The Financial Times published an excerpt from ‘Silence, In the Age of Noise’ by Erling Kagge, and translated by Becky L Crook (Viking):
Antarctica is the quietest place I’ve ever been. I walked alone to the South Pole, and in that vast monotone landscape there was no human noise apart from the sounds I made. Alone on the ice, far into that great white nothingness, I could both hear and feel the silence. (I had been forced by the company who owned the aeroplane that flew me to the northern edge of Antarctica to bring a radio. The last thing I did in the aeroplane was to leave the batteries in the garbage bin.)
Everything seemed completely flat and white, kilometre after kilometre all the way to the horizon, as I headed southward across the world’s coldest continent. Underneath lies 30m cubic kilometres of ice, pressing down on the Earth’s surface.
Last Updated on December 9, 2024