Frost on My Moustache: The Arctic Exploits of a Lord and a Loafer

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In the 1850s, a wealthy British philanthropist by the name of Lord Dufferin sailed his yacht into the Arctic Circle and wrote the bestselling travelogue Letters from High Latitudes. In the 1990s, British writer Tim Moore decided to follow Dufferin's steps--by boat, plane, and bike. This retracing of Dufferin's travels across Iceland, into Norway, and to Spitzbergen (prompted when Moore reads the Lord's 19th-century memoir) is told in a lively, self-deprecating style and starts out brimming with funny anecdotes and interesting tidbits, particularly about Iceland, a report-happy land where the government commissions studies about "the effects of centrifugal force at roundabouts" and where "53 percent of the Icelanders believe in elves."

FROM OUR EDITORS

If you are a fan of British comedies like "Monty Python" and "Fawlty Towers," you'll laugh out loud at the antics of Tim Moore in his Frost on My Moustache: THe Arctic Exploits of a Lord and a Loafer. A journalist who writes for British Esquire, Moore is a city boy used to the comforts of Burger King and McDonald's who reads the bestselling 19th century memoirs of Lord Dufferin -- a Victorian aristocrat who completed an Arctic expedition in 1856. Moore decides to reenact Dufferin's voyage, which sailed from Scotland to Iceland to Norway to Spitzbergen (just north of the Arctic circle) and back -- even using Dufferin's yacht, the Foam.

But this is not to be a manly survival story. The humor of Frost on My Moustache is immediately apparent as soon as it is explained that the 31-year-old Dufferin was a charming, dashing, and fearless explorer. The 33-year-old Moore, on the other hand, is suburban, defeatist, hapless, and, as he describes himself, "a failed dandy."

He is also a consummate outsider, observing his surroundings with dry humor and funny facts. Before Moore leaves on his journey, Moore and his wife spend a weekend in London at the home of Lord Dufferin's descendent, the Marchioness of Dufferin, and is introduced as "the lovely young man who knows nothing." The world of the upper-class is self-deprecatingly played for laughs such as at the dinner table, Moore's wife realizes that "the conversation was being marshalled in strict rotation. During the first course, you were to speak to the person on one side of you, during the second to one on the other. Talking across the table, a practice I had warmly championed, was right out."

Once Moore begins his expedition, dinner-table conversations are forgotten, as we watch Moore fall victim to the horrors of seasickness, his 62-foot ship bobbing through "hilariously appalling" June weather. Vomiting and other bodily functions play a large part throughout the book, and Moore has no illusions about his ability to deal with his misadventures: "Dealing with adversity brings out the best in some people, the hysterical, doom-laden coward in others." The indefatigable Lord Dufferin, of course, would never have indulged in vomiting onboard, and Moore begins to identify more with Dufferin's manservant, Wilson, a man who was "only seen to smile once," than with the man whose journey he is following.

Dufferin, Moore writes, "was the personification of Kipling's 'If.' I'm more of a 'But...' man myself." But Moore does finally reach the North Pole, and while far from throwing off his self-deprecating cynicism, feels a "vast gratitude to the total strangers who had reorganised their cosy holiday around me and my manifold feebleness." Frost on My Moustache is an entertaining, informative, detailed, and extremely descriptive tale. Enjoy it for what it is: A comedy of errors.

—Sharon Goldman Edry is a New York-based freelancer.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Freely admitting that his is a generation of thin-blooded slackers and stay-at-homes happier surfing the net than hoisting sail and weighing anchor, British journalist Tim Moore nonetheless resolved to undertake an expedition that would hearken back to the days of his sturdy forebears when the passage to manhood led through danger. He would go to the Arctic. Frost on My Moustache is the hilariously unforgettable result.

Moore took as his model and guide an eminent Victorian adventurer by the name of Lord Dufferin. Over a century earlier, accompanied by a dyspeptic valet named Wilson, Dufferin proved his mettle by conquering the northern extremes and then writing a bestselling book about it. His account testifies to fearless pluck in the face of adversity. Going to the Arctic was a bracing experience, stiffening the spine and setting him solidly on a course toward a purposeful, vigorous life of public service.

The Arctic, however, evokes in Moore feelings of abject terror. Armed only with his searing wit, wicked humor, and seasickness pills, our pale suburbanite -- wracked by second thoughts of tactical retreat -- confronts mind-numbing cold, bloodthirsty polar bears, a convoy of born-again Vikings, and, perhaps most chilling of all, herring porridge. Endless expanses present the imagination with limitless scenarios for gruesome demise. Moore soon begins identifying profoundly with Dufferin's valet. "Dufferin," he writes, "seems the personification of Kipling's 'If.' I'm more of a 'But...' man myself."

Frost on My Moustache is a deliciously and inexhaustibly funny book, a work to be placed alongside thouse by Evelyn Waugh, Eric Newby, and Bill Bryson. When he is not humiliating himself though displays of ignorance and incompetence, Moore casts a sharp eye on the local flora and fauna, immersing readers in the spendors and wonders of this stunningly inhospitable region. In the end, he draws an important lesson from Arctic exploration: There are places to which man was simply not intended to go. But he also succeeds in doing what only the greatest travel writers can do: He makes you feel you've been there, but glad it wasn't you who went.

Tim Moore's work has appeared in Esquire, The Sunday Times, The Independent, The Observer, and the Evening Standard. He lives in West London.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In his first travel book, London-based writer Moore presents himself as the ever complaining curmudgeon. He registers his frustration-at every step of his adventure-with a brilliant accuracy, making for a hilarious read.

Express

As a fictional account, [Moore's] suffering and humiliation would be hilarious; the fact that he actually lived through all the disasters his recounts makesFrost on My Moustache laugh-out-loud material... One of the funniest travelogues you will ever read.

Times (London)

Moore is a rare comic talent, and his debut a brilliantly sustained piece of travel writing.

Sunday Times

One of the funniest books I have read in a long time, and one from which Moore emerges as a contender for Bill Bryson's crown as king of comic travels.

Observer