Icefields is a story of adventure and discovery that unfolds amidst the stunning beauty of the Canadian Rockies. Presented within the frame of a tourist guidebook, this novel records life in the mountains, as time and the coming of the railroad slowly transform the settlement of Jasper from a place of myth and legend to a modern tourist town. Exhaustively researched, this novel blends geology and poetry, fact and fiction, history and imagination.
Icefields (Nunatak Fiction)
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"At a quarter past three in the afternoon, on August 17, 1898, Doctor Edward Byrne slipped on the ice of Arcturus glacier in the Canadian Rockies and slid into a crevasse." So begins Thomas Wharton's first novel, Icefields, and as Byrne hangs trapped, upside down, he sees the figure of an angel, similarly suspended in translucent ice suffused with sunlight, that will forever haunt and inspire him. This figure, elusive and emotionally charged, is the symbolic heart of the novel, evoking the blend of science and mysticism that fuelled Canadian wilderness exploration at the turn of the 20th century.
Icefields is set in Jasper, Alberta, whose name was possibly derived, Byrne speculates, "from the French phrase j'espère: I hope," though "on one old map the region is labelled Despair." The great glacier raises both spirits, despair and hope, in the diverse cast of characters assembled at its foot, who see in its cold mystery the fulfillment of their various desires for money, inspiration, adventure, and knowledge. Through their interlocking stories, Wharton unearths the quest for self-discovery at the core of the colonial enterprise. These stories are paralleled by the explorations of the fictional English traveller Lord Sexsmith, who, a generation earlier, dreams of shooting a grizzly on the mountain, cutting it open, and feeling "the hot sensual heart sliding into his palm." Based on historical records of the area's exploration, this novel, in the spirit of Robert Kroetsch's Badlands, is an absorbing and impressionistic companion to nonfiction adventure narratives. As Byrne demonstrates, the soul-searching wonder the wilderness inspires remains, even as its sublime beauties are translated into tourist dollars. "Come with me," he beckons in the novel's last lines. "I want to show you something rather extraordinary." --Karen Solie
From Publishers Weekly
This first novel by Canadian Wharton, borrows something of the mystery and icy obsessiveness of Peter HYeg's Smilla's Sense of Snow, the bleak hallucinatory vision of William Vollman's The Ice Shirt and a cast of haunted characters reminiscent of Josephine Hart's Damage. The result is a bit of a pastiche of styles and subjects of recent popular books (there's even evidence of an angel). But Wharton is a competent writer and this is likely to be strong on sales, even if it's not long on inventiveness. In 1898, Doctor Edward Byrne leaves England for an expedition to the Arcturus glacier. A fall into a crevasse hints at the magic of the glacier, and his subsequent convalescence in the "town" of Jasper clinches it. Byrne becomes increasingly tied to the glacier, not only bivouacking on a nunatak or rognon but obsessively describing it and studying it. As one Jasper resident says of his work on glaciers, "I thought he was the one man on earth who bothered that much with them, that this science was his alone, that he had invented it. Arcturology. The science of being distant, and receding a little every year." As the glacier recedes, it reveals new objects, some transformed beyond recognition by its passing. Time does the same thing for characters in the story, absorbing some only to spit them up later in another form, dragging others under forever. Wharton has a fine sense of description, dialogue that is as spare as the landscape and a subtle hand with narrative. But underlying it all is an old-world sense of awe (think Burke, Byron, Shelley) that allows this spare novel to transcend its limitations.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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By Andrea D
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We read this for our bookclub this past month. The consensus was that everyone loved the language, very poetic, simple yet beautiful. The character development could have been more thorough, as we were curious about Sara and Elspeth particularly.
I do recommend this book for the history and how beautifully it's written. It's just a different kind of story that piques your interest.
I do recommend this book for the history and how beautifully it's written. It's just a different kind of story that piques your interest.
By Sue Hirst
Format:Paperback
This is a book I have read more than once. It's not a book you read for the plot (although it does have one) but for the way Wharton uses language and for the images he creates with his words.
This is a book that is more dream than novel. It tells the story of a young man who tumbles into a crevasse in a glacier in the Rocky Mountains. Dangling upside down in an icy bluness waiting to be rescued by his climbing companions he sees an angel (identifiable by the wings) frozen into the ice beside him. He is mesmerized, and after his rescue becomes obsessed with the glacier, spending his life climbing it, waiting for it to move down the valley, to melt...to disgorge the angel so he can study it.
The story spans many years and follows (loosely) the Victorian exploration and opening up of the Canadian Rockies with a tough-minded lady moutaineer, a doctor, moutain guides, hotel managers etc. impinging in a variety of ways on the young mans life as he waits and grows older. There is a love story embedded in the novel but this is really a tale of obsession. The story floats, dreamlike - mirroring the way the angel 'floats' eternally in the ice. It is not a linear read.
I like it but I don't think it's for everyone.
This is a book that is more dream than novel. It tells the story of a young man who tumbles into a crevasse in a glacier in the Rocky Mountains. Dangling upside down in an icy bluness waiting to be rescued by his climbing companions he sees an angel (identifiable by the wings) frozen into the ice beside him. He is mesmerized, and after his rescue becomes obsessed with the glacier, spending his life climbing it, waiting for it to move down the valley, to melt...to disgorge the angel so he can study it.
The story spans many years and follows (loosely) the Victorian exploration and opening up of the Canadian Rockies with a tough-minded lady moutaineer, a doctor, moutain guides, hotel managers etc. impinging in a variety of ways on the young mans life as he waits and grows older. There is a love story embedded in the novel but this is really a tale of obsession. The story floats, dreamlike - mirroring the way the angel 'floats' eternally in the ice. It is not a linear read.
I like it but I don't think it's for everyone.
Format:Paperback
I read this several years ago when it first came out. I am surprised to see the negative reviews below as this is a superb read. I still remember images the book evoked when I first read it. I remember having a hard time putting it down. This was one of those books I gave to several friends and family members as a gift. And I remember getting all positive reviews back from those I gave it to.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Novel in search of a reason to be
Surprise! it never finds it. British guy falls down into crevice in glacier, hits head, hallucinates about angel, gets pulled out. Read more
Published on Nov 4 2010 by Rodge
2.0 out of 5 stars
Lots of Potential, but ...
I decided to read this book right to the end, because I kept thinking that it has got to get better. Read more
Published on July 13 2008 by Mohamjip
1.0 out of 5 stars
not very good at all
This book started out promising, but lost my interest about a quarter of the way through. Half the time I did not know who was talking. Read more
Published on Jan 25 2008 by Elizabeth A. Payne
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stellar Debut
It's hard to believe this is a first novel. Wharton crafts a complex tale full of sensuality and bravado. Read more
Published on Jan 6 2003
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