Sara Wheeler
Autore di Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica
Sull'Autore
Sara Wheeler is the author of many books of biography and travel, including Access All Areas; Selected Writings 1990-2011 (North Point Press. 2013) and Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile. Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica was an international bestseller that The New York Times mostra altro described as "gripping, emotional" and "compelling," and The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle (FSG, 2011) was chosen as Book of the Year by Michael Palin and Will Self, among others, Wheeler lives in London. mostra meno
Opere di Sara Wheeler
Too Close to the Sun: The Audacious Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton (2006) 211 copie, 8 recensioni
Cherry 2 copie
Opere correlate
The Ends of the Earth: An Anthology of the Finest Writing on the Arctic and the Antarctic (2007) — Collaboratore — 126 copie, 7 recensioni
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 1961-03-20
- Sesso
- female
- Nazionalità
- UK
- Luogo di nascita
- Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, UK
- Luogo di residenza
- Hampstead, London, England, UK
- Istruzione
- University of Oxford (Brasenose College)
- Premi e riconoscimenti
- Fellow, Royal Society of Literature
Utenti
Recensioni
Mud and Stars: Travels in Russia with Pushkin,… di Sara Wheeler
Meandering
In this biography, a survivor of Robert Scott's ill-fated 1910 polar expedition tries to grapple with a modern England.
I gather that the author became interested in this story after writing her Antarctica travelogue. I love the prior book, but this biography is not good. Wheeler is weirdly in love with her subject, eager to make apologies for him. ("The tension between competing demands and responsibilities, combined with a highly strung disposition, was a heavy burden for a young man. No wonder he got a third-class degree.") Her evaluation of his one book seems...overly generous: it was "a superlative piece of art that vaults above the human experience which gave it form." Also, she's apparently oblivious to how the historical record works. She makes a great deal about the amount of ink that Cherry-Garrad spills on his book deals and interprets this as a sign of his obsessive, neurotic fixation on the failed polar expedition -- which seems likely, but also, you know, letters about royalties to publishers is the kind of financial record that tends to survive. No historian worth her salt is going to see this particular documentary strata and think that their survival indicates anything about their biographical importance (beyond a possible plaintiff and a possible defendant keeping records in case of a possible lawsuit).
Also, the author is curiously...incurious about Cherry's patterns of human attachment. She blandly documents his passionately warm attachments to men, many of whom will later turn out to be either gay or into non-mainstream sexual practices. ("[T. H.] Lawrence suggested, 'If our sexes had been different (one of us, I mean) we could have pulled of a eugenicist's dream.'") Instead, Wheeler dutifully catalogs what information she has about his many girlfriends -- who never seem to have names or much in the way of documented existences, and who are treated with great ambivalence by Cherry-Garrad. ("In middle-age Cherry said he was afraid of women. He once told Lillie that a happy married life was impossible for him...") His eventual marriage, to a woman a generation younger than he, is presented by Wheeler as a happy union (and seems to be based on oral interviews with his surviving widow) but objectively seems less than satisfying. ("The irony was that the peaceful relief of his happy marriage allowed his anxieties to take hold.")… (altro)
I gather that the author became interested in this story after writing her Antarctica travelogue. I love the prior book, but this biography is not good. Wheeler is weirdly in love with her subject, eager to make apologies for him. ("The tension between competing demands and responsibilities, combined with a highly strung disposition, was a heavy burden for a young man. No wonder he got a third-class degree.") Her evaluation of his one book seems...overly generous: it was "a superlative piece of art that vaults above the human experience which gave it form." Also, she's apparently oblivious to how the historical record works. She makes a great deal about the amount of ink that Cherry-Garrad spills on his book deals and interprets this as a sign of his obsessive, neurotic fixation on the failed polar expedition -- which seems likely, but also, you know, letters about royalties to publishers is the kind of financial record that tends to survive. No historian worth her salt is going to see this particular documentary strata and think that their survival indicates anything about their biographical importance (beyond a possible plaintiff and a possible defendant keeping records in case of a possible lawsuit).
Also, the author is curiously...incurious about Cherry's patterns of human attachment. She blandly documents his passionately warm attachments to men, many of whom will later turn out to be either gay or into non-mainstream sexual practices. ("[T. H.] Lawrence suggested, 'If our sexes had been different (one of us, I mean) we could have pulled of a eugenicist's dream.'") Instead, Wheeler dutifully catalogs what information she has about his many girlfriends -- who never seem to have names or much in the way of documented existences, and who are treated with great ambivalence by Cherry-Garrad. ("In middle-age Cherry said he was afraid of women. He once told Lillie that a happy married life was impossible for him...") His eventual marriage, to a woman a generation younger than he, is presented by Wheeler as a happy union (and seems to be based on oral interviews with his surviving widow) but objectively seems less than satisfying. ("The irony was that the peaceful relief of his happy marriage allowed his anxieties to take hold.")… (altro)
Sara Wheeler is an English travel writer who was chosen by US National Science Foundation as their first female writer-in-residence at the South Pole, and she spent seven months in Antarctica. She wrote both an adult and children's book about her experiences. This book, Dear Daniel: Letters from Antarctica in the UK and Greetings from Antarctica in the US, is set up as a series of letters to her nephew, Daniel. But the majority of the book is boxes of information about Antarctica and life in McMurdo Station. Although the letters are written simply, the rest of the text is more complex and detailed. The pages are crowded with photographs that the author took on her trip. The book is a way to make the information more accessible to children, and could be used with multi-aged groups by reading either the letters or text.… (altro)
I will be traveling in Chile next week and I wanted to have a good, on the ground resource for my travels. This certainly did the job. I really like how she included maps of where she was traveling and moving through the country from north to south. All aspects of the country seem to be covered, the history, the culture, the languages, the economy and commerce and education, including the spiritual and religious influences. Sara is a masterful travel writer. I plan to read all of her writings.
Liste
Premi e riconoscimenti
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Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 15
- Opere correlate
- 6
- Utenti
- 1,687
- Popolarità
- #15,242
- Voto
- 3.9
- Recensioni
- 46
- ISBN
- 85
- Lingue
- 6
- Preferito da
- 2