The Birthday Boys

This extraordinary account of Captain Scott's tragically ill-fated expedition to the Antarctic, achieves the apparently impossible: Beryl Bainbridge's powers of expression and ability to evoke an emotion or perception with almost tangible force are displayed to a hitherto unseen degree. Deploying her extraordinary imagination to the task of recreating the inner lives and outer trials of Scott and his team, Bainbridge gives us a study in the nature and action of charisma and in the place of duty and aspiration in all our lives.