Race for the South Pole

The Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen

By: Roland Huntford

Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot

Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

For the first time ever Roland Huntford presents each man's account of the race to the South Pole in their own words. In 1910, Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen set sail for Antarctica, each from his own starting point, and the epic race for the South Pole was on. 2010 marks the centenary of the last great race of terrestrial discovery. For the first time Scott's unedited diary entries run alongside those of Amundsen and Bjaaland, never before translated into English. Cutting through the welter of controversy, with the polar journey at the heart of the story Huntford weaves a narrative from the protagonists' explanations of their own fate. What emerges is a whole new understanding of what really happened on the ice.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2010 Roland Huntford (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Great account, might be better in hard copy

I really enjoyed this book. The bulk of the book is a day-by-day reading of the two Norwegian and one British expedition diaries with author commentary at the beginning, end, and interspersed in the middle. It's a great historical account of the expeditions, it was meaningful to hear it told straight from the diaries, it was interesting to compare the very different experiences day-by-day, and the author provides insightful commentary.

The author's commentary seems well-reasoned and researched. He is unapologetic in his scathing critiques of Scott, seemingly in reaction to other works that attribute Scott's disaster more to luck that poor planning, execution, and leadership. I'm not familiar with the other works, but the author makes a strong case.

The narrator put a lot of effort into accents for the different authors and injecting emotion into his diary narration. I found the different accents very helpful as a cue to know which diary/writer I was hearing, but I thought he got a little overly dramatic with the emotions.

I would recommend considering reading this book in hard copy rather than as an audiobook. Because it rotates through three diaries and commentary day-by-day, I would've found it very helpful to be able: to flip back and forth between diaries/commentary within each day to compare; refer back to prior days' entries since the rotation between writers broke the continuity of each narrative and since the expeditions were at comparable locations weeks apart; and to follow along with the routes on the maps (available in the supplementary PDF). As an audiobook or even an e-book it's much harder to jump around to compare passages than in a hard copy.

Excellent!!

Narration and story are a delight to listen to. Cannot recommend this book enough.

Full of lessons to be applied in ones own journey

Exceeded expectations.
Bronson Pinchot brings life to the story.
Full of lessons everybody in business and elsewhere should take note of.

A More Clear Picture

The readings of the daily journals in parallel allows a stark view of the dual, dueling expeditions. this will be hard to forget. The dramatacized characterization and accented voices for each party was a distraction. I believe also that there was some dramatic license influencing certain inflection or emphases. Ultimately, the epicness of the overall story is what lingers.

Great Book Horrible Naration

I will never listen to another book narrated by Bronson Pinchot. He ruined it. He got lost on the accents, sometimes sounding like an Indian gas station owner instead of a Norwegian. And He should just read the book and not try to make a radio drama out of it. He added his own interpretation and conclusions thru his inflections - which is totally inappropriate. Oh and the 13-year old girl voice? I don’t know why he felt it necessary to apply accents. Just READ the book. He should apologize to Roland Huntford who wrote a great book. I am surprised Audibles let this go out like this.

Incredible book!

This story embodies so much about leadership, organization and the human/animal will. Couldn’t recommend more for anyone who wants to glean immense wisdom for extremely cold conditions.

Spellbinding

I loved this book. The back and forth between the two expeditions was most interesting. It held my attention as though by magic!

Epic story

The book mainly consists of the diaries of Scott, Amundsen and Bjaaland (Norway’s champion skier) with introduction, epilogue and brief interspersed commentary by the author in between. The diary entries run parallel with each other, so you can see what each team is doing day by day and compare them for yourself. You might think this would be tedious, but I found it fascinating and didn’t want to stop listening til the end. The narrator did a fantastic job. I loved the way he did the accents so you could always tell who was speaking. The writing was indicative of the approach of the 2 teams: the Norwegians were light, to the point and generally good humored. Scott was more pompous and bland, blaming others and the weather for his bad “luck” even from the beginning.
Summer and relatively good weather in Antarctica don’t last very long. I was astounded at how long it took Scott to get his depots set up, eating into the short summer when he should have been on his way. Of course he was dealing with a chaos of dog sleds, ponies and motorized vehicles which proved ineffective. I’m not sure I would blame him for trying. You don’t know til you try something. But the ponies and vehicles were untried and dogs had a proven track record. Learning to handle them and learning how to ski effectively are best done in places other than Antarctica. You don’t walk into an exam room and expect to study when it’s time to take the test. Polar regions don’t give you much margin for error. Scott’s final entries are especially painful to hear. Another thing was, that he kept comparing his progress to that of Shackleton. He was usually behind Shackleton, but I kept thinking that Shackleton hadn’t gotten to the South Pole. I think he would have wanted to be ahead of Shackleton to give himself a better chance.
This book is imperative for anyone interested in polar exploration. I would highly recommend it! Excellent true account and excellent narration.

Lengthy and hard to follow

I did not enjoy this one. It was hard to follow. Would have preferred more author narration.

Great work; literary and historical!

This was such a lovely read, sitting by the fireplace in Vermont in January. Just what I needed.

Awful annunciation.

Flipping from and English gentleman to a Norwegian can’t be easy but this attempt is poor. Scott, at times sounds German. Just read the diaries in the same order but without treating us like idiots not able to remember who you are quoting.

Ruined it for me and I almost deleted it but never one to give up, I cracked on through, like a true explorer desperate for it to end.

I would still recommend it if you can suffer ‘Carry On’ style impressions

A tale of sadness

Amundsen got to the South Pole first because he and his comrades were professional in every way. Scott died because he was a product of an Empire which taught professional was a dirty word. Hopefully in our time Brexit does not spawn that.

Wow wow wow

Absolutely loved the book most memorable moment when Scott died so so sad my hero

fascinating examination of th Great British psyche

I nearly didn't get past the first chapter as a result of the slightly cringe accents but I persisted and once I got used to the performance I was hooked. Absolutely fascinating to hear the whole truth of the expeditions side by side. This is the first time I've heard the unvarnished truth of Scott's failings. I find it so enlightening to note how the explorers and "heroes" of the 19th a early 20th century have influenced the British psyche even to this day. Definitely worth listening right through to the end, don't miss the Epilogue.

one for animal lovers

Great listening, great narrator but terrible production. would highly recommend it though, give it a go

More than just the diaries...

The diaries are presented in their original forms but there are also the authors comments on such... and Scott fans beware. The analysis is by no means unbiased and at times, scathing. Very interesting to have the diaries side by side though and I enjoyed listening.