The Survivor (Masterplots II: British and Commonwealth Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Thomas Keneally
- First Published: 1969
- Type of Work: Tragi-comedy
- Time of Work: The mid-1960’s
- Setting: Australia and Antarctica
- Principal Characters: Alec Ramsey, Ella Ramsey, Belle Leeming, The Poet
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: 1960’s, Sex or sexuality, Education or educators, Betrayal, Guilt, College life, Death or dying, Australia or Australians, Exploration or explorers, Antarctica, Polar regions
- Locales: Australia, Antarctica
The Novel
Alec Ramsey, sixty-three years old, is the last survivor of the polar expedition of the mid-1920’s in which Stephen Leeming died in the last dash for safety. Ramsey and another man, Dr. Lloyd, who were with Leeming, buried him on the trail and managed to save themselves.
Ramsey, who was a sportsman of some repute before the trip and who has continued to have something of a public life, has a reputation for being reticent and sometimes thin-skinned about Leeming’s death. The novel opens with Ramsey’s walking out of a Rotary Club meeting at which he was to...
[The entire page is 2086 words long]
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