The Bookshelf

ADMIRAL BYRD is the only person in the world who could have written a book like "Alone," and it is greatly to his credit and to the friends who persuaded him that he finally decided after four years of indecision to write this unbelievable record of his struggles with the bitterest elements, alone for five months at an advance base in the Antarctic. It is not so much from the man or from his writing but rather from what the man did that the book derives its greatness. Although the author's style and ideas are more sincere than brilliant, the immenseness of the story crowds its way through on every line, terrible and real.

Advance Base was originally intended to be occupied by three men not one; all the confusion that has arisen over the cause of the self-imposed isolation Admiral Byrd clears up in the first chapter. The reasons were both scientific and personal, and though they do not seem adequate considering the obvious risks involved, the more important fact remains that Byrd decided to go and go alone, Thanks to a diary, a detailed record of the events was preserved. Scientifically, important readings of temperature, barometer, wind directions and velocities were made, Personally, the story was told of a man face to face with the universe:

"As the notes (of the victrola) swelled, the dull aurora on the horizon pulsed and quickened and draped itself into arches and fanning beams which reached across the sky until at my zenith the display attained its crescendo. The music and the night became one; and I told myself that all beauty was akin and sprang from the same substance."

"There was the sense of identification with vast movements: the premonition of destiny that is implicit in every man; and the sense of waiting for the momentary revelation."

These are the thoughts of an adventurer. They are the thoughts that were so powerful that anyone in the world living in that vast cold would see them clearly and unmistakably.

How close to death Byrd came when struck down by carbon monoxide, is shown by the point that if he had fallen on the table where he was sitting instead of on the floor, the cool clean air would never have reached his poisoned lungs. Then came his fight with fumes and cold. Cold of eighty below zero which he must endure or else run the risk of the deadly smoke from the stove. Yet he never told Little America of his plight for fear they might lose their lives trying to save him during the winter storms.

There are minor faults to the book. At times the continuity is ragged, often the prose is heavy, but underneath the story remains, so powerful that all it needs is a truthful description. Admiral Byrd is absolutely truthful.