Night Without End... man, this book is COLD!!!!!!!!!
Written: Nov 11 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Loads of atmosphere and tension, good characters, unpredictable plot...
Cons: ... some odd sentence structuring and overuse of certain literary devices...
The Bottom Line: Night Without End is a very good thriller; just misses out on being truly excellent. A good introduction to Alistair MacLean's writing.
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| captaind's Full Review: Alistair Maclean - Night Without End |
For this year's Resurrecting the Oldies Write Off I decided to go back to an author whose work I absolutely devoured when I was younger - Alistair MacLean. I think I must have read pretty much every book he ever wrote in my early teens, but haven't read anything by him since then. The first book I ever read by the master thriller writer was Night Without End, so that seemed the obvious place to start my re-reading if his books.
The story starts explosively with an airplane crash. After the briefest of introductions to the characters, Dr Mason - a scientist left in charge of a research station - Jackstraw, an indefatigable, eagle-eyed Eskimo who worked with him, go out to see if there are any survivors of the crash. Because they are in the polar region of Greenland, the conditions are extremely harsh, and there is no reason for a civil airliner to be flying anywhere near there. However the climate and lack of provisions aren't the only things to worry about - it soon becomes clear to Mason and Jackstraw that there are murderers among the survivors. After an "accident" with their only radio - which their young radio operator Joss, the third and final member of the research team currently at the base, is certain was deliberate - the only thin chance of escape lies in the rickety old Citroen tractor that is far from reliable. More concerns come to light with unexplained loss of resources, mysterious or unconvincing background stories of the survivors, and as time goes on with the weather against them, the chances of any of them surviving - or unravelling the mystery of why the plane crashed - become ever bleaker...
Bleak is a good way to describe Night Without End, in fact - though I mean that in a good way. Written in the first person from MacLean's description of the frigid environment is quite literally chilling - seriously, don't read this if you're already feeling a bit cold, it will make you feel like you're absolutely freezing! The atmosphere and tension are similarly built up well with tense prose and effective (never overlong) descriptions. The two main criticisms I have of the book are the sometimes strange and unwieldy sentence construction - the proofreading should have been better in this regard - and an overuse of the "if only I'd known" literary mechanism. Of course things like "I believed this could only help our situation... I would later find out just how wrong I was" sort of thing can work very well; however I just felt that it was used too often here and thus lost impact. Rather it tended to take away some uncertainty about whether certain things would work out or not, which lessened the tension a little. However this novel still has buckets of atmosphere, and the characters are pretty well drawn too. The main character was perhaps a little too self-recriminating, though this was understandable considering the situation and the results of his errors at times.
There is some good social commentary within the words of this book too, particularly the social divide between the rich and their servants (here in the form of Mrs Dansby-Gregg and her young German maid, Helen). The interaction between the characters was always believable, and there were often little surprises in the revelations that came up. The basic whodunit plot was never really predictable, and coupled with the harsh environment the simple survival story always jostled for priority, which made the story flow very well. There are a lot of surprises along the way; I certainly don't think anyone reading this will ever get bored, regardless of their genre preference. MacLean shows a good knowledge of the climate in that part of the world and the problems it brings as well as some medical knowledge, which add authority to the writing.
In the words of the narrator:
What a bunch, I thought despairingly, what a crowd to be stuck with in the middle of the Greenland ice-plateau. A business executive, a musical comedy star, a minister of religion, a boxer with an uninhibited if cultured tongue, his zany manager, a London society playgirl and her young German maid, a Senator, a taciturn Jew and a near-hysterical hostess - or one apparently so. And a gravely injured pilot who might live or die.
Overall Night Without End is a very effective and atmospheric thriller, with an ending that is both expected and unexpected at the same time. The few drawbacks were, to me, just enough to rob it of a fifth star, but it's still a very good book, and I'm glad I revisited it.
See also: The Sixth Annual Resurrecting the Oldies Write Off
Previous Resurrected Oldies
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hamett
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Recommended:
Yes
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