A Polar Affair: Antarctica's Forgotten Hero and the Secret Love Lives of Penguins by Lloyd Spencer Davis

My eye caught three things: Robert Falcon Scott--Antarctica--Penguins--and I submitted my request for the galley. Later I noted one other stand-out word: Sex. Specifically, the sex lives of penguins, but the book embraced more than just the birds' proclivities.

My first introduction to Antarctica was Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater, which an elementary school teacher read aloud to my class. I read it many times. When I was about eleven years old I picked up The Great White South by Herbert Ponting, the photographer on the Scott Expedition to the South Pole. Scott's story caught my imagination. He was a tragic, flawed hero. Ever since, I have been drawn to read books about Polar expeditions and explorers. 

One of Herbert Ponting's amazing photographs

A Polar Affair by Llyod Spencer Davis is a highly readable and entertaining book about Davis's career in penguin research and the stories of the explorers who first encountered the Antarctic penguins. Specifically, George Murray Levick, physician with the Scott expedition, who became the first to record the habits and lives of penguins.

Levick wrote a book but it was never made public. When Davis discovered a copy he was shocked to learn that he was not the first to observe what Levick had already documented.

The book is a wonderful blend, offering science and nature, history, first-person account, and adventure. He vividly recounts the story of the men who vied to be the first to reach the South Pole, including their human frailties and ill-thought decisions. 

The story of Levick and two other men trapped over an Antarctic winter in an ice cave is especially horrifying to read! The harsh realities of the penguins' struggle to survive was eye-opening.

Davis's quest to understand Levick and the mystery of the suppressed research takes him across the world, snooping into libraries and museums. 

Even though I know the stories, I was riveted, especially since Davis includes the explorer's personal lives. As Davis writes, "Our idols are never so virtuous as we make them out to be."

The next visit I make to the Detroit Zoo Penguin Conservation Center I will be looking at the penguins with more appreciation.

I was given access to a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

A Polar Affair: Antarctica's Forgotten Hero and the Secret Love Lives of Penguins

by Lloyd Spencer Davis

Pegasus Books

Pub Date 03 Sep 2019  

ISBN 9781643131252

PRICE $29.95 (USD)

Other books I have reviewed about Antarctic exploration:

To the Edges of the Earth by Edward J. Larson

https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-last-of-old-fashioned-heroes.html

Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition by Paul Watson
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2017/03/ice-ghosts-200-years-searching-for-lost.html

The White Darkness by David Grann
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2018/10/white-darkness-by-david-grann-story-of.html

Fiction about Antarctica:

My Last Continent by Midge Raymond
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/06/my-last-continent-by-midge-raymond.html

The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-birthday-boys-by-beryl-bainbridge.html

The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge: The Lost Men of the Scott Expedition

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.

Captain Robert Falcon Scott

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 men of the Scott Expedition

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.

The Birthday Boys
Beryl Bainbridge
Open Road Media
October 2, 2016
e-book ISBN 9781504039420