ANTARCTIC NAVIGATION

Arthur (Looking for the Klondike Stone, 1993, etc.) has written a flawed but keenly imagined novel of a woman-led expedition to Antarctica that sets out to vindicate both the human spirit and Robert Scott, the famous polar failure. The story, narrated by Morgan Lamont, moves at a stately pace that is forgivable at first but later assumes the pace of the glaciers the expedition traverses on the way to the South Pole. A similar disparity is reflected in the story itself: In the first half, Lamont recalls growing up on a Colorado ranch in prose that is both lyrical and perceptive about nature, heroism, and the splendid power of books to catch the imagination. The second half too often becomes a mawkish, politically correct, and superficial indictment of the US, the West, and the British Empire as Lamont herself becomes more a lovesick Cosmo girl than the strong heroine she promised to be. Her unhappy childhood—her parents' divorce, her mother's unhappy remarriage—is relieved by kindly neighbors and by her fascination with Scott and the Antarctic. Though Scott lost the race to the Pole, he became a hero. Lamont, who wants to understand Scott's motives for trying—he admitted he had ``no predilection for polar exploration''—and why this failure caught the public's imagination, yearns to go to Antarctica to find out for herself. An unsatisfactory summer there is succeeded by a multimillion-dollar expedition replicating Scott's that is too conveniently financed by Lamont's long-estranged grandfather. Epic in concept and execution, it has new and old lovers, friends and acquaintances all joining forces to make Lamont's dream come true. A surfeit of riches, which is a pity, because there is so much to admire and enjoy. Like Scott's expedition, a magnificent failure. (Author tour)