“Afterlands” by Steven Heighton

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Main text
Summary
References

Introduction

The novel “Afterlands” was published in 2005 in Canada. The author of this book is Steven Heighton, who is known as a poet and a short story writer. This book got public recognition and was translated into several languages, so it is really worthy of reading. The reader of this story can feel the emotions of the author and maybe even a piece of his heart because this novel shows the adventurous character of Steven Heighton and his admiration as to the events in the story which he described during 406 pages.

Main text

Afterlands is the story which opens its readers a dangerous and an interesting world of adventures in Polaris expedition. This novel is a combination of love and hatred, trust and treachery. It transfers us to another atmosphere where you become one of the characters and live their lives. This historical voyage happened in 1871 and involved the participation of nineteen people who were separated from their ship and had to do their best to survive and overcome all the difficulties. Describing the characters of the novel Steven Heighton made all of the individuals and with definite peculiar features. The protagonists of the story are: Roland Kruger who is a sailor of German birth with quite calm traits of character, he is a resistant and a strong-willed person; lieutenant George Tyson – his Yankee commander, the ranking officer who is always in the center of the events. George Tyson had some peculiar wrong instincts but got used to trust them a lot. Kruger’s wife Tukulito is also a member of the crew. I can say that the author stresses the significant role of the Hannah (Tukulito), who makes the story more emotional and without whom this expedition would have never been so thrilling, intricate and designing. The author provides a reader with a charming description of Hannah:

“…her cheeks are always ruddy, red on brown. That vital blush and the strength of life in her eyes cancel out her plainness. She moves with a simple grace of purpose; she’s one of those who perfectly fill whatever space they occupy. For some time after you speak with her, her features will return to your mind in clear flashes.”

The conflict between Roland Kruger and George Tyson is filled with suffering and inner nervousness of the involved characters. Hannah, who has never been the center of love affairs, feels inconvenience and embarrassment. This situation is unusual for her and she cannot understand her feelings and emotions, in what way she has to react and how to behave. The situation is so intricate that it is difficult to catch the thoughts of all the heroes.

“This man suffers so without his wife… and his situation here is so difficult. You should comfort him some night. Maybe tonight, when I’m asleep again.” (Roland Kruger tries to offer his wife to devote some of her time to George Tyson)

But this humor of Hannah’s husband is far above understanding for her:

“It’s not my custom. We are married, church married.”

Though the figure of George Tyson dominates in the text and more episodes is devoted to this very character, Ronald Kruger deserved more sympathy to his personality on the part of the readers. He is positively described almost in all the fragments and provokes only kind and exciting feelings. Joe (Ronald Kruger) is the only person to suffer so much. He refuses nationalism and backs up Goethe ideas and world-view as to being patriot only to truth, though it makes him a lonely man (Bruce Barcott, 2006):

“Perhaps it’s better to belong after all.”

This rather fallacious behavior of two strong and clever men contradicts all Hannah’s principles of life. To my way of thinking this problem raised in the text is a kind of zest, because it is quite up-to-date and can be understood by everyone.

The novel is basically a background for a mixture of feelings, as they play an integral role in it. The feeling of unrequited love is not the only problem described in the novel; together with it we can observe the feeling of hunger:

“To understand desire, one has to be, or remember having been, hungry.”

“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel,” – “Yes, but maybe also the last haven of the hungry, the demoralized and the desperate.”

The lack of food made conditions more tense and nervous, it was a start to new conflicts and misunderstanding.

It shows intrepid thoughts of the tired travelers who are ready to meet any difficulties to reach their goal, to prove their heroism and desire not to give up whatever the cost:

“We appear to be drifting into a future where all and any barriers of rank will be broken down,” – Tyson says – “and where there is no authority, there can be no order; where there is no order, no survival.”

I consider that this very feature of the characters is important in the novel because it encourages everyone and stimulates to re-read this novel again and again.

Afterward is also filled with some negative moments, by this I mean conflicts between the members of the crew, some inner misunderstanding and tension in behavior. All the duties were shared between the members of the crew, but the discipline was out of order; instead of rationing the food and doing some physical job George Tyson retreats with his flask. In such difficult and conflict situations Ronald Kruger was always a key figure in a peace-making function. I think that concentration of attention as to this point is a bit exaggerated. The burst of nervous characters can result in inadequate reaction of the reader. (Ken Hunt, 2008)

Steven Heighton likes to write complicated by events stories with intricate content and strong-willed characters who by all means take any risk. The author used a lot of approaches and stylistic devices such as metaphors and metonymies in order to make the plot more attractive. His manner of writing and a beautiful language shows that the author really put all his efforts to write this novel.

What I consider to be redundant in the text is the usage of plenty of internationalism that is why sometimes it is difficult to read and understand expressions said by the characters:

“Kaapiaksukpiit?” – Are you frightened? – should be “Kappiasukpiit?”

By this the author wanted to show that text abounds in new vocabulary, it makes the text different from all others and it describes the foreign origin of some heroes.

The author gives an opportunity to read his novel between the lines. I think that the underlying theme of the story lies in the gathering of different nationalities joined by common goal to survive, to fulfill one common idea and move in one direction. It is not an easy task to do this because we know the level of prejudices on the part of some nations concerning others. But the author managed to combine and mix different cultures in one so-called “business”:

“She has instructed him [Tyson] on the importance of sleeping pressed up against the others when on the ice, yet he resists. Father Hall was like that too, in the beginning, when first traveling with them on Baffin Island, eleven winters ago. She intertwines her feet with the lieutenant’s as she once did with Father Hall. The lieutenant draws closer, as he should. And this is best. If the ship were to rescue them tomorrow, she would be glad again for her cabin and would allow no other man but her husband next to her – and the transition between these sets of customs would be seamless, graceful, and automatic.”

Summary

So, I would like to sum everything up by saying that this novel is quite expressive and inspiring. What I liked the most is the fact that the author managed to cover far more than one problem: the problem of love and trust, the problem of national friendship, the problem of how to survive in dangerous situations and conditions and some others. I consider this story to be very interesting, because real life should always be described in such an interesting way. On the basis of the novel one can make a comparative analysis of two different characters George Tyson and Ronald Kruger, to compare their lives and world-views. After such an analysis of mine I came to conclusion that people can forgive even enemies and the level of cruelty can decrease at once. The characters are embodiments of moral values of different cultures. I think this novel is worthy of reading!

References

Barkott, Bruce. February 19, 2006, Arctic Castaways. New York Times, 2006.

Bartlett, Andrew. Professional Assessment. New York Times, 2007.

Barkott, Bruce. War and mayhem on an Arctic ice floe International Herald Tribune, 2006.

Brown, Cupkake. Afterlands. Houghton, 2006.

Heighton, Steven. Afterlands. 2005, Canada.

Hunt, Ken. Canada’s magazine of book news and reviews. Tuesday, 2008.

Mondor, Colleen. Editor’s note: Afterlands. 2006.

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“Afterlands” by Steven Heighton

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