition.
What was so appealing to me about this book was the point of view from every member of the polar party!
Petty Officer Evans tells us about the departure of the ship, his drinking problem, the special relationship he and "the Owner" share, meanwhile Dr. Wilson thinks of other things, more spiritual things and Scott himself, about his worries, about the ponies and the dogs. Birdie Bowers gives a compelling account of the Winter Journey he "Cherry" and "Bill" made. And last but not least Captain Titus Oates tells us about the life he led before the exedition.
The writing style is perfect! Because the author changed it throughout the book. Petty Officer Evans´ account is written in "lower english" (can I say that?) than for example the Doctors one. So we really get a feeling as IF that were actually their diary entires.
The title may be confusing and yes I also thought it was weird, but it all makes sense at the end, so just read this and you´ll find out!
A great book and I can recommend it to everyone, even to people who heavent heard about the expedition before!
What was so appealing to me about this book was the point of view from every member of the polar party!
Petty Officer Evans tells us about the departure of the ship, his drinking problem, the special relationship he and "the Owner" share, meanwhile Dr. Wilson thinks of other things, more spiritual things and Scott himself, about his worries, about the ponies and the dogs. Birdie Bowers gives a compelling account of the Winter Journey he "Cherry" and "Bill" made. And last but not least Captain Titus Oates tells us about the life he led before the exedition.
The writing style is perfect! Because the author changed it throughout the book. Petty Officer Evans´ account is written in "lower english" (can I say that?) than for example the Doctors one. So we really get a feeling as IF that were actually their diary entires.
The title may be confusing and yes I also thought it was weird, but it all makes sense at the end, so just read this and you´ll find out!
A great book and I can recommend it to everyone, even to people who heavent heard about the expedition before!
February 16, 2019
I have always been strangely fascinated by the men who chose to set off on such perilous and uncertain expeditions, in times when they could only rely on themselves. To set off for years, journeying into such inhospitable environments with no guarantee of return, what drives people to do that? I am similarly fascinated by the men who tried and then succeeded to conquer Everest.
In five chronological first-person narratives, Bainbridge tells the story of Captain Scott and the four other men who set out to conquer the South Pole with the Terra Nova expedition. Bainbridge gives each of the doomed men a voice, Edgar (Taff) Evans, Dr Edward Wilson, Capt. Scott himself, Henry Robertson Bowers and Capt. Titus Oates, relate their experiences, thoughts and feelings. Through good and bad, arguments, relationship breakdowns, thoughts of home and frostbite.
Book review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...
In five chronological first-person narratives, Bainbridge tells the story of Captain Scott and the four other men who set out to conquer the South Pole with the Terra Nova expedition. Bainbridge gives each of the doomed men a voice, Edgar (Taff) Evans, Dr Edward Wilson, Capt. Scott himself, Henry Robertson Bowers and Capt. Titus Oates, relate their experiences, thoughts and feelings. Through good and bad, arguments, relationship breakdowns, thoughts of home and frostbite.
Book review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...
December 7, 2016
The Birthday Boys is an interesting piece of historical fiction based on Robert Scott's fatal exploration of Antarctica and his scientific race to the pole with a brave group of men. Told by five of the men on the expedition, you got a real sense of each persons personality, past and opinions of their teammates.
I didn't know when I signed up to read this with a small group that this novel would hold so much fact between its' pages of fiction. This is a worthy read for anyone that enjoys historical fiction and especially stories about exploration. Be sure to check out all of the info and pictures online about Scott's race to the pole as it will enhance the reading of this novel.
I didn't know when I signed up to read this with a small group that this novel would hold so much fact between its' pages of fiction. This is a worthy read for anyone that enjoys historical fiction and especially stories about exploration. Be sure to check out all of the info and pictures online about Scott's race to the pole as it will enhance the reading of this novel.
November 11, 2013
A fictionalized account of the doomed, foolhardy 1910-13 Antarctic expedition led by Captain Robert Falconer Scott. The story is related by five different members of the “Terra Nova” Expedition--Scott himself and four of the men personally selected by Scott for the doomed “Polar Party.” Each of the five explorers is granted his own section of this slender book, and all of the “Birthday Boys” are, to varying degrees, classic unreliable narrators.
Petty Officer Edgar (“Taff”) Evans, the giant Welshman and polar veteran, is a Scott sycophant whose head has been turned by his status as a favorite. Vulgar and heartily confident, Evans has no idea that his physical size and strength are actually his fatal weaknesses. Dr. Edward (“Uncle Bill”) Wilson--Like Evans, he’s on his second polar expedition with Scott; oddly morbid and more naturalist than medical doctor, his primary mission is to sooth Scott and temper the effects of his bad leadership on his men. Captain Scott, a.k.a. “the Owner”-- His casual note, “it was something I hadn’t taken into account” (p83) is repeated until it becomes a herald of looming disaster; his manic-depressive temperament, middle-class prejudices and absurdly romantic notions are glaring in his narrative. Lt. Henry (“Birdie”) Bowers--An indispensable little dynamo, he seems too tough for even Scott to kill off, but he’s plagued by a sense of inferiority. And, finally, Capt. Lawrence (“Titus”) Oates--A courageous gentleman cavalry officer who bought his way onto the expedition, he most chafes at Scott’s incompetence but never breaks military discipline, even when it proves suicidal.
The explorers’ absurd notions of Empire, sportsmanship and manly behavior are reflected in the weird little birthday rituals observed in each section of the book. Bainbridge has brought a novelist’s eye to a well-documented episode in history, but she offers no new insights beyond presaging the fatal blunders of World War I in the microcosm of Scott’s blustering, self-promoting delusions acted out on the Antarctic ice. Scott’s faithful team was lead to disaster by a bad commander just as unerringly as tens of thousands of their fellow Englishmen would die in the coming years by blindly obeying Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.
Petty Officer Edgar (“Taff”) Evans, the giant Welshman and polar veteran, is a Scott sycophant whose head has been turned by his status as a favorite. Vulgar and heartily confident, Evans has no idea that his physical size and strength are actually his fatal weaknesses. Dr. Edward (“Uncle Bill”) Wilson--Like Evans, he’s on his second polar expedition with Scott; oddly morbid and more naturalist than medical doctor, his primary mission is to sooth Scott and temper the effects of his bad leadership on his men. Captain Scott, a.k.a. “the Owner”-- His casual note, “it was something I hadn’t taken into account” (p83) is repeated until it becomes a herald of looming disaster; his manic-depressive temperament, middle-class prejudices and absurdly romantic notions are glaring in his narrative. Lt. Henry (“Birdie”) Bowers--An indispensable little dynamo, he seems too tough for even Scott to kill off, but he’s plagued by a sense of inferiority. And, finally, Capt. Lawrence (“Titus”) Oates--A courageous gentleman cavalry officer who bought his way onto the expedition, he most chafes at Scott’s incompetence but never breaks military discipline, even when it proves suicidal.
The explorers’ absurd notions of Empire, sportsmanship and manly behavior are reflected in the weird little birthday rituals observed in each section of the book. Bainbridge has brought a novelist’s eye to a well-documented episode in history, but she offers no new insights beyond presaging the fatal blunders of World War I in the microcosm of Scott’s blustering, self-promoting delusions acted out on the Antarctic ice. Scott’s faithful team was lead to disaster by a bad commander just as unerringly as tens of thousands of their fellow Englishmen would die in the coming years by blindly obeying Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.
November 11, 2014
Adventures to the South Pole are not normally my thing, but Bainbridge writes this in such a way as to draw even the not normally entranced reader in. Each chapter is told by a different member of the party, and each narrator/narrative is entirely different. There are a lot of confusing things (hard to follow who is who at first, and some of the vocabulary is unfamiliar, and I can't make heads or tails of the geography in terms of where they are at any given point), but I gradually came to care about the main characters, especially those whose voices I had heard directly, and she gives even a novice like me a very clear picture of how incredibly beautiful and incredibly harsh the environment is at the pole, and the kinds of motivations that compel men to do such seemingly crazy and risky things. Because there is no narrator but the men themselves, it makes sense that nothing is explained, and it also makes sense that we would come to care about them and their fates.
Reread the book to teach it at my book group last night (November 10, 2014), and the discussion went extremely well. We invited husbands and partners to join us for the first time, so it was a larger and more diverse and unfamiliar group than usual, but the results were so good that we all vowed to repeat this experience!
One gentleman said, near the end of the discussion, that he had hated the book, but thanks to our discussion he was going to go home and read it again: this is of course the magic of book group. The reactions to the book were all over the map, from one man who thought all five voices sounded like Beryl Bainbridge to others who thought she successfully inhabited each narrator's psyche. Several people wished that she had packed in more facts and information, but for me that reaction crystalized my own belief that fiction is not supposed to be like non-fiction: if you want to learn all the facts about the expedition, choose another genre.
Reread the book to teach it at my book group last night (November 10, 2014), and the discussion went extremely well. We invited husbands and partners to join us for the first time, so it was a larger and more diverse and unfamiliar group than usual, but the results were so good that we all vowed to repeat this experience!
One gentleman said, near the end of the discussion, that he had hated the book, but thanks to our discussion he was going to go home and read it again: this is of course the magic of book group. The reactions to the book were all over the map, from one man who thought all five voices sounded like Beryl Bainbridge to others who thought she successfully inhabited each narrator's psyche. Several people wished that she had packed in more facts and information, but for me that reaction crystalized my own belief that fiction is not supposed to be like non-fiction: if you want to learn all the facts about the expedition, choose another genre.
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September 11, 2021blast, i seem to have acquired a spot of the old gangrene. rotten luck, wot?
February 16, 2009
This is one of the first books I read while I was in France. I read it in two sittings at the hostel, and I could have read it in one if my roommate hadn't insisted on sleeping. A fictional account of a doomed turn-of-century expedition to the south pole told in the first person by multiple narrators. Beryl Bainbridge uses the same narrative style in the Booker short-listed Master Georgie. Personally, I preferred Birthday Boys, but all of Bainbridge's books are such a joy to read. She creates perfect voices for her characters, plumbs their psychological depths, while still delivering a compelling plot. (Her books are real literary page-turners!) She also has a nice turn for dark humor, even amidst the most serious drama.
May 9, 2017
Eh, I didn't completely care for this. It wasn't bad, but I've read polar exploration accounts before and this didn't seem much more than that. It fleshes out some character and rotates to give some different perspectives, but it just seemed so much like a standard polar exploration account that I didn't get as interested as I thought I should be. There are some various failings that contribute to the failure, but much of it is still just bad things can happen in those situations. I just felt as if there should have been more than what I felt I got.
February 25, 2008
This is a fascinating book about Captain Robert Falcon Scotts doomed exploration to the South Pole. While the expedition was doomed there are many beautiful moments in the book...mainly of will and human courage. One that I liked better AFTER I finished reading it.
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