The Big Think

I’m sometimes ask people where they would go if they had a free ticket to anywhere in the world. Pick your destination and go, for a week, or a month, or a season. Where would it be? I get all kinds of answers- Europe, Russia, Hawaii. For me, the one place I would choose is Antarctica. Why? A couple reasons, really. It’s not on the way anywhere, so you’re never going to just stop off on a layover, there haven’t been that many people who have done it, but mainly because it’s just so different. Like a completely foreign planet. What must it feel like to be in a world that’s totally iced over year-round? Where a warm day is zero degrees? Where the windchill can get down to -100 fahrenheit? The alienness of that landscape fascinates me.

I picked up Kim Stanley Robinson’s Antarctica at the library last week and just finished it tonight. Like his Mars trilogy, Robinson uses the dramatic backdrop to weave a very literate and moving story of technocratic utopianism. Along the way, he delves into the history and mythos of Antarctica as well as, through one of his characters, a very zen-like appreciation of the austere and sere landscape. One of his main character is a mountaineer guide and I was impressed with how accurate he got not only the technical details of guiding, but also the emotional aspects of taking people out into the wild. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it made me want to go there even more.