Book review: Under a Pole Star
In her latest novel she returns to the frozen wastelands, setting her story around several expeditions to the Arctic Circle. Under a Pole Star explores a brutal landscape of uncharted territory where the ice is temporarily thawed by a tragic love story.
The novel’s protagonist, Flora Mackie, is a determined woman who has grown up in a man’s world.
She takes her first trip to the Arctic in 1883, at the age of 12, travelling with her father who is a Dundee whaling captain.
Flora is a plain child barely noticed by the crew, but by the time she reaches the age of 18 her father is worried that the crew’s attitude towards her has changed and he will no longer take her with him.
From this point on one of the central themes of the book is her struggle to gain respect and acceptance in a patriarchal society.
She does achieve a certain amount of notoriety for her travels and is dubbed the Snow Queen by the press of the day.
At times the novel flashes forward to 1948 when Flora, now an elderly woman, is on a trip to the North Pole.
Here she is interviewed by a young man who has a particular interest in her story and, although he finds her cold, he manages to persuade her to reveal the details of those early journeys and about the true love of her life, Jakob de Beyn.
Jakob is an American geologist on a rival expedition led by the ambitious Lester Armitage. The two men and Flora become entangled in a story of deceit which will have a tragic outcome.
Penney’s writing is fluent and fascinating. She has clearly researched her subject well and the stresses and hardships of extreme exploration are evoked with the clarity of a snowflake in sunshine. It is the love affair, however, that takes centre stage.
Set against a backdrop of the far north and Victorian London Flora and Jakob struggle with their illicit passion. Flora is locked into a loveless marriage and their affair is beset by misunderstandings and suspicion.
Flora’s father doesn’t understand his wayward daughter, taking a pragmatic view of life, “Life is not a pleasure garden”, he says.
Flora does, however, have some support in these misogynistic times from her friend Iris who is herself involved in a potentially scandalous relationship.
Flora and Jakob do have their time together, midsummer in Greenland as the ice retreats revealing a lush valley with “tiny white heathers, tufts of bog cotton, lemon-coloured, tussore-petalled poppies”.
In this Eden they are safe for a time and Jakob names it the Impossible Valley because it is where impossible things happen.
It cannot last and, ironically, photographs taken at this time precipitate their downfall. Lester Armitage returns to the area and the narrative travels to its inevitable fate.
Polaris, or the Pole Star, was called the “steadfast one” by Edmund Spenser. It gives the illusion of being the only fixed point in the night sky as all the other stars spin around it.
In this story the love affair of Flora and Jakob is that still point, their snatched time together a brief hiatus in the whirl of scientific endeavour, social stigma and unhappiness that turns through these times, affecting the native Eskimo as much as the visitors themselves.
An excellent novel.
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