Thursday, September 20, 2012

Endurance and Motivation

At first the book Endurance Shackleton's Incredible Voyage was difficult for me to continue reading.  Although the imagery was very descriptive, it was a little too much to keep me interested in the story line.   I found it somewhat confusing because it was not in chronological order, which also contributed to my difficulty in following the story line.  I kept pushing through to find it got a little easier to read as it progressed.  As I was reading, I kept thinking of all the episodes of deadliest catch that I have watched and thinking about how difficult it is to be on a boat let alone when there are storms and bad conditions.  The ice cutting through the boat was described in such a way that it seemed as if it was the worst possible thing to be battled with while on a boat.  
I almost feel bad referring the the Endurance as a boat when they describe her so eloquently and human like as well as personifying her.  I enjoyed the introductions to all of the men on the boat as well as getting an idea of their roles in the whole process of evacuating the boat and got to see the motivation within each of the men.  I can absolutely see how the topic of motivation will run through this book.  As a little background was given on each of the men, I felt I could see what motivated each of them and was surprised to find that it varied. 

2 comments:

  1. I agree with your comment that the book was difficult to continue reading. I also thought it was a little too detail oriented which caused me to lose interest quick.

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  2. A lot of us have been commenting on the characteristics and personalities of the men on board the Endurance and how slow this first part was as a result. I think it was hard to avoid pointing out how much time was spent on this - most of the first part of the book contained fairly detailed descriptions. I remember when I first started reading and thought that this was strange. In most books, the characters are described more slowly with less detail all at once (except for major protagonists, like Shackleton, for example). I had never read a book that so quickly and thoroughly set the stage for so many characters in so few pages. I think it's important though, because of what you said about motivation. In my post, I talked about how Shackleton had looked for certain qualities that would make the men less likely to become mutinous. I think those same characteristics form one larger sense of motivation. All of the men were of the motivated type, but together it seems like they're becoming on giant wall of motivation. Almost like one living, breathing unit.

    It will be interesting to continue forward and consider the slight differences of each member of the team and how their personal qualities affect the overall dynamic of the group.

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