In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

174 ARRAYS
poses for human life, the author draws attention-evidently with both
jealousy and admiration-to Amundsen's mastery in staging and marketing
his enterprises:
For day~ the position of the airship was a real cause for worry in New
York and Oslo. People were discussing in detail what would happen to
it with the bad weather setting in. It is, of course, easy to imagine such
a scenario. But all such speculations are pointless. Concern about the
weather was mistaken-it was simply a result of Amundsen's cunning.
As he prepared for a trip to the South Pole, he told the whole world
that he wanted to go to the North Pole, and he beat Scott by a nose.
Last year, when he tried to fly to the North Pole, he didn't return for
twenty-five days; when a friend asked me whether I was worried about
Amundsen's fate, I replied dryly, "Wait another three weeks and
Amundsen will let himself be rescued "-and I was right.
Such criticism is turned into lively parody by A. A. Milne in Winnie-the­
Pooh, Chapter 8, "In Which Christopher Robin Leads an Expoitition to
the North Pole." When Pooh, the teddy bear, asks his friend, the boy
Christopher Robin, why he proposes to go on an "expoitition" to the
North Pole (Pooh means "expedition"), Christopher Robin answers with
a definition of the North Pole that converges with Professor Penck's
ironic remarks about the goals of Amundsen's voyage: "'It's just a thing
to discover,' said Christopher Robin carelessly, not being quite Sure
himself" (105). The "expoitition" which finally gets under way consists
of a "long line of everybody" (106); it is motivated both by the foodloving
Pooh's desire to consume all the "Provisions" and by Christopher
Robin's ambition to reach "Dangerous Places." Then Roo (the baby
kangaroo) falls into a pool, thus providing the "expoitition" with an
exciting opportunity to carry out a rescue and, incidentally, to discover
a Pole:
"Get something across the stream lower down, some of you fellows,"
called Rabbit. But Pooh was getting something. Two pools below Roo
he was standing with a long pole in his paws, and Kanga [Roo's
mother] came up and took one end of it, and between them they held
it across the lower part of the pool; and Roo, still bubbling proudly,
"Look at me swimming," drifted up against it, and climbed out ... But
Christopher Robin ... was looking at Pooh. "Pooh," he said, "where