A gripping testament to the quiet, obdurate inspiration of a Russian navigator who refused to die.
The first translation of a sparse, harrowing account (originally published in 1917 in Russia) of his trek across the frozen icecaps of the Arctic.
In October 1912, the fishing vessel Santa Anna became icebound in the Kara Sea—hundreds of miles from even the northernmost islands of Siberia. For nearly two years the crew lived in a couple of cabins aft of the ship with a dwindling supply of food. When they were down to a few months’ rations, Albanov, the navigator, quarreled with the captain, who wanted to wait for a rescue team. In April 1914, Albanov and 13 others set out on their own in homemade sledges and kayaks. The first four chapters of Albanov’s diary, begun at the outset of the trek when he was not starving and battling for his life, are written in a highly descriptive, ebullient style that captures the stark, lunar landscape of a land of glaciers, blizzards, and the frozen sea. Much like Melville’s early travel narratives, his observations of the natural world and the adversity of his surroundings are infused with a poetic realism. But as the hazards and hardships of the journey mount (with his fellow crew members succumbing to starvation, exposure, and walrus and polar-bear attacks), the diary moves away from literary flourish to a laconic, austere narrative that impresses upon the reader one idea and one idea alone: Albanov’s will to live. From June 28th on, the entries simply catalogue the importance of navigating the ice floes, killing seals for food, and locating the nearest occupied outpost (which they finally do on August 19, 1914). These stoic entries are even more powerful than the descriptive ones, however, for they are almost hypnotic in their effect—bringing one into Albanov’s contrary mindset of fear for his life and the gritty will to survive.
A gripping testament to the quiet, obdurate inspiration of a Russian navigator who refused to die.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2000
ISBN: 0-679-64100-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Modern Library
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
A lyrical work of intellectual history, one that Popova’s many followers will await eagerly and that deserves to win her...
The polymathic Popova, presiding genius behind brainpickings.org, looks at some of the forgotten heroes of science, art, and culture.
“There are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives,” writes the author at the outset. She closes with the realization that while we individuals may die, the beauty of our lives and work, if meaningful, will endure: “What will survive of us are shoreless seeds and stardust." In between, she peppers thoughtful, lucid consideration of acts of the imagination with stories that, if ever aired before, are too little known. Who would have remembered that of all the details of the pioneering astronomer Johannes Kepler’s life, one was racing across Germany to come to the aid of his widowed mother, who had been charged with witchcraft? The incident ably frames Kepler’s breaking out of a world governed by superstition, “a world in which God is mightier than nature, the Devil realer and more omnipresent than gravity,” and into a radical, entirely different world governed by science. That world saw many revolutions and advances ahead of the general population, as when, in 1865, Vassar College appointed as its first professor of astronomy a woman, Maria Mitchell, who combined a brilliant command of science with a yearning for poetry. So it was with Rachel Carson, the great ecologist, whose love for a woman lasted across a life burdened with terrible illness, and Emily Dickinson, who might have been happier had her own love for a woman been realized. (As it was, Popova notes, the world was ready for Dickinson: A book of her poems published four years after her death sold 500 copies on the first day of publication.) Throughout her complex, consistently stimulating narrative, the author blends biography, cultural criticism, and journalism to forge elegant connections: Dickinson feeds in to Carson, who looks back to Mitchell, who looks forward to Popova herself, and with plenty of milestones along the way: Kepler, Goethe, Pauli, Henry James, Nathaniel Hawthorne….
A lyrical work of intellectual history, one that Popova’s many followers will await eagerly and that deserves to win her many more.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4813-5
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A uniquely talented writer and performer offers up an unexpectedly uncommon approach to autobiographical writing.
Tough times spur a popular stand-up comedian and actor to dive deep into her own inimitable psyche.
In Slate’s (Marcel the Shell With Shoes On: Things About Me, 2011) intriguing inner world, raindrops are “wet water bloops” that fall unexpectedly from the sky, and brassieres are “cotton cup bags” that respectable ladies are obliged to don before heading out to dinner. The use of deconstructed language allows the author to move beyond the banal and replace it with something that more closely approximates her singular experience of being alive. Whether joyous or sad, Slate’s personal journey hasn’t always been lighthearted. Indeed, the author feels moved to describe herself as “dying” on multiple occasions throughout her life. She is concerned with many other things, as well, including the nature of lovelorn ghosts and the ethereal goodness of dogs. Underneath the gauzy, shimmering scaffolding, however, is an all-too-universal story about heartbreak, depression, and a failed marriage: “One man was gone from my life just about the time that another man pig-snorted his way into the presidency….I didn’t know how or why to give myself small pleasures.” Through it all, she has found solace in a circle of good friends and the redemptive powers of a neat house and an incredible garden. Slate seems to fit so comfortably inside the poetic realms of her impressive imagination that she has no need to abandon them, not even when she is rebuking the pernicious ugliness of male patriarchy, another element that has heavily impacted her life. In one particularly powerful interlude, the author achieves biblical grandeur, envisioning herself ripping out the ancient evil root and stem. “I take one last good look at that poison pod and I just go ahead and fling it,” she writes. “I fling that pod back into the gloomy section of outer space that is for bad gods with sickly and sour spirits.”
A uniquely talented writer and performer offers up an unexpectedly uncommon approach to autobiographical writing.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-48534-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2019
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