She Treads Softly: The Ship Beneath the Ice

Monday, February 27, 2023

The Ship Beneath the Ice

The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton's Endurance by Mensun Bound
2/28/23; 416 pages
Mariner Books; HarperCollins

The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton's Endurance by Mensun Bound is a very highly recommended account of the two expeditions undertaken in 2019 and 2022 to successfully find the Endurance.

Briefly, on November 21, 1914, Ernest Shackleton and his crew sailed the Endurance to Antarctica to become the first to cross the continent, but early season pack ice trapped them in place and the Endurance sank. Since this the Endurance was one of the most legendary lost ships and the most unreachable due to the hostile environment. The Ship Beneath the Ice is the account of marine archeologist Mensun Bound and an elite team of explorers set out to find the lost shipwreck.

This real life adventure story is told through diary entries of Bound and extracts of diary entries of Shackleton and his men. The first recovery operation in 2019 was proceeded by years of preparation and then they had many technical challenges with the AUV. Finally they had to stop the first expedition once the weather deteriorated and the ship got stuck in the ice. The team launched their second attempt in 2022 with new equipment, a Sabertooth diving vessel with a tilt camera, and had success.

For those who enjoy maritime history, the story of the Endurance, or following searches for lost parts of history will likely appreciate this story of successfully uncovering a part of history while also presenting the historical facts of the original expedition. The book is well written and descriptive, although the diary entries require some getting used to at first. The presentation of the history and current situation are expertly written and the tension involved is clearly shown in both timelines.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins and Mariner Books via Edelweiss.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.