The Big Freeze

You would think that freezing weather, snowdrifts and almost impassable roads would be a good incentive to get on with some blogging. Sadly, all I've wanted to do is hibernate. Anne and I did make a foray out to the SECC to see Jeff Wayne's "War of the Worlds". This musical offering resurrects Richard Burton as a hologram to narrate the story which, indirectly, led me to thinking about the novels of Alistair MacLean.

The logic may be circuitous but it is there. Burton's voice combined with the mounds of snow raised memories of the film "Where Eagles Dare". Legend has it that MacLean wrote the story to tie together elements requested by the producers (snow, a Bavarian castle, an experimental gyrocopter, a fight on a cable car). This led me to consider the large proportion of MacLean's book which feature extreme cold weather. Apart from the dramatic backdrop provided by snow and ice I'm sure that the author's personal experiences played a part in his choice of locations. "H.M.S. Ulysses", his first novel, was heavily influenced by MacLean's service in the Royal Navy. As a young seaman he served on escort vessels guarding convoys in the North Atlantic. The Arctic conditions are described in harsh detail and imprint themselves on the reader's memory.

Over the years blizzards and Arctic blasts play a big part in many of MacLean's novels. "Ice Station Zebra", "Breakheart Pass", "Night Without End" and "Bear Island" are all thrillers where sub-zero weather contributes to MacLean's typically labyrinthine plots. I used to read MacLean's novels fairly regularly and I'm glad to see that they're having something of a resurgence at the moment. Now, time to dig out the DVD of "Where Eagles Dare", the film where Clint Eastwood runs up a bigger body count than in all of the Dirty Harry movies put together.