Endurance

Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

By: Alfred Lansing

Narrated by: Simon Prebble

This is a new reading of the thrilling account of one of the most astonishing feats of exploration and human courage ever recorded.

In August of 1914, the British ship Endurance set sail for the South Atlantic. In October 1915, still half a continent away from its intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in the ice. For five months, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men, drifting on ice packs, were castaways in one of the most savage regions of the world.

Lansing describes how the men survived a 1,000-mile voyage in an open boat across the stormiest ocean on the globe and an overland trek through forbidding glaciers and mountains. The book recounts a harrowing adventure, but ultimately it is the nobility of these men and their indefatigable will that shines through.

©1959 Alfred Lansing (P)2007 Blackstone Audo, Inc.

Critic reviews

Nominee, 2008 Audie Award, Nonfiction, Unabridged

"[O]ne of the most extraordinary tales of heroism and determination in the history of exploration.... Prebble's narration will bring to life the despair, elation, and sheer will of these men to survive, and to triumph, together." (AudioFile)

Superb in so many ways

This is unquestionably the most amazing tale of men against the elements that I have ever read or heard, and it is told remarkably well by Lansing who draws artfully from the actual diary entries of the participants without ever reducing the narrative to a dry progression of quotes. His ability to bring the harrowing conditions and landscape, the fascinating array of characters, and the grueling sequence of challenges and hairsbreadth escapes into sharp and riveting focus is quite extraordinary. Simon Prebble is a perfect match for the fine writing. He audibly sorts out the personalities involved and presents the whole with an understated but charged clarity which keeps the narrative moving even through what could seem like a never ending and tedious progression of disasters in the voice of a lesser reader.

Of course the real stars here are Shackleton and the men under his command who prove themselves capable of feats of courage, endurance and simple, stubborn determination which almost surpass belief. Ordinary and flawed in so many ways, they come together to become much more than the sum of their individual qualities.

In the end, the most fascinating part of this story is the long and torturous series of life and death choices involved. Time after time Shackleton's decisions are crucial to the party's survival, whether the question is when to abandon the pack ice for the boats, when to kill the dogs, when to allow the party to split, or how to get to the bottom of a nearly vertical snowbound precipice in order to avoid freezing at high altitude (think Butch Cassidy and Sundance). Nature is an implacable adversary for these men, marshaling countless terrifying storms, thirst, cold, hunger, completely unpredictable ice and long weeks of winter darkness against them and time after time crushing hope just as it seems most justified. Perhaps the most extraordinary decision of all, under the circumstances, was the choice each of them made to simply keep on keeping on when it seemed to make no sense

Finally, while this tale is exhausting in some ways, it is also deeply inspiring and satisfying. And Lansing and Prebble have given us the wonderful opportunity to "experience" it all while sitting in comfort and safety. Almost doesn't seem fair, but I strongly urge you to take advantage of the offer.

We had reached the naked soul of man

Before satellites. Before GPS. Before computers. And most importantly, before radio. Well, Guglielmo Marconi won the Nobel Prize in 1909, but his discovery/invention were still novelties in 1914, the year Ernest Shackleton and 27 men and some 60-odd dogs sailed off on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The adventure lasted far longer than anyone planned.

Alfred Lansing's "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" (1959) is the meticulously researched and detailed story of that expedition. Lansing used diaries, ship's logs, and interviews to reconstruct the journey. Clichés like "ill-fated" and "cursed" were created for this particular trip. What amazed me was the skill and ingenuity of the sailors, especially Navigator/Captain Frank Worsley. In the later part of the journey, Worsley used a chronometer and sextant to plot locations, making his calculations when the sun broke through frequent storms.

I like books about adventures at sea, but reading the text, I get bogged down and twisted in the details and give up. I had that problem with Sebastian Junger's "The Perfect Storm" (1997) - I got the trade paperback, read a few chapters, tried to calculate wind speed and wave heights myself instead of reading on, and gave up. "Endurance" would have been worse for me - I would have puzzled over longitudes and latitudes, trying to remember how minutes and seconds worked for global positioning, and lost a thrilling story.

I liked Simon Prebble as narrator of "Endurance." He did a good job with multiple characters.

The title of the review is a quote by Shackleton.

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No Fiction can match it.

Great Story, on a great man.
Any fiction story who would try to match it would be so unreliable.
Strongly recommended

Exciting tale of survival (and narcissism)

This is an amazing tale of survival. It is riveting and, at points, agonizing. What's amazing is that it's a work of non-fiction. Truth is more fascinating than fiction at times because as Mark Twain is quoted as saying, unlike fiction, truth doesn't have to stick with what's possible.

One interesting aspect of this story is how Shackleton, who the author calls a probable egomaniac and who we might say had a serous dose of narcissistic personality disorder, really cared about his men. Maybe he did so for selfish reasons, but I'd prefer to think he did so for the right reasons.

Also interesting was how many of these gents were early proponents of relentlessly positive thinking. I have my doubts about this approach, but there's no doubt that it helped these men do as well as they did.

Epic, Exhausting, and Euphoric!

Omg, what an epic journey! By the end, I felt as if I had gone through an ordeal myself. Indeed, you feel as if you are right there alongside Shackleton and his men. Every failure they face is a disappointment in your heart, every success; an exuberant rush. Then, when you are thankful that it is about over... Swoosh! the rollercoaster speeds Up, over another hill, and you're off again! Finally, FINALLY at the end, having become so deeply invested in their plight, you are mentally and emotionally spent.
Great story telling, noteworthy narrator. A+