Review: The Nature of Ice

Robyn Mundy certainly subscribed to the adage “write what you know” in the creation of The Nature Of Ice. Having returned to Antarctica every year for a decade, working both as a eco-tour guide and on various projects, this author knows her subject very well.

Although a work of contemporary fiction, Mundy’s novel integrates sections retelling the story of Douglas Mawson’s 1911-14 Antarctic expedition. It is a fusion that at first may seem strange and inharmonious. In fact, it is poignant, lyrical and at times gripping.

Freya Jorgensen is a photographer who has earned an Arts Council grant to create a travelling exhibition of Antarctic images, to be juxtaposed with Frank Hurley’s photographic record of Mawson’s journey. It is a project that necessitates her staying the summer (if you can really call it ‘summer’) at Davis Station. A lone arts grant amongst those in the science and trade fields, Freya faces both disdain and curiosity.

Marcus, her husband, remains in Australia to oversee his part of the project and continue his teaching. Freya, suffocating under the weight of Marcus’s neediness, welcomes the enforced separation as an opportunity to reflect on their future.

Not surprisingly, the close quarters and isolation bring their own complications, and Freya finds herself drawn to Chad, a carpenter who is chosen to accompany her on photographic expeditions.

“Capricious, the nature of ice; as impetuous as faithless deeds … so easy to forget that sea ice is only a veneer, inherently flawed, skin-deep as desire … gone in the lapse of a day.”

Actual photographs of Hurley’s are scattered throughout the text to remarkable effect. The inclusion of the actual letters of Mawson and his fiancée Paquita, along with a vivid account of his disastrous expedition, provide a fascinating insight into the physical and emotional hardships faced in the pursuit of a dream.

Mundy’s experiences in Antarctica — the intensity of the cold, the array of colour, the magnified sensations and emotions exposed in such an environment — have given her novel a personal touch that is evident in the reading.

This is essentially a love story, but one encompassing not only Freya’s dilemma and the moving exchanges between Mawson and his darling Paquita, but also the way a special place can take hold, drawing one back time and time again.

“… through some gradual, curious process that has you absorb a place until it forms part of you, Freya has been vested with a new way of seeing.” Mundy writes as one for whom Antarctica has well and truly stolen her heart.

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