"Erebus" by Michael Palin

 Palin follows the voyages of HMS Erebus, the ship that, with HMS Terror, took James Clark Ross on his voyage of exploration in the Antarctic in 1839 - 1843 before taking Sir John Franklin on his doomed search for the North-West Passage 1845 - 1848.

My biggest problem with books of this kind is that I find it difficult to follow the journeys without reference to a map. There are several maps in this book: most of them are adequate but I found great difficulty when it came to the quite intricate details of the North-West Passage, especially when Palin was describing the multiple searches for Franklin. Repetition of eg Lancaster Sound and Bering Straits (especially as the latter didn't seem to be marked on the maps) and all the islands that might have been promontories just left me confused.

Some great moments:

• "I love the idea of a medicine for hypochondria." (Prologue)
• "In classical mythology Erebus, the son of Chaos, was generally taken to refer to the dark heart of the Underworld, a place associated with dislocation and destruction." (C 1)
• "Boothia ... the only peninsula in the world named after a brand of gin." (C 2)
• "the tallest wave ever recorded in the southern hemisphere ... was measured at 78 feet high." (C 6)
• "Of all God's creatures, they [whales] seemed the least prone to hurrying. Their lives seemed to be the human equivalent of taking very long baths." (C 6)
• "This description of a penguin 'walking away upright as a dart ... looking like an old monk going to mass'." (C 10)
• "National confidence is precarious and needs to be fed a constant diet of achievement." (C 12)
• "In Waterloo Place ... is a memorial to Captain Scott. His failure was to be beaten to the South Pole. Franklin's was to be beaten to the first sea crossing of the Northwest Passage. The man who beat Scott to the Pole was Roald Amundsen. The first man to cross the Northwest Passage by sea was Roald Amundsen. He has no memorial in London." (C 17)
• "The shower in the bathroom is one of those where you have to run around to get wet." (Epilogue)

This book was great on the Antarctic explorations but for the North-West Passage I think Barrow's Boys and Ninety Degrees North, both by Fergus Fleming, are much better.

July 2021; 310 pages

Other books on exploration and explorers, and travel, which are reviewed in this blog, may be found here.

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God