The Solitude of Thomas Cave [Paperback]

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.

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.

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.