ANTARCTICA, Bellingshausen Sea - My natural aversion to being cold went through the roof as I read Madhouse at the End of the Earth. Ditto for living in the kind of haunting darkness experienced by people living in extreme northern and southern climates in winter.
The non-fiction book by journalist Julian Sancton pulls no punches in describing the 1897 voyage of the ship Belgica as it goes deep into the Antarctic on an expedition to find the South Pole. It gets trapped in sea ice forcing captain and crew to winter over in sub-zero temperatures.
The temperatures were bad enough. Almost as bad as the food. Being trapped in the ice with little hope of escaping could trigger claustrophobic feelings in anyone. But descriptions of the desolate darkness for months are horrific. So is reading about the crew devouring penguins.
Yes, they reluctantly resorted to eating penguins. It was that or starve.
Penguin meat - particularly eaten almost raw - had such a foul taste that some of the crew and captain refused to eat it.
"Imagine a piece of beef, an odoriferous codfish and a canvas-back duck roasted in a pot with blood and cod-liver oil for sauce," the ship's doctor wrote, describing the taste.
Ugh!
The food, cold and light deprivation all play heavily into the madhouse the resulted. But the story also examines the ambitions of the ship's captain, Adrien de Gerlache. He wanted glory and recognition, both of which pushed him to deliberately allow the ship to be trapped. He thought he could demonstrate extraordinary courage and valor of he and his men by surviving a polar winter.
It proved true, but a very costly gamble.
The ambitions of others are also weaved throughout Madhouse at the End of the Earth.
One of those is Roald Amundsen, who would become a famous explorer after surviving his stint on the Belgica. The book makes it clear the men of the Belgica might not have survived if were not for Amundsen's help. The same can be said for the ship's doctor, who ended up going to prison.
But the doctor's tale is best left to readers to suss out.
Meticulously researched and written with almost novel-like style, Madhouse at the End of the Earth is highly recommended reading. Sancton has done an amazing job in this book.
Oddly enough, the book is published by Crown, an imprint of Random House, which is a division of Penguin Random House LLC of New York.
Yes, Penguin.
Review by Michael J. Fitzgerald
