Book Review
Chad Russ
English 3rd
Mrs. Ursery
Book Review
Lansing, Alfred. Endurance. New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 1959. Print.
The book Endurance is about the failure of the expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in its attempt to cross the Antarctic continent in 1914 and the struggle for survival endured by the twenty-eight man crew for almost two years. The book's title is actually the name of the ship Shackleton used for the expedition, the Endurance. The ship was being pushed together by two large massive floes (flat land masses of floating ice) and eventually crushed by ice floes in the Weddell Sea leaving the men stranded on the pack ice. In all the crew drifted on the ice for over a year. They were able to launch their boats and somehow managed to land them safely on Elephant Island which at that time had been used by local fishermen to store foods and good. They waited four to six months on the island waiting for a ship to pass by but none came so Shackleton then led a crew of five aboard the James Caird (a larger lifeboat) through the Drake Passage and reached South Georgia Island. He then took two of those men on the first successful overland crossing of the island. Three months later he was finally able to rescue the remaining crew members they had left behind on Elephant Island.
For my recommendation of the book I would give the book a seven out of ten. I give it a seven because at the beginning of the book it started out slow and a bit wordy when it came to the ships background but as the story progressed it became quite entertaining. It was also rewarded a seven because of the format of the book was weird in a sense because it was told through men’s diary recollections. For the book Endurance one reoccurring thing the story kept boiling down to was the thought of “even in the darkest of times you must ever give up hope, you must push on you must survive.” Thus there is a dual meaning to the title it’s not just the ships name
English 3rd
Mrs. Ursery
Book Review
Lansing, Alfred. Endurance. New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 1959. Print.
The book Endurance is about the failure of the expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in its attempt to cross the Antarctic continent in 1914 and the struggle for survival endured by the twenty-eight man crew for almost two years. The book's title is actually the name of the ship Shackleton used for the expedition, the Endurance. The ship was being pushed together by two large massive floes (flat land masses of floating ice) and eventually crushed by ice floes in the Weddell Sea leaving the men stranded on the pack ice. In all the crew drifted on the ice for over a year. They were able to launch their boats and somehow managed to land them safely on Elephant Island which at that time had been used by local fishermen to store foods and good. They waited four to six months on the island waiting for a ship to pass by but none came so Shackleton then led a crew of five aboard the James Caird (a larger lifeboat) through the Drake Passage and reached South Georgia Island. He then took two of those men on the first successful overland crossing of the island. Three months later he was finally able to rescue the remaining crew members they had left behind on Elephant Island.
For my recommendation of the book I would give the book a seven out of ten. I give it a seven because at the beginning of the book it started out slow and a bit wordy when it came to the ships background but as the story progressed it became quite entertaining. It was also rewarded a seven because of the format of the book was weird in a sense because it was told through men’s diary recollections. For the book Endurance one reoccurring thing the story kept boiling down to was the thought of “even in the darkest of times you must ever give up hope, you must push on you must survive.” Thus there is a dual meaning to the title it’s not just the ships name