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weaselweader's review
3.0
As cold and bleak as an Arctic winter night
North is a bleak, difficult and unhappy yet compelling and sadly moving story of Artic exploration in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Lt William Parish has been chosen to be the leader of an American expedition to the North Pole, flawed from its inception and doomed by the vagaries and short-sighted decisions of American politicians thinking only of their ambitions and careers. The achievements and difficulties not to mention the danger faced by a team of men thousands of miles from home and three years out of mind leads to an abandonment of the expedition to their fate that is little short of criminal.
North is based in large part on the real-life story of Lt Adolphus Greely whose story is summarized in the following excerpt from Wikipedia:
"In 1881, First Lieutenant Greely was given command of the Lady Franklin Bay expedition, whose purpose was to find the North Pole and establish one of a chain of international circumpolar meteorological stations. Greely was without previous Arctic experience, but he and his party were able to discover hitherto many unknown miles along the coast of northwest Greenland. The expedition also crossed Ellesmere Island from east to west and Lt. James B. Lockwood achieved a new northern record of 83°24'."
"Two relief ships failed to reach Greely's party encamped at Cape Sabine, on Ellesmere Island. Thanks to the persistence of Greely's wife, Henrietta, the search was never abandoned. The ship called Bear, built in Greenock, Scotland, first used as a whaler, was purchased by the U.S. to rescue the Greely party. By the time this third ship arrived in 1884 to rescue them, 21 of Greely's 27-man crew had perished from starvation, drowning, hypothermia, and in one case, gunshot wounds from an execution ordered by Greely. Greely and the other survivors were themselves near death; one of the survivors died on the homeward journey. The returning survivors were venerated as heroes, though the heroism was tainted by sensational accusations of cannibalism during the remaining days of low food."
Hubank's greatest achievement in writing North is also the root cause of its greatest failing. The details of the expedition, the litany of its failures stemming from a series of ill-considered incorrect decisions, the punishing pain of unremitting cold and darkness, the slow, agonizing death of many of the team's members from starvation and scurvy are all related, the inter-personal conflicts of men in close contact under difficult circumstances for extended periods of time all unfold with the almost excruciating stiffness of a quasi-military journal. Given the source material for the basic idea, this is hardly unexpected but, sadly, Hubank fails to lift the material off the page and convert it into the astonishing, exciting story that it might have been.
Enjoyable for those that like their historical fiction in general and, more specifically, arctic exploration but would not likely be enjoyed by a less motivated reader.
Paul Weiss
North is a bleak, difficult and unhappy yet compelling and sadly moving story of Artic exploration in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Lt William Parish has been chosen to be the leader of an American expedition to the North Pole, flawed from its inception and doomed by the vagaries and short-sighted decisions of American politicians thinking only of their ambitions and careers. The achievements and difficulties not to mention the danger faced by a team of men thousands of miles from home and three years out of mind leads to an abandonment of the expedition to their fate that is little short of criminal.
North is based in large part on the real-life story of Lt Adolphus Greely whose story is summarized in the following excerpt from Wikipedia:
"In 1881, First Lieutenant Greely was given command of the Lady Franklin Bay expedition, whose purpose was to find the North Pole and establish one of a chain of international circumpolar meteorological stations. Greely was without previous Arctic experience, but he and his party were able to discover hitherto many unknown miles along the coast of northwest Greenland. The expedition also crossed Ellesmere Island from east to west and Lt. James B. Lockwood achieved a new northern record of 83°24'."
"Two relief ships failed to reach Greely's party encamped at Cape Sabine, on Ellesmere Island. Thanks to the persistence of Greely's wife, Henrietta, the search was never abandoned. The ship called Bear, built in Greenock, Scotland, first used as a whaler, was purchased by the U.S. to rescue the Greely party. By the time this third ship arrived in 1884 to rescue them, 21 of Greely's 27-man crew had perished from starvation, drowning, hypothermia, and in one case, gunshot wounds from an execution ordered by Greely. Greely and the other survivors were themselves near death; one of the survivors died on the homeward journey. The returning survivors were venerated as heroes, though the heroism was tainted by sensational accusations of cannibalism during the remaining days of low food."
Hubank's greatest achievement in writing North is also the root cause of its greatest failing. The details of the expedition, the litany of its failures stemming from a series of ill-considered incorrect decisions, the punishing pain of unremitting cold and darkness, the slow, agonizing death of many of the team's members from starvation and scurvy are all related, the inter-personal conflicts of men in close contact under difficult circumstances for extended periods of time all unfold with the almost excruciating stiffness of a quasi-military journal. Given the source material for the basic idea, this is hardly unexpected but, sadly, Hubank fails to lift the material off the page and convert it into the astonishing, exciting story that it might have been.
Enjoyable for those that like their historical fiction in general and, more specifically, arctic exploration but would not likely be enjoyed by a less motivated reader.
Paul Weiss
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