An Antarctic Mystery

Infobox Book
name = An Antarctic Mystery
title_orig = Le Sphinx des glaces
translator = Mrs. Cashel Hoey


image_caption =
author = Jules Verne
illustrator = George Roux
cover_artist =
country = France
language = French
series = Voyages Extraordinaires #44
subject =
genre = Adventure novel
publisher = Pierre-Jules Hetzel
pub_date = 1897
english_pub_date = 1898
media_type = Print
pages =
isbn =
oclc =
preceded_by = Clovis Dardentor
followed_by = The Mighty Orinoco

"An Antarctic Mystery" ( _fr. Le Sphinx des glaces), also known also as "The Sphinx of Ice", is an 1897, two-volume novel by Jules Verne and is a sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" which was published in 1838. It follows the adventures of the narrator and his journey from the Kerguelen Islands onboard the "Halbrane".

Neither Poe nor Verne had actually visited the remote Kerguelen Islands, in the south Indian Ocean [Kauffman, Jean Paul "The Arch of Kerguelen: Voyage to the Islands of Desolation" Translated by Tom Clancy. Edinburgh. Four Walls Eight Windows (November 5, 2000) ISBN-13: 978-1568581682] , but their works are some of the few literary (as opposed to exploratory) references to the archipelago.

Plot

Volume 1

The story is set in 1839, eleven years after the events in Arthur Gordon Pym, and one year after the publication of that book.

Narrator is wealthy American Jeorling, who has entertained himself with private studies of the wildlife on the Kerguelen islands and is now looking for a passage back to the USA. The "Halbrane" is one of the first ships to arrive at Kerguelen, and its captain Len Guy somewhat reluctantly agrees to have Jeorling as a passenger as far as Tristan d'Acunha.

Underway they meet a stray iceberg with a dead body on it, which turns out to be a sailor from the "Jane Guy". A note found with him indicates that he and several others including the "Jane Guy's" captain William Guy had survived the assassination attempt at Tsalal and are still alive.

Guy, who had talked to Jeorling earlier about the subject of Pym, reveals himself to be the brother of William Guy. He decides to try to come to the rescue of the "Jane Guys crew. After taking on provisions on Tristan d'Acunha and the Falklands, they head South with Jeorling still on board. They also take aboard another mysterious sailor by the name of Hunt"' who is eager to join the search for undisclosed reasons.

Extraordinarily mild weather allows the "Halbrane" to make good progress, and they break the pack ice barrier early in summer. They find first Bennets islet, where the "Jane Guy" had made a stop, and finally Tsalal. But the island is completely devastated, apparently by a recent massive earthquake, and deserted. They find lots of remains of Tsalal's natives, who apparently died long "before" the earthquake, and the collar of Pym's dog Tiger, but no trace of the "Jane Guy".

Volume 2

At this point, Hunt is revealed to be nobody else but Dirk Peters. On their travel south of Tsalal, he and Pym had become separated, and only Peters made it safely back to the States where he, not Pym, instigated the publication of their voyage. Pym's diary, in Peters' possession, had apparently been significantly embellished by Poe. Upon returning home, Peters took on a new identity, because he was too ashamed of having resorted to cannibalism on the wreck of the "Grampus".

Guy and Peters decide to push further south, much to the chagrin of a part of the crew led by one seaman Hearne, who feels they should abandon the rescue attempt and head home before the onset of winter.

Not much later, in a freak accident the "Halbrane" is thrown upon an iceberg und subsequently lost. The crew makes it safely onto the iceberg, but with only one small boat left, it is doomed to drift on. The iceberg drifts even past the South Pole, before the whole party is cast ashore on a hitherto unknown land mass still within the pack ice barrier. Hearne and his fellows steal the last remaining boat, trying to make it to the open sea on their own, and making the stituation even bleaker for those behind who now face the prospect of wintering in the Antarctic.

They are lucky, however, as shortly thereafter they see a small boat of aboriginal style drifting by. Peters is the first to react as he swims out towards the boat and secures it. But Peters finds more: In the boat, there are captain William Guy and the four surviving seamen of his crew, semiconscious and close to death by starvation. Peters brings them ashore, and the men from the "Halbrane" nurse them back to live.

William Guy then recounts their story. Shortly after the explosion of the "Jane" (and presumably the departure of Pym's company), Tiger, Pym's dog appeared again. Rabid, he bit and infected the natives who quickly fell victim to the new disease. Those who could fled to the neighboring islands, where they perished later in the course of the earthquake.

Up to this point, William Guy and his men had lived fairly comfortable on Tsalal, which was now their own, but after the quake found their position untenable and made a desperate attempt in the boat to escape north.

The combined crews of the "Halbrane" and the "Jane Guy" decide to try to make it north in their newly acquired boat. They make good progress, until they notice the appearance of strong magnetic forces. They find the source of it, the Ice Sphinx: A huge mountain magnetically "charged" by the particle streams that get focussed on the poles through Earth's magnetic field.

Here, they find the remains of Hearne's team which came to death when the Ice Sphinx' immense magnetic forces attracted their iron tools and boat components to it and smashed them on its rocks. The boat of Joerling and the others only escaped destruction because, being built by the natives, it contained no iron parts.

At the foot of the Sphinx, they also find the body of Pym, who came to death the same way. Peters dies from grief on the same spot. The others embark again on their boat, and finally reach the open ocean and are rescued.

Plot Hole

In Arthur Gordon Pym, Tiger isn't mentioned anymore at all after Pym and the others take the "Grampus" back from the mutineers - Presumably, the dog died in the storm. But Tiger's appearance on Tsalal means that it actually survived and was aboard the "Jane" as it entered the Antarctic waters.

This would in turn mean that Pym and the others on the "Grampus" slew the mutineer Parker and ate him, while Tiger still was alive. Worse than that, the fact that Tiger survived the starvation ordeal seems to imply that he was fed from Parker's body, too.

Footnotes

External links

*gutenberg|no=10339
*fr icon [http://www.ebooksgratuits.com/ebooks.php?auteur=Verne_Jules "Le Sphinx des glaces"]