Erebus tells the story of the eponymous ship, part of the British Imperial navy at the height of its power. Though it was originally meant for combat, it was used for exploration – polar exploration, to be precise. It was first sailed to the south pole by James Clark Ross, with its sister ship HMS Terror, for a very successful exploration: geographical landmarks still bear their names (Mount Terror and Mount Erebus). However, the ships’ glory came to an abrupt halt several years later in the Arctic, during the disastrous Franklin Expedition, a quest to find the northwest passage that ended in the loss of life of all crew members as well as both ships.
It’s ironic that the British Empire was so entirely unacquainted with the concept of hubris that they named their ships Terror and Erebus – the personification of darkness and the underworld in Greek mythology – only to have them vanish into the unknown in a way that must have been hell for those they took with them. One idly wonders if the expeditions would have been this disastrous if the ships had been named HMS Sunshine and Buttercup. Well, they probably would; the Franklin expedition, ostensibly very well prepared, was doomed to fail from the start in ways that would only become clear later.
Earlier this year I read two books at the same time: Dan Simmons’ The Terror and Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time, both of which deal with the Lost Franklin Expedition (albeit in very different ways), though I didn’t know it when I picked them up (a decidedly trippy experience). This led me to a new micro-obsession about the fated expedition, and Palin’s book is a fairly accessible addition to the collection. Palin is an experienced travel writer with an eye for what makes a good anecdote without losing sight of the central narrative. It’s not a particularly in-depth narrative, but it is very entertaining. Palin also manages to portray the main characters in a nuanced way: he isn’t blind to their flaws, whether personal or because they came from a different time period, but the reader senses that he respects them nonetheless.
It’s also very funny in places, as one would expect from a Python. Palin tells the story of being on a ship bound for the Arctic himself. The women who come to do his laundry have heard he’s a famous movie star, but he doesn’t dare tell them his last role was as Stalin’s lieutenant Molotov. At other times, he’s more pensive, though he never strays into the maudlin or the melancholic. In that way, it’s very British, and the admiralty would have been proud of him. I listened to the audiobook, read by Palin himself, and it is delightful; Palin is an engaged narrator who clearly enjoys the subject matter.
If you’re well versed in this subject, the book might not have a lot of additional information to offer, but if you’re interested in Victorian polar exploration, then this is a good starting point.