An Arctic wind blew across my desk this morning, in the midst of our long, hot Central Oregon summer.
Somehow, The North Water, the novel and a new miniseries, had escaped my notice. Now, here it is — everywhere. And don’t it look like one helluva harrowing frontier tale?
Here’s the caper via Variety:
Based on the acclaimed novel by Ian McGuire, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and named a New York Times Book Review editors’ choice, the five-part series tells the story of Patrick Sumner, a disgraced ex-army surgeon who signs up as ship’s doctor on a whaling expedition to the Arctic. The ferocity of the elements, however, is matched by the violence of his crew mates, with Drax , a harpooner and a brutal force of nature. As the true purpose of the expedition becomes clear, confrontation between the two men erupts, taking them on a journey far from solid ground and beyond the safe moorings of civilization.
Sounds like real Heart of Darkness stuff — which is, of course, right in the Frontier Partisans wheelhouse.
Variety also notes:
Set in Hull and on the ice floes of the Arctic in the late 1850s, the series’ location work took place primarily in the Arctic, shooting on the frozen seas north of the Svalbard Archipelago. The cast and production team sailed as far as 81 degrees north to film sequences in the pack ice, one of the furthest points north a drama series has ever filmed before.
I’m a sucker for these arduous cinematic efforts — shades of The Revenant. It often translates in subliminal ways on the screen…
The North Water streams on AMC+ starting July 15.
Matthew says
Ever read Captain of the Polestar by Arthur Conan Doyle? It’s a ghost story set on an arctic whaler. Doyle had been a ships surgeon of whaler’s early in his career. Polestar is probably my favorite thing of his not involving Sherlock Holmes.
JimC says
Not familiar. Sounds interesting.
Matthew says
I think there is some audio versions on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+captain+of+the+polestar
I wrote about it on DMRbooks here
https://dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2020/7/2/sea-horror-part-one
JimC says
Nice piece. Thank you. I think I’ll give the ACD a whirl.
Matthew says
Arthur Conan Doyle was one of the great storytellers of an age of great storytellers. He wasn’t quite as much Frontier Partisans as his contemporaries Kipling and Haggard, but even then frontiers sometimes intruded on his fiction. The Sherlock Holmes stories usually were set in London or the English country sided but elements from the frontiers seem to seep into the stories. The first Holmes book A Study in Scarlet has a flashback to the Wild West as does the Valley of Fear. Imperial politics appear in other stories
deuce says
IMO, ‘Polestar’ probably exerted some influence on REH’s ‘THE Frost-Giant’s Daughter’. We know that Howard owned a Doyle collection containing that tale.
CodyL says
Looks like an good one
Fletcher A. Vredenburgh says
This sounds very cool
Norman+Andrews says
Any of you folks watched “The Terror” it’s based on the Franklin expedition to find the North West passage, with a bit of Inuit myth thrown in.
Norm.
JimC says
I really need to dig in on that. I love Ciaran Hinds.
Jerry Nunnally says
Wicked…
lane+batot says
Makes me think of “The White Dawn”, both the movie and the novel, based on a real incident when 3 whalers got stranded in the Arctic, and were rescued by the local Eskimos. A good lesson on the limitations of trying to be a good host……