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4. Notable Characters
The amount of first-hand material available made a number of characters more fully realized than is often the case in a history. (Feel free to disagree with that assertion.) Which characters did you personally like/despise? Do you feel like the author had a favorite?
Comments
Definitely Byron was the favourite, He's the central figure. I found him and his relationship to more famous Byrons to be pretty interesting, The only other character I gravitated to was Henry Cousins, and mainly because one of the other players in our Mountains of Madness campaign is playing a geologist who goes by that name.
Captain Cheap was certainly out of his depth, far more concerned with adhering to the appearance of duty than care of anyone around him. Grann tried to depict Bulkley as a more capable leader, taking steps to preserve lives over following orders. But even Bulkley made a lot of decisions that essentially killed people.
Byron, I thought, was portrayed as a bit of a bystander in the whole affair.
There were a lot of characters - necessarily so because of the historical events, but I don't think a novelist would have nearly so many important and/or viewpoint characters. It's all too easy to kind of forget who's who and what allegiance they have (which for some, changes from time to time).
For me, Byron sticks in mind partly because he was a person who swapped sides a bit, and seems to have genuinely grappled with the moral dilemma of the situation, but mainly because of his famous relatives. (which is a kind of "unfair" reason, but a real one).
I actually liked both Cheap and Bulkley the most. I felt both had very valid points, and their prideful antagonism created the rest of the story. Byron was playing Hamlet.