My father , a thorough bookworm, has a sort of bias at home regarding buying books. He would rather spend money buying books that would last, be re-read, or referred to, or classics that are otherwise unavailable, and the others, were to be picked up at a library, or borrowed, due to their being one-time reads. In retrospect, the sight of our overflowing bookshelves leads me to believe he had a point.
The return home after submitting my thesis put me in a holiday mood, and I ended up rummaging inside the overflowing bookshelves at home, trying to find a read that would be fast enough, and engaging enough to take me through a lazy day. I came across a copy of the Alistair MacLean novel, Ice Station Zebra, which I had read once before, and remembering the good feeling I had that last time I read it, decided on it this time too. I wondered whether I would read the same book very differently a few years later, from the time I read it first, and to test this theory, picked it up again.
My first encounter with Alistair MacLean was through cinema, not books, specifically the Carl Foreman movie, The Guns of Navarone (which made me a huge fan of Gregory Peck, and World War II stories). I had picked up Ice Station Zebra in an airport, and it did not disappoint. It had the Alistair MacLean signature pace, and was a great read.
On a Scottish coast, in the Cold War era, we encounter the United States submarine, the Dolphin, a state-of-the-art submarine, that is ready to leave shore in the morning, heading to the Arctic circle when the crew are greeted with a surprise new addition, a Dr Carpenter, who insists on joining them , and with authority over the crew, citing orders from NATO, via telegram.The mission that the Dolphin has been deployed on, is to rescue the stranded British researchers on a meteorological station , the Drift Ice Station Zebra, on a drifting chunk of ice in the Arctic Circle, following a terrible fire accident there, that leaves few survivors, and little hope of survival, given the harsh conditions towards the North Pole. Dr Carpenter's presence and his insistence to join the crew turns a typical rescue mission into a matter of political urgency.
Dr Carpenter professes to being a doctor with specific training related to submarine and arctic conditions, and manages to convince the Captain, Swanson, and the crew to accept him on board, after confiding in the Captain that the Drift Ice station was in fact a top secret location for monitoring Soviet missiles, whose activities need to be protected. That the head of the Drift Ice Station Zebra, Major Halliwell, is Dr Carpenter's brother, is also revealed early on. While the voyage is underway, we are introduced to the nuclear submarine's layout and features by the submarine's doctor, Benson. The submarine manages to pick up weak interrupted signals from the station, and dives below the Arctic Ice , in order to get closer, searching for a location with thin enough ice to break through and reach the station.
Carpenter, and two other crew members alight a few miles near the station, and braving a blizzard, reach the station, where they are greeted with a scene of devastation. A series of prefab huts built to house the residents and the equipment have caught fire,and the one remaining intact hut houses the seven starving, frostbitten and wounded survivors. Carpenter's brother unfortunately, was one of the eleven who perished, their bodies charred . While looking around, Carpenter finds evidence of foul play, and believes the fire to be caused due to arson and not by accident. They return to the Dolphin, which tries to get closer to the station by diving under the ice, and torpedoing its way closer, but sabotage in the torpedo area puts the submarine at risk, which is brought under control with great difficulty. The few members of the crew having Carpenter's confidence are on alert for foul play, following the alert, and they arrive at the station and pick up the survivors. The station is scrutinised again covertly, while providing relief and picking up the survivors.
After getting the survivors on board, the Dolphin and its crew are beset with a series of accidents, from engine malfunction, to physical harm. The sequence of these events and the culprits of the massacre at Ice Station Zebra are unmasked, following the revelation of Dr Carpenter being a member of MI6, the British Intelligence wing, and the eventual clever frustration of the culprits' plans (and eventually saving the skins of the US- UK bloc).
The book is a racy , fast paced read, with all the urgency of a military novel. Alistair MacLean writes crisply, and beautifully. As with all whodunits, there are a series of small clues and pick up points scattered through out the book, which the reader has to pay close attention to in order to connect things well. I ended up having to go back and forth, trying to make the cross connections. I felt that the pace of the book did not run hand in hand with the amount of information presented and digested in the plot. Many points in the book's narrative refer to the layout of the Dolphin, and also the layout of the station, which are helpfully provided diagrammatically in the first few pages, but the narrative causes us to flip pages repeatedly to recognise what the author refers to.
The book lasted a day, and left me feeling refreshed. The book caused me to think well, and kept me hanging off the suspense cliff reasonably often, and the narrative was engaging. The book is written to be read in one sitting if we are to make sense of its complexity, and in this sense,it is in the same league as Dan Brown's and John Grisham's thrillers, a book that, in spite of the dated context and story, reads like a contemporary thriller.
Considering books with wartime themes, Alistair MacLean is one of the few authors who understands and brings about the wartime scenario very well in his books. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that he has lived through the second World War. A contrast in the style, or even in the simple portrayal of tumultuous war-like times, are two books, Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, and the last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. All three speak of a War-like situation. Dr Carpenter is a man incognito on a mission, so are Harry and his friends. Anne and her family are in hiding trying to survive the war, as are Harry's supporters .
In Ice Station Zebra, we encounter the writing of an author who has been in the thick of action, in actual battles and therefore writes from experience. The crisp effectiveness of communication, the filtering of emotional drama, the need for the right action at the right time, and the urgency and weight of these actions are well brought out in his books. From Anne Frank, we learn of the oppressive daily life led by those in hiding, and the edge they have to live on. J K Rowling tries to draw both themes close in her last book, but the impression of the reading experience, or the scenario presentation is nowhere near as intense as Alistair MacLean's, or Anne Frank's , and ultimately,one has to fall back on Rowling's own imagination. But the reviews of both Harry Potter, and Anne Frank, will be dealt with later.
All in all, a wonderful whodunit, from a master of wartime intrigue. Who can say that racy thrillers are written only in today's time?
The return home after submitting my thesis put me in a holiday mood, and I ended up rummaging inside the overflowing bookshelves at home, trying to find a read that would be fast enough, and engaging enough to take me through a lazy day. I came across a copy of the Alistair MacLean novel, Ice Station Zebra, which I had read once before, and remembering the good feeling I had that last time I read it, decided on it this time too. I wondered whether I would read the same book very differently a few years later, from the time I read it first, and to test this theory, picked it up again.
My first encounter with Alistair MacLean was through cinema, not books, specifically the Carl Foreman movie, The Guns of Navarone (which made me a huge fan of Gregory Peck, and World War II stories). I had picked up Ice Station Zebra in an airport, and it did not disappoint. It had the Alistair MacLean signature pace, and was a great read.
On a Scottish coast, in the Cold War era, we encounter the United States submarine, the Dolphin, a state-of-the-art submarine, that is ready to leave shore in the morning, heading to the Arctic circle when the crew are greeted with a surprise new addition, a Dr Carpenter, who insists on joining them , and with authority over the crew, citing orders from NATO, via telegram.The mission that the Dolphin has been deployed on, is to rescue the stranded British researchers on a meteorological station , the Drift Ice Station Zebra, on a drifting chunk of ice in the Arctic Circle, following a terrible fire accident there, that leaves few survivors, and little hope of survival, given the harsh conditions towards the North Pole. Dr Carpenter's presence and his insistence to join the crew turns a typical rescue mission into a matter of political urgency.
Dr Carpenter professes to being a doctor with specific training related to submarine and arctic conditions, and manages to convince the Captain, Swanson, and the crew to accept him on board, after confiding in the Captain that the Drift Ice station was in fact a top secret location for monitoring Soviet missiles, whose activities need to be protected. That the head of the Drift Ice Station Zebra, Major Halliwell, is Dr Carpenter's brother, is also revealed early on. While the voyage is underway, we are introduced to the nuclear submarine's layout and features by the submarine's doctor, Benson. The submarine manages to pick up weak interrupted signals from the station, and dives below the Arctic Ice , in order to get closer, searching for a location with thin enough ice to break through and reach the station.
Carpenter, and two other crew members alight a few miles near the station, and braving a blizzard, reach the station, where they are greeted with a scene of devastation. A series of prefab huts built to house the residents and the equipment have caught fire,and the one remaining intact hut houses the seven starving, frostbitten and wounded survivors. Carpenter's brother unfortunately, was one of the eleven who perished, their bodies charred . While looking around, Carpenter finds evidence of foul play, and believes the fire to be caused due to arson and not by accident. They return to the Dolphin, which tries to get closer to the station by diving under the ice, and torpedoing its way closer, but sabotage in the torpedo area puts the submarine at risk, which is brought under control with great difficulty. The few members of the crew having Carpenter's confidence are on alert for foul play, following the alert, and they arrive at the station and pick up the survivors. The station is scrutinised again covertly, while providing relief and picking up the survivors.
After getting the survivors on board, the Dolphin and its crew are beset with a series of accidents, from engine malfunction, to physical harm. The sequence of these events and the culprits of the massacre at Ice Station Zebra are unmasked, following the revelation of Dr Carpenter being a member of MI6, the British Intelligence wing, and the eventual clever frustration of the culprits' plans (and eventually saving the skins of the US- UK bloc).
The book is a racy , fast paced read, with all the urgency of a military novel. Alistair MacLean writes crisply, and beautifully. As with all whodunits, there are a series of small clues and pick up points scattered through out the book, which the reader has to pay close attention to in order to connect things well. I ended up having to go back and forth, trying to make the cross connections. I felt that the pace of the book did not run hand in hand with the amount of information presented and digested in the plot. Many points in the book's narrative refer to the layout of the Dolphin, and also the layout of the station, which are helpfully provided diagrammatically in the first few pages, but the narrative causes us to flip pages repeatedly to recognise what the author refers to.
The book lasted a day, and left me feeling refreshed. The book caused me to think well, and kept me hanging off the suspense cliff reasonably often, and the narrative was engaging. The book is written to be read in one sitting if we are to make sense of its complexity, and in this sense,it is in the same league as Dan Brown's and John Grisham's thrillers, a book that, in spite of the dated context and story, reads like a contemporary thriller.
Considering books with wartime themes, Alistair MacLean is one of the few authors who understands and brings about the wartime scenario very well in his books. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that he has lived through the second World War. A contrast in the style, or even in the simple portrayal of tumultuous war-like times, are two books, Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, and the last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. All three speak of a War-like situation. Dr Carpenter is a man incognito on a mission, so are Harry and his friends. Anne and her family are in hiding trying to survive the war, as are Harry's supporters .
In Ice Station Zebra, we encounter the writing of an author who has been in the thick of action, in actual battles and therefore writes from experience. The crisp effectiveness of communication, the filtering of emotional drama, the need for the right action at the right time, and the urgency and weight of these actions are well brought out in his books. From Anne Frank, we learn of the oppressive daily life led by those in hiding, and the edge they have to live on. J K Rowling tries to draw both themes close in her last book, but the impression of the reading experience, or the scenario presentation is nowhere near as intense as Alistair MacLean's, or Anne Frank's , and ultimately,one has to fall back on Rowling's own imagination. But the reviews of both Harry Potter, and Anne Frank, will be dealt with later.
All in all, a wonderful whodunit, from a master of wartime intrigue. Who can say that racy thrillers are written only in today's time?
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