“The White Darkness” by Geraldine McCaughrean

This complex novel won the Printz Award in 2008 for best Young Adult Fiction. It is easy to see why it has been listed as “notable” on a number of lists, but it is arguably a young adult novel. The protagonist is 14, yes, but this is a mature tale full of strong literary themes – the 369 pages were dense and required a great deal of “thinking” as I read, and it was the second book I had read this summer that began with a quote from Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. Much like an antithesis to “Into the Wild”, our lead character is acutely aware of the dangers around her and deeply wants to survive. The events were somewhat implausible, but like “Moby Dick”, I felt it was the internal journey and the metaphors that mattered most. There are lies, madness and death in this story, aptly titled “The White Darkness”. The title refers to night in Antarctica, a time when you can lose your way and see things that aren’t there. It is a kind of paradox, and Sym, the young girl at the heart of the book, is someone living a paradox. Her imagination seems to be the most real thing to her, and her reality is full of people who are not what they seem. The author helpfully provides a history of the doomed expedition of Captain Robert Falcon Scott to the South Pole, but much of the book includes detailed discussions of the Antarctic land mass – readers who have never spent time on a glacier might want to research that a tad before diving in…it will help your understanding of the variations and sameness of such a place (again, a paradox with symbolism). At the end, Ms. McCaughrean lists her acknowledgements beginning with a quote from Kafka, “A book must be an ice axe to break the sea frozen inside us.” And with such words I just began to understand the depths to be plumbed here, and in the rainbow colored ice. Hopefully, this book will be found by readers who can appreciate its many shadings.