 |
|
Title: North to the Night: A Spiritual Odyssey in the Arctic
ISBN: 076790446X
Author:
Alvah Simon
Publicate Date: 1999-09-14
Publish: 1999-09-14
List Price: $14.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
 |
|
|
|
|
Amazon Lowest New Price: $2.68
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.01
Amazon Merchant Price: $10.17
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Customer Review: |
|
1: Repulsive
Anyone who would consider this book is pre-loaded to enjoy a story of Arctic Adventure. So was I. And an adventure of sorts is reported in the book, but its reporter is (or at least comes across as) a sollipsist so complete that it is impossible to respect his voice, and so it is impossible to credit his story as an "adventure." Going to the Arctic and stranding himeslf in the ice (really, can we all agree that the best description for that action is "stupid"?) was nothing more than the selection of a dramatic backdrop against which to paint his self-portrait. This book served as confirmation for me that there is a class of persons in this country and world who are unable to contemplate the idea of their relative insignificance. I left this book with the impression that the author began with sense of Caesar-like self-importance and ended the same. The "spiritual" blather is half-baked slop from the School Of Oprahism. His wife's contribution (as carefully shown in the accompanying pictures) is to make sure that no one is unaware of her beautiful blond hair first, and her courage, second. She's every bit as self-laudatory as he is. Stipulated: these are brave and self-reliant people. They are also selfish, vapid people. Take a pass on this one unless you enjoy the company of such.
|
2: Brilliant Adventure, Excellent Story
We are, many of us, driven by something. We may not understand it, but still we answer its call. For Alvah Simon, it is the call to explore.
Fortunately for his fellow adventurers, Simon can write too. In the prologue, Simon describes one moment from the literal dark night of his journey.
"As the snow hurls, horizontally, my tracks fill and begin to fade. It is a race now, for even a slight deviation from my outward course will take me past the salvation of the boat and on into an eternal emptiness. My hands probe frantically. I think, 'Surely I have gone too far,' and the dread of death fills my stomach."
Simon, his wife Diana and his cat Halifax sail to the top of the world to endure a winter encased in ice. After arriving at the winter-over point, Diana is called away by a family emergency. A radio call to an Inuit village 100 miles away brings men on snowmobiles to take her from the ice leaving Simon and Halifax alone.
Few people spend a single night alone under the stars. Simon spends months alone in a place where the smallest mistake can kill you. Even greater than outer dangers, are the inner demons released in stillness.
In reading this book, I found myself trying to bridge the gap between my own experiences and Simon's. Yes, I've been cold, hungry, alone, and afraid. But Simon has battered the edges of possibility so profoundly that the gap simply cannot be fully bridged. Still, he brings us close.
From the beginning, his journey is risky. With only a tiny window of travel between break-up and freeze-up, Simon and his ship-mates race North. One early night, he is speeding along when two tankers who had been travelling with him fall behind and he feels a shadow of fear. Still, he charges ahead until:
"A chill and then a shape appeared out of the fog -- a wall of ice, granite-hard, bow-crushing, bone-breaking ice. I slammed the helm over, ran up to the bow, dropped the yankee, and reefed the main."
In the next port, Simon pours out his tale to a stranger who responds simply "He who knows nothing, fears nothing."
Many days later, and facing a mechanical problem, Simon attempts to dock at a remote U.S. military base and is turned away.
"As we sailed away, I sadly looked over my shoulder at the exact spot that Knud Rasmusssen and Peter Freuchen first called "Ultima Thule." The last unknown is no longer. With radars and radios and airplanes and rockets, they were defending freedom as they understand it. By pushing on north and out of this region entirely, I was defending freedom as I understood it."
The meat of the story, I leave to Simon. But I will tell you that in the end -- after enduring months of cold, darkness, solitude and fear -- Simon finds the freedom he defends in the fearsome being of a Polar bear.
"I took one more step. The bear grunted and rocked forward. I opened my arms, turning my palms to the heavens. ...the bear rose above me, a horrible mountain of fang and claw, crushing power, and lightning speed.
The moment hung in its own eternity. And then the bear spun around and slid away in great strides across the tundra. I stood stunned and faint, my soul indelibly embossed with the bear's message: "Here I give you back your life. It has been washed pure by your fear. Enjoy it deeply, learn from it daily, and use it wisely, for there is a purpose larger than yourself."
This is a brilliant adventure, beautifully told. Read it.
|
3: remarkable and unforgettable
Journey with Alvah as he sails for the Arctic and he will open his world to you as most do only with close friends. Share in his triumphs and struggles through his year in the Arctic. And more than just the physical adventure of a lifetime, Alvah shares the spiritual dimensions of being utterly alone in the most inhospitable of environments, completely engulfed by a harsh and wondrous Artic wilderness. This is a remarkable and unforgettable tale.
|
4: Adventure in the Arctic
If you like an exciting adventure that you don't want to end and if you enjoy the style of writing that makes you feel you're actually there experiencing what the writer is going through you'll enjoy this book. To gain an understanding of some of the native peoples of the frozen Arctic wilderness and this unique place on earth read this book!
|
5: Unbridled narcissism in an arctic setting. ?Spiritual?
I could not agree more with every word of Isha Beharim's review. My first impression at the beginning of the book was of the author's extreme self absorbtion, and the impression never left me, and the self absorbtion never left the author either, despite whatever "spiritual" experience he may have had. The book, by the way, never comes within a country mile of anything even remotely spiritual, and I think perhaps the word was used in the sub-title only to improve sales, although, who knows, maybe sadly this sort of stuff passes for spirituality for this guy.
The book was only interesting as the most extreme example of this sort of narcissist-meets-survival writing, which seems all the rage these days, and which also seems increasingly boring to me. I believe this book has cured me of my interest in this entire genre, and for that I suppose I owe a debt of gratitude.
|
|
|
|
|
