⋙ Libro The Terrors of Ice and Darkness Christoph Ransmayr 9780802134592 Books

The Terrors of Ice and Darkness Christoph Ransmayr 9780802134592 Books

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The Terrors of Ice and Darkness Christoph Ransmayr 9780802134592 Books

For me, this book is a lively substitute for reading the full journals of the two commanders of the 1872-74 Austro-Hungarian expedition. Liberally cited and carefully chosen, contextualized excerpts convey the full drama and horrors of the 1872 voyage. The three levels of narrative (the narrator/Mazzini researcher, Mazzini, and the 19th century explorers) are well blended and less troublesome than they may seem to follow. I was hoping to find more clues for the mysterious disappearance of Mazzini than I found. It seems quite odd that the novelist didn't simply have him jump ship at the northern extremity of the voyage rather than bring him back to Spitzbergen. All-in-all, though this is a gripping novel and brought home the incredible endurance and steel nerves required of such expeditions before the age of comfortable icebreaking expedition ships, helicopters and snow-skidded aircraft.


Tags : The Terrors of Ice and Darkness [Christoph Ransmayr] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. A man attempts to explain the disappearance of an Italian explorer in the Arctic in 1981 by reconstructing an Austrian expedition of a century before and,Christoph Ransmayr,The Terrors of Ice and Darkness,Grove Press,0802134599,Literary,North Pole - Fiction,FICTION General,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Literary,General,German (Language) Contemporary Fiction,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),Modern fiction

The Terrors of Ice and Darkness Christoph Ransmayr 9780802134592 Books Reviews

This will be a short review I just want to register that despite Ransmayr's reputation, his skill with narrative and temporality, and the heartbreaking real-life details of the Weyprecht Expedition (including a chilling scene in which a beloved sled dog, whose dead body had been dropped into a hole in the ice, resurfaces months later), this reads like the work of an academic historian. It is replete with well-researched detail, and its narrative is comfortable and warm, as if it were conceived and written in an archive. The book is often sublime, but it is a comfortable, late twilight sublime, the kind I also feel when I watch the midnight sun in a movie. Even when things get desperate, I am cushioned and comforted by Ransmayr's impeccable scholarship. As in Borges, even outlandish things are tamed by footnotes.

In the domain of arctic tragedies, this novel is outdone on every level -- narrative, fact, experience, force -- by William Vollmann's "The Rifles."
My Uncle gave me a copy of this book more than a decade ago and I still remember how much I enjoyed this intricate and intense story. I normally don't read "dark" books, but I could not put this book down. The ship voyage details and the story of survival and bravery were very facinating. It is such a good book that I keep it in my pemanent library of books I do not lend-out and I let only house guests borrow.
For me, this book is a lively substitute for reading the full journals of the two commanders of the 1872-74 Austro-Hungarian expedition. Liberally cited and carefully chosen, contextualized excerpts convey the full drama and horrors of the 1872 voyage. The three levels of narrative (the narrator/Mazzini researcher, Mazzini, and the 19th century explorers) are well blended and less troublesome than they may seem to follow. I was hoping to find more clues for the mysterious disappearance of Mazzini than I found. It seems quite odd that the novelist didn't simply have him jump ship at the northern extremity of the voyage rather than bring him back to Spitzbergen. All-in-all, though this is a gripping novel and brought home the incredible endurance and steel nerves required of such expeditions before the age of comfortable icebreaking expedition ships, helicopters and snow-skidded aircraft.