liralen's review against another edition
3.0
Lovely writing, but I spent the second half of the book less focused on that writing than I was on why the writing wasn't doing much for me. I think it comes down to this: Legler lived in Antarctica for six months as a...writer in residence, I suppose. She was there to learn and there to write; as she notes, she's doing more or less the same thing the scientists there are doing (trying to understand Antarctica), but through a different medium.
I enjoyed the writing and enjoyed the details; in particular, I learned quite a bit about Discovery Hut, which I had previously assumed to be significantly smaller than it actually is. As a writer without (as far as I can tell) hard-and-fast day-to-day duties at McMurdo (the U.S. base in Antarctica), she had the luxury of time to investigate projects that interested but did not directly involve her, and she writes about some of those adventures. But the story is in many ways more internal—Legler had, at some point before leaving for Antarctica, come to terms with being a lesbian, and there are elements of love story and references to major losses in her past. By the end, though, I think I wanted the book to have swung more in one direction or the other: to be more focused on those little Antarctica-specific things, bringing them to light for those of us who don't expect to ever go that far south (too effing cold), or to hone in more closely on the personal and explore those elements in more depth.
One that will work well for a lot of readers interested in Antarctica but that just didn't suit my reading mood, I suppose. On to the next thing.
I enjoyed the writing and enjoyed the details; in particular, I learned quite a bit about Discovery Hut, which I had previously assumed to be significantly smaller than it actually is. As a writer without (as far as I can tell) hard-and-fast day-to-day duties at McMurdo (the U.S. base in Antarctica), she had the luxury of time to investigate projects that interested but did not directly involve her, and she writes about some of those adventures. But the story is in many ways more internal—Legler had, at some point before leaving for Antarctica, come to terms with being a lesbian, and there are elements of love story and references to major losses in her past. By the end, though, I think I wanted the book to have swung more in one direction or the other: to be more focused on those little Antarctica-specific things, bringing them to light for those of us who don't expect to ever go that far south (too effing cold), or to hone in more closely on the personal and explore those elements in more depth.
One that will work well for a lot of readers interested in Antarctica but that just didn't suit my reading mood, I suppose. On to the next thing.
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