The Solitude of Thomas Cave

by Georgina Harding

Book Overview

In 1616, as the last warm days dwindle in the north Atlantic, the men on an English whaling ship prepare to head back toward home. But there is one exception among them: the quiet, headstrong Thomas... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1596912723
• ISBN13: 9781596912724
• Release Date: February 2007
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.7" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Somewhat enjoyable

I did enjoy this book, but it was dry at times, and the character's modern views at the end nearly ruined it for me. The book is based on a bit of historical hearsay presented by an Icelandic writer who visited Spitsbergen in 1619. In a talk with English whalers he was told how a few years ago an Englishman had wagered to stay the entire winter in Fairhaven (modern Scheibukta, on the southern side of Smeerenburg fjord), and survived. The English claimed this had occurred in 1616-17. From this historical hearsay Harding wrote her book. She keeps the date, but moves the wintering from the northwest coast of Spitsbergen to Duke's Cove, on the west coast of Edge Island. The English had only come across the island in 1616, so it is strange to place the wintering here. Also, no Hull ship had visited the island at such an early date. Yes, it is historical fiction, but I find such changes annoying. She apparently did some research into bay whaling in Svalbard in the first half of the seventeenth century, but not enough. She has Thomas Goodlard, one of the main characters, telling Cave that the Dutch had built a settlement on the main island called Smeerenburg, where thousands of men spent their summers. The myth of Smeerenburg would not have existed so early on. The settlment probably hadn't even been named yet. To the English and everyone else it would have just been another whaling settlement, and one in the low hundreds (the myth of thousands of workers was created years' later). Harding must have not known of the archaeoglogical investgations in 1979-81 that had proven the size of Smeerenburg. Also, Smeerenburg was built on Amsterdam Island, a tiny island lying off Spitsbergen's northwest coast; not on the main island itself. This could have been the character's error, but looks more like the author's instead.

The Solitude of Thomas Cave

The Solitude of Thomas Cave is non-fiction author, Georgina Harding's first foray into fiction. It is set in the summer of 1616, on a whaling ship off the Island of Svalbard in the North Atlantic. The crew argues whether a man could survive the winter alone in the arctic wilderness. One sailor, Thomas Cave, insists that he could survive. His shipmates promptly bet £100 that he won't. Cave accepts the wager. His shipmates leave Cave on the treeless, uninhabited island, promising to return for him the following year. Cave initially thrives in his frozen Eden, rising to the challenge of wilderness survival. However, after ingesting toxic polar bear liver, Cave becomes ill and falls into a coma. When he regains consciousness, his pregnant wife is with him. At first, he welcomes the hallucination, chatting amiably with his phantom mate. When she disappears, he longs for her return. With each successive hallucination, Cave becomes more anxious and disturbed. Soon his phantom infant son starts appearing as well, so lifelike Cave can feel the warmth of his body. The first two-thirds of the novel concern Cave's efforts to survive the arctic winter and the mind-bending loneliness he experiences. This portion of the book is written in the third person, as if the reader is an undetected presence observing all that Cave goes through. Enough of Cave's past is revealed to explain why an intelligent, resourceful man such as Cave might agree to such a foolhardy wager. This portion of the book is written very beautifully and convincingly. If I were to rate the book based upon this first section alone, it would merit an unqualified five stars. There is a sharp break in the story two-thirds of the way through. The final third of the novel concerns the aftermath of the wager. This portion is told in the form of a narrative written by one of Cave's shipmates twenty-four years later in 1640. The shipmate is struggling to understand the incident and the changes it wrought in Cave's personality. The writing in this portion of the novel is uneven and is somewhat of a letdown after the fine writing and dramatic storytelling in the first section of the novel. The language and manner of speaking employed in the first portion of the novel are roughly in keeping with 17th Century England. Surprisingly, the shipmate's narrative in the second portion is written in a more contemporary style. For example, the shipmate uses an anthropological term that wasn't coined until the late 19th Century. Still, I am favorably impressed with this fascinating debut novel. This psychological study of loneliness, human need and mankind's relationship with nature is quite compelling. I look forward to more fiction by this author.

Simple Theme and Storyline, Intricately Woven Subthemes

Although it may seem a bit Robinson Crusoe-ish, this novel is one of the more intelligent and thought-provoking books I've read in a long time. It seemed to especially hit home for me as an occasional solo-traveler. At the heart of the story is a whaler named Thomas Cave who wagers on being able to survive a winter on Svalbard island and that his colleagues on the Heartsease will honor his wager and return to find him in a year. Beneath the numbing and bleak story of Cave's survival lie various themes that I think the author wants the reader to consider. - what do we make of personal relationships? - how do we deal with memories, especially painful ones? - do we suspect and isolate people because of our perceived fears of them, or rather internal fears that are merely the works of our mind? - how do we deal with the environment around us? does it necessarily take an experience like Cave's to help us realize the environmental damage of some of our routine actions? I feel that I've been better able to appreciate this story upon completing it. It seems to me that one can only truly appreciate and understand the value of Harding's work after reading all 237 pages of the book. Definitely a worthwhile read.

THINK IT OVER

BEFORE MAKING A RASH COMMITMENT CONSIDER ALL THE RAMIFICATIONS. THOMAS CAVE DID NOT!

a novel of grandeur and profound sorrow

Be forewarned! This is not "a bewitching ghost story" (the blurb on the back cover.) There is nothing light or inconsequential about this novel; it is difficult and at times brutal and painful, full of grandeur and profound sorrow. But then, you can't speak truthfully about human nature and human history without these qualities. This book is an intense experience which also illuminates a brief but important period in history: whaling was perhaps the first episode in modern expoitation of the natural world and a paradigm of what was to come. Ms. Harding's imagination of the central character is commanding and even awe-inspiring, as is her writing.