Booking Through Thursday: Location, Location, Location (Part 2)

Booking Through Thursday for today wants to know where we read --

Where do you do most of your reading? Your favorite spot?

I usually read on the sofa in our living room, a comfy two-seater in sagey-green velveteen bought at a huge discount when our local Laura Ashley shop closed some years back.  (Our loss was our gain, as it were, as we could not have afforded it otherwise.)  My second choice is the IKEA sofa in what we call the front bedroom, although it is in fact our TV room.  I try not to read in bed much, as I have occasional bouts of insomnia.   I don't think I have a favorite spot for reading, as such -- every spot for reading is a favorite spot! -- just a usual one.

I finished reading David Crane's Scott of the Antarctic a while back, and had to rush it back to the library some days late.  It is an interesting book, one that impressed me in a number of ways, and made me think, and want to linger over it.  I was delighted first of all by Crane's writing, with complex yet fluid sentences that made me realize how comma-starved I've become in these days of text messages and emails.  Here is one of my favorites, regarding Scott's meeting with his future wife, Kathleen: "Bernacchi [as an early biographer of Scott] reckoned that Scott had 'only a slender knowledge of women,' but it is fair to say that all the knowledge in the world would probably not have prepared him for the wonderfully tanned, determinedly virginal, twenty-eight-year-old sculptress with a passion for 'male babies' and a critical eye for a prospective father, just back from five months' vagabonding around Greece" (p.312).  How often does one actually laugh out loud at a book on Polar exploration? I ask you!  Subtle, humorous, and telling.

I was very impressed at Crane's ability to not only write interestingly and thoughtfully, but to balance the admirable and not-so-admirable aspects of Scott's character.  It did seem to be rather difficult at times, though, for him to tell enough of the story to keep the Antarctic-novice reader going.  I can imagine that it's hard when the writer knows the cast of characters so well to say, for example, "Crean" or "Lashly," and not realize that the reader has no idea who Crean or Lashly is.  (Even I wished for a little list at the back of the book.)  Crane at one point remarks on Scott's stomach troubles in a way that implies this was chronic, but it had not been mentioned to us before then.  On the other hand, Crane's ability to make the rather gorgonlike Kathleen Scott into a relatively sympathetic character can only increase my admiration for his abilities as a writer.  (In Kathleen's defense, I can only admit that most of my impressions of her come from the men's diaries, as biased and anti-feminist as most Edwardian men.) 

My first experience of the Capt. Scott story, as I've said before, was from the Roland Huntford book and television series -- definitely unflattering towards Scott -- and so my opinion of Scott was quite low for a long time, but after reading Crane's book, I think that Huntford is too hard on Scott, or at least unwilling to show the good side.  I wonder if our taste for gossipy, warts-and-all biographies (did the gallant Captain Oates really father a child at the age of twenty, with an eleven-year-old girl?) these days make us underappreciate the loyalty Scott inspired -- sadly lacking in so many of our public figures now, to our great cost.  Talking of the great Memorial Service at St. Paul's, Crane writes, "There are few things that more poignantly signal the remoteness of Dean Inge's age from our own, because while nothing is more inevitable or healthier than historical revisionism, what has happened to Scott's reputation requires some other label.  It might seem odd from this distance that neo-Georgian England should find in a Darwin-carrying agnostic of Scott's cast the type of Christian sacrifice, but the historical process that has shrunk the rich, complex and deeply human set of associations that once clustered round his story into an allegory of arrogance, selfishness and moral stupidity is every bit as extraordinary" (p.11).

While we can't forget that, as Huntford reminds us repeatedly, ponies and manhauling in the Antarctic lacks a great deal of common sense (to put it mildly), and that by association this lack is transferred to Scott himself with tragic results, we also must remember, as Crane points out not only elegantly but tellingly, that "In such a climate of doubt and self-questioning [as that of post-Industrial Revolution and pre-WWI England], the outpouring of national pride over Scott was no demonstration of imperialist triumphalism but its reverse, its militancy the militancy of weakness, its stridency the stridency of a country desperate for assurance that the moral qualities that once made it great were still intact" (p.9).  Huntford sees the mistakes -- huge mistakes, certainly -- while Crane sees the mistakes in context, which, while it doesn't excuse them, does go some way towards explaining them.  "The most tempting answer is suggested by the cultural and political overtones implicit in Trevor Griffiths' use [in "The Last Place on Earth" series] of the word 'Englishness,' because if Scott was once celebrated as the incarnation of everything an Englishman should be, he is now damned as the sad embodiment of everything he actually was" (p.12), in other words, an Englishman.  We do tend to lash out at the characteristics in other people that we most despise in ourselves, don't we.  The qualities that "made England great" -- duty, self-sacrifice, discipline, patriotism, hierarchy, as Crane lists them -- are now seen as less than admirable.  It's an interesting thought.

Comments

[Dawn]

Thoughtful and thought provoking post. And here are some of the thoughts you provoked:

I do believe that reviewing historical events with modern eyes, is 'a good thing', but it is also important to remember that the people living through that time did not have that privilege. In other words, we must always judge their actions in the light of the times they lived in.

Nationalism should now be considered an anachronism, (while I remain proud of my Scottish roots). Nowadays, I like to think, we would be striving to test ourselves in a harsh environment and not just to get there before someone of another nationality.

Thanks again.

[Lycra]

There was a television series on, here,last year, in Britain called "Blizzard: Race to the Pole"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887223/#comment
which was an interesting experiment.
"This documentary recreates the race to the South Pole in 1911 between Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott and questions whether the success and failure was due to luck or strategy. Scott has been labelled as both an unlucky gifted explorer and an arrogant incompetent.

The two teams are kitted out in 1911 gear, carrying the same supplies as their counterparts, and employing the same strategies. The main difference between the teams being Amundsen's choice to use more dogs and to use them for more of the journey. Scott had decided that dogs were unreliable over unpredictable terrain and decided to man-haul the sledges.

Because dogs are no longer allowed in Antarctic, the race was recreated in Greenland where there's similar terrain and weather.

The modern Scott Team is lead by Bruce Parry, who has gentle leadership style which belies his military background as a Marines commando troop commander. Bruce is the youngest officer to have ever been in charge of all physical training for the Royal Marines Commandos.

The physical change in the modern Scott team is drastic. They man-haul sledges burning almost twice the calories than the original Scott diet provides and we see them shed body weight at a dramatic rate as the team lose between 16% - 25% of their body mass before their race is called off by the producers."

[Marie]

Very thought provoking review. It does seem a hard line for historians to walk between the rush to castigate and the hand-waving to excuse those negative actions of the past. Either the context in which the actions occurred are entirely neglected or they are over plumbed for reasons to excuse any wrong-doing. It's good to hear that this particular book does a god job of finding a middle ground. I've always wanted to learn more about that doomed expedition. Now I know what book to read. :)