apsley cherry-garrard – Sit on your hands

A Brit a Day [#720]

Today’s guest brit is author Sara Wheeler. After I read Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s stunning account of the South Polar treks of 1912 in ‘The Worst Journey in the World,’ I wanted to ‘meet’ him you might say. The only effective way to do that outside of his own words is in Sara Wheeler’s biography of him.

Wheeler recognizes that the quintessential element of British wit and prose is irony, and she uses it liberally. Her Wikipedia entry sums it up pretty well–

“Sara Wheeler was brought up in Bristol and studied Classics and Modern Languages at Brasenose College. After writing about her travels on the Greek island of Euboea and in Chile, she was accepted by the US National Science Foundation as their first female writer-in-residence at the South Pole, and spent seven months in Antarctica. She successfully claimed the cost of a mandatory syphilis test against tax. In her resultant book Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica, she mentioned sleeping in the captain’s bunk in Scott’s Hut. Whilst in Antarctica she read The Worst Journey in the World, an account of the Terra Nova Expedition, and she later wrote a biography of its author Apsley Cherry-Garrard“.

She appreciates Cherry’s sophistication and notes how difficult it must have been for him to communicate with those whose sense of irony was not as developed as his own. Reading ‘Cherry ‘ rounds out the obsession that started when I picked up Beryl Bainbridge’s ‘The Birthday Boys.’ The one book I’ve had a hard time coming to: Captain Scott’s own journal. The centennial of his death is this week, March 29. We know that date because Scott wrote in his log until he could no longer hold the pen. I’ve feared reading its last words and knowing what they mean–the tragic nothingness that follows. But through Wheeler’s book, you see that the real pain is for the survivor.

A Brit a Day [#706]

Today’s Brit is a true hero, a newly discovered hero to me, who furthered science, literature, and the human spirit considerably. He is Apsley Cherry-Garrard, a member of Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition to Antarctica from 1910 to 1913. The end of this month marks the 100th anniversary of the tragic end to Scott’s quest for the South Pole–all 5 of the party who trekked to the pole died on the return journey from cold, starvation and exhaustion. Cherry-Garrard was not among them and, hence, lived to tell the tale in the form of his wonderful book, ‘The Worst Journey in the World.’ Twenty-something Cherry survived Antarctica, but he was haunted by the loss of his close friends for the rest of his life. In a world that had not yet recognized nor labelled conditions like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or Survivor’s Guilt, Cherry suffered tremendously from depression. One can only hope that he found catharsis in writing–his book is so thorough, so thoughtful and descriptive, it is known as the definitive account of that expedition, and as such makes a perfectly annotated companion to Scott’s own words, his journal, published as ‘Scott’s Last Expedition’ which Cherry quotes at length.

One hundred years ago today, Scott’s party returning from the Pole were already pretty certain that they would not survive–we know this from their diaries. But the men who waited for them at the main camp did not know this with any certainty at all. They undertook a search for what they then knew would be their remains 10 months later when the winter weather broke. Reading Cherry’s description of that sad mission is evocative enough to make you feel like you are there–and possesses the spirituality to make you feel like Cherry is there holding your hand.

Next up on my reading list: Sarah Wheeler’s biography of Apsley Cherry-Garrard.