What the hell did I just read?! I can’t remember the last time I was so disappointed for a book to end. I was feeling sad even seeing the pages of this creep towards the end. I really wish this author would get obsessed with something else enough to write about it, because making me care this much about a polar expedition (not exactly my favorite reading area) is astounding. Everything here was quite literally astounding.
This is a bit hard to explain or categorize, but it's essentially about the modern investigation of, and subsequent obsession with, a history mystery: the Andrée expedition, a Swedish expedition to the North Pole in 1897 attempted by helium balloon (wow, ok) which predictably failed, with the bodies of the three men discovered 30 years later, which the author learned about when she was bored at a party and pulled a book off a shelf (this book is so good that I'll even forgive her the terrible crime of never returning that book she stole from her host).
Although I wasn't really clear – I think she did already know about this, and it seems it's a very well known incident in Sweden or Scandinavia broadly? Because she also tells a hilarious anecdote about how she and her sister wrote a song for the Eurovision Song Contest about a prevailing theory at the time for what killed them. (Bacteria in polar bear meat; sadly, Sweden did not go with this gem for Eurovision).
She became obsessed with the story and if you think you've ever been obsessed with something, have a seat. She makes a throwaway comment near the end about how she may have even become a doctor because she wanted to better understand what happened to their bodies. I can't tell if that was supposed to be a joke or not, but aside from that early Eurovision song, she does not really come across as the joking type.
It reminded me of what Susan Orlean wrote about in The Orchid Thief, that it's the people who are so obsessed who are interesting, and this book is such a perfect example of what she was talking about there. The author's obsession is fascinating because she really makes you feel why she felt it, and what it meant to her, even when her children question why she even cares.
"I have carried this place inside me for so long, and now that I am here it is as though I am wandering around inside myself.
I am wandering around inside myself now."
They died over a hundred years ago on one of the most remote Arctic islands, is it really that much of an interesting mystery? I admit that's why I hesitated to read this. Arctic expedition stories just don't captivate me all that much even when they go wrong, because it's generally the same usual suspects plus a lot of brutality (eating animals I don't want to see eaten and each other) and horrific suffering before succumbing to the elements. It just doesn't feel like a compelling mystery.
I only eventually did because 1) translated nonfiction is a rarity, translated nonfiction by women even more so, and this was a quirky enough topic to be intriguing, and 2) it came highly recommended in a Stranger Than Fiction theme topic, one of my favorite types of nonfiction, 3) I got the library ebook and it's massive due to all the photos and layout and I needed to get it off my ereader as quickly as possible.
The author makes several trips to the region, consults forensic experts, meets with the modern families of one of the men, analyzes their letters and diaries, and chronicles her own experiences visiting the location and researching what she's able to about the remains (they were all unfortunately cremated, but she ultimately makes a very convincing case for her theory of what happened, which also seems crazy...this evidence was there all along!)
I have many still remaining unanswered questions: how did they fit so much into that balloon that looks SO tiny? Then she describes how much ballast they had to throw out of it and you learn it had three sleds and a small boat inside it too? And each sled was loaded with hundreds of pounds of stuff? That balloon basket must have been like a clown car or that suitcase Merlin packs in The Sword and the Stone where everything is shrunken down. And where did they poop in the balloon? Or sleep? There doesn't look to be space to lie down! Ugh now I have to go to the museum for the Andrée Expedition in Sweden and I'm not even joking. I never had much interest in visiting Sweden again but you better believe I'm doing it now. That's what this book does to you.
I would have read a book twice as long about it and my only disappointment is that this wasn't longer. Or that she didn't publish a second book about her own life as she researched this for years. And that she hasn't published anything else since! (I just stalked her Insta and it looks like she's still been working on things related to the expedition, so my day is made!!!) But I think that's also what makes this have such an outsized impact for a smaller book. She tells stories so well and succinctly that they hit really hard and linger.
The writing is gorgeous and haunting, even in translation. She also manages to pull out so many interesting stories. I'll remember forever what the fiancée of the youngest man did at the end of her life. My god. This book is just perfection.