Barber's Pole
THERE used to be a type of book, much in vogue
in the great days of Victorian explcration, whose title-page presented the unvarying form : 'With — to —.' Mr. Noel Barber's book on the recent Transantarctic expedition might have been
called 'With Fuchs to the Pole,' and I imagine it would have been, but for the inconvenient fact that its author, instead of accompanying the expedition, flew to the South Pole and waited for it there at the prefabricated, electrically heated American base. Mr. Barber is apparently con- scious of this deficiency. From the moment that he got himself accredited to the American forces in the Antarctic CI knew that I would receive my orders, for I was a firm' friend of many high- ranking officers') to the moment when he planted a Union Jack at the South Pole ell has never been taken down to this day'), his narrative abounds in bashful lifemanship. 'It is not that I wish to claim undue credit for an air joUrney to the Pole.. . ."I do not know how great ex- plorers feel at moments like this. . . ."Not for me the laurels that await the conquering hero.' So often does he repeat that he is no hero that there might seem to be some danger of his actually being believed, but there is no need to worry. Each dose of self-depreciation is imme- diately followed by a shot of boost for Barber, and the reader of this book will not be in any danger of underestimating the part played by the British popular press in conquering the great white wilderness.
On the jacket of this book Mr. Barber is said to be 'above all . . . a writer,' but, though he has assembled a considerable collection of facts about Fuchs, Hillary and Antarctica, his style neither conveys them particularly, vividly nor avoids platitude. 'Pitiless wastes,' man's passion for the While South,"ama.7.ing powers of en- durance'—this is the language of the sub-editor. As description it does strictly nothing. If it is true, as the blurb says, that 'the author of The White Desert has earned for himself a reputation unique in British Journalism,' then it is a poor look-out for British journalism. But I did not need to read Mr. Berber to draw that particular conclusion.
ANTHONY HARTLEY
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