"End of the Earth: Voyages to Antarctica", by Peter Matthiessen

It is rare that a book ruins my holiday, but Peter Matthiessen's End of the Earth: Voyages to Antarctica came blissfully close. There I was, lying on a sun-drenched tropical beach, dreaming of some frozen Antarctic wilderness 7,500 kilometres to the south. With my mind whipped by an imaginary gale, the smell of ice tickling my blood, I could hardly sit still to finish reading. I had the longing for the ice.

Quality literature on Antarctica is often buried under the avalanche of self-aggrandizing adventure stories and quests for the South Pole. Perhaps the dearth is due to the tricky ethics of Antarctic tourism; more likely, however, is that modern accounts written from the comfort of an icebreaker struggle to match the epic tales of the continent's early explorers. End of the Earth, however, is a wonderful exception. The book details two separate trips to Antarctic made by Matthiessen between 1998 and 2001, and his tales are refreshingly free of posturing. In fact, Matthiessen is almost wracked with humility, and confesses his sea journeys are essentially cozy tourist jaunts that pale besides the heroics of the past.

But few writers have the skill to combine meticulous observation with personal insight in the way that Matthiessen does. The reader is deftly tossed through an astounding catalogue of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic birdlife, as well as a fly-by history of southern whaling and a brief introduction to seafaring. Throughout these, Matthiessen continually revisits two favourite themes: intimate thoughts on the grandeur (and pettiness) of these great Antarctic explorers, and well-grounded, impassioned fears about global warming.

While his eye for detail can sometimes be overwhelming, Matthiessen also offers a little light relief through his childlike fascination with penguins: the rockhoppers, fairies, kings, emperors and, of course, macaronis. For the many readers unlikely to ever see a penguin chick in the wild, Matthiessen brings their fuzzy, hapless waddle to life.

End of the Earth convincingly conveys all the wonder of Antarctica, from its untrod wilderness and uncharted islands, to the furious winds and unique ecology and, not least, the wrenching tales of human endeavour.

But it also delves into the dirty smears of human impact that increasingly mark the ice. Most notably, it details the renewed threat of resource exploitation, the environmental problems of tourism itself, and the vast chunks of ice that keep breaking off the Larsen ice shelf while world leaders deny the effects of global warming.

So while End of the Earth will chill your blood and set your legs twitching with a cold fever, Matthiessen also makes sure that before you go and buy Lonely Planet's third edition on Antarctica, you will do a bit of serious thinking too. JK

Overall verdict: As refreshing as a blast of Antarctic wind.

Back to Previous page | Listing by author | category | region | title | home page