Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica

by Tom Griffiths

Overview

From Scott and Shackleton to sled dogs and penguins, stories of Antarctica seize our imagination. In December 2002, environmental historian Tom Griffiths set sail with the Australian Antarctic Division to deliver the new team of winterers. In this beautifully written book, Griffiths reflects on the history of human experiences in Antarctica, taking the reader on a journey of discovery, exploration, and adventure in an unforgettable land.

He weaves together meditations on shipboard life during his three-week voyage with fascinating forays into the history and nature of Antarctica. He brings alive the great age of sail in the initiation of travelers to the great winds of the “roaring forties.” No continent is more ruled by wind, and Griffiths explains why Antarctica is a barometer of global climatic health. He charts the race to the South Pole, from its inception as part of the drive to map Earth’s magnetism, to the reasons for Robert Scott’s tragic death. He also offers vivid descriptions of life in Antarctica, such as the experience of a polar night, the importance of food for morale, and coping with solitude.

A charming narrative and an informative history, Slicing the Silence is an intimate portrait of the last true wilderness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674034709
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	03/30/2010
Pages:	408
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Tom Griffiths teaches history and the environment at the Australian National University in Canberra and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

Table of Contents

• Prologue
• 18 December: The Fire on the Snow
  Legends of the heroic era
• 19 December: The Breath of Antarctica
  The Brave West Winds
• 21 December: The University of the Southern Ocean
  Life at Sea
• 23 December: Great South Lands
  Reading the Rocks
• 24 December: Heavenly Bodies
  Space Weather
• 25 December: Planting Flags
  Claiming the Ice
• 26 December: Cold Peace
  Reds Down Under
• 27 December: Wintering
  Surviving the Polar Night
• 28 December: Solitude
  An Experiment in Loneliness
• 29 December: Honeymoon on Ice
  Love in a cold climate
• 30 December: Of Huddles and Pebbles
  Life Among the Penguins
• 31 December: The Changeover
  Time, History and Generations
• 1 January: Green Crusaders
  Greenpeace and Greenhouse
• 3 January: Feeding Body and Soul
  Hunger and Wonder
• 6 January: Captain Scott's Biscuit
  The Archaeology of Return
• 7 and 8 January
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index

Editorial Reviews

In 2002 Griffiths, an environmental historian, accompanied a team of researchers to Antarctica. He writes about the romance of ocean exploration, the expeditions of Scott and Shackleton, but also about how high winds make that continent an indicator of global climate health.

Los Angeles Times Book Review - Susan Salter Reynolds

Griffiths is an Australian environmental historian who weaves the story of his visit [to Antarctica] supplying a scientific research station with a good deal of history and science. He writes with insight about the past and probable future as seen from the front lines of the global-warming crisis.

Seven Oaks - George Fetherling

Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica is a many-layered, sophisticated narrative, not only of the Antarctic, but our relationship with it.

Globe and Mail - Jean McNeil

This is an extraordinary book, as notable as that of Griffiths’s antipodal fellow traveler Barry Lopez (whose 1986 best seller, Arctic Dreams, won a National Book Award). Griffiths turns otherwise humdrum shipboard jottings into starting points for inspired ruminations on the meaning of the Antarctic experience. Although he has never ventured into the interior, he seems to have read virtually everything published on the discovery, exploration, and exploitation of the southern continent, along with a host of unpublished diaries and station logs. Best of all, he relates what he has learned in prose that is both thoughtful and luminous… Few of us will ever visit Antarctica, even though cruise ships now bring several tens of thousands of high-rolling tourists to its coasts each year. Readers, I am sure, will come away from this book agreed that fewer is better, because Griffiths makes it clear just how special this land is, and, for all its ruggedness, how fragile. Better to leave Antarctic travels to a select few scientists, adventurers, and support staff. And, from time to time—for those of us who stay at home—eloquent writers like Tom Griffiths.

Natural History - Laurence A. Marschall

As the climate changes and polar ice caps shrink dramatically, author and environmental historian Griffiths provides essential background for understanding how we reached the current state of meltdown... Engrossing and highly satisfying... A fine and informative ecological adventure, Griffiths' history is worth reading and re-reading.-- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)" (10/8/2007 12:00:00 AM)

This is an extraordinary book, as notable as that of Griffiths's antipodal fellow traveler Barry Lopez (whose 1986 best seller, Arctic Dreams, won a National Book Award). Griffiths turns otherwise humdrum shipboard jottings into starting points for inspired ruminations on the meaning of the Antarctic experience. Although he has never ventured into the interior, he seems to have read virtually everything published on the discovery, exploration, and exploitation of the southern continent, along with a host of unpublished diaries and station logs. Best of all, he relates what he has learned in prose that is both thoughtful and luminous... Few of us will ever visit Antarctica, even though cruise ships now bring several tens of thousands of high-rolling tourists to its coasts each year. Readers, I am sure, will come away from this book agreed that fewer is better, because Griffiths makes it clear just how special this land is, and, for all its ruggedness, how fragile. Better to leave Antarctic travels to a select few scientists, adventurers, and support staff. And, from time to time--for those of us who stay at home--eloquent writers like Tom Griffiths.--Laurence A. Marschall "Natural History" (4/1/2008 12:00:00 AM)

Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica is a many-layered, sophisticated narrative, not only of the Antarctic, but our relationship with it.--Jean McNeil "Globe and Mail" (11/3/2007 12:00:00 AM)

Griffiths is an Australian environmental historian who weaves the story of his visit [to Antarctica] supplying a scientific research station with a good deal of history and science. He writes with insight about the past and probable future as seen from the front lines of the global-warming crisis.--George Fetherling "Seven Oaks" (12/12/2007 12:00:00 AM)

In 2002 Griffiths, an environmental historian, accompanied a team of researchers to Antarctica. He writes about the romance of ocean exploration, the expeditions of Scott and Shackleton, but also about how high winds make that continent an indicator of global climate health.--Susan Salter Reynolds "Los Angeles Times Book Review" (9/30/2007 12:00:00 AM)

From the Publisher

Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica is a many-layered, sophisticated narrative, not only of the Antarctic, but our relationship with it.
— Jean McNeil

Globe and Mail

Griffiths is an Australian environmental historian who weaves the story of his visit [to Antarctica] supplying a scientific research station with a good deal of history and science. He writes with insight about the past and probable future as seen from the front lines of the global-warming crisis.
— George Fetherling

Seven Oaks

This is an extraordinary book, as notable as that of Griffiths's antipodal fellow traveler Barry Lopez (whose 1986 best seller, Arctic Dreams, won a National Book Award). Griffiths turns otherwise humdrum shipboard jottings into starting points for inspired ruminations on the meaning of the Antarctic experience. Although he has never ventured into the interior, he seems to have read virtually everything published on the discovery, exploration, and exploitation of the southern continent, along with a host of unpublished diaries and station logs. Best of all, he relates what he has learned in prose that is both thoughtful and luminous...Few of us will ever visit Antarctica, even though cruise ships now bring several tens of thousands of high-rolling tourists to its coasts each year. Readers, I am sure, will come away from this book agreed that fewer is better, because Griffiths makes it clear just how special this land is, and, for all its ruggedness, how fragile. Better to leave Antarctic travels to a select few scientists, adventurers, and support staff. And, from time to time—for those of us who stay at home—eloquent writers like Tom Griffiths.
— Laurence A. Marschall

Natural History

In 2002 Griffiths, an environmental historian, accompanied a team of researchers to Antarctica. He writes about the romance of ocean exploration, the expeditions of Scott and Shackleton, but also about how high winds make that continent an indicator of global climate health.
— Susan Salter Reynolds

Los Angeles Times Book Review

As the climate changes and polar ice caps shrink dramatically, author and environmental historian Griffiths (Forests of Ash) provides essential background for understanding how we reached the current state of meltdown. Griffiths weaves journal entries from his own voyage to Australia's Antarctic stations in 2002-2003 with extended chapters on the history of human exploration in Antarctica. His description and analysis of the polar experience is clear and comprehensive: he knows the rough seas, the storms, the desolation, the strange lack of green, the physical disruption of body rhythms and the psychological distress, and makes vivid use of that knowledge in his accounts of past explorers (Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, Douglas Mawson, Richard Byrd and many others). As an Australian, Griffiths looks European colonial misdeeds head-on, but he also analyzes forthrightly the Australian government's claims on and behavior toward Antarctica. A jumpy style can be difficult to follow at first, but soon Griffiths's many angles of pursuit-the effects of solitude, the experience of overwintering, the struggle for survival, the biology and behavior of penguins, etc.-come together in an engrossing and highly satisfying pastiche. A fine and informative ecological adventure, Griffiths' history is worth reading and rereading. (Oct.)

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