Great Circle

In 1948, Mathilda Feiffer has taken over her husband’s business interests after his death in 1939. She runs the various companies and invests in publishing with a great degree of success. Still feeling guilty for her husband’s role in the sinking of the Josephina Eterna, Mathilda tracks down the children of Addison Graves. After several years, she finds Marian and meets her at the offices of the publishing company in New York. The only payment Marian will accept from the Feiffer family is to sponsor her planned trip around the world. She wants to fly around the world, crossing both North and South Poles. Mathilda suggests that Marian write a book to explain her motivations and her experiences. Marian agrees to keep an informal diary about her journey.

A year later, Marian waits for Eddie at a rented cottage in California. He will be her navigator on the 23,000-mile journey. She writes a little in the informal diary, confessing that she would rather make the journey alone, but she knows that this is impossible. As she thinks about Eddie, she thinks about Ruth, whose plane crashed before Marian could ever apologize to her. Eddie arrives; after catching up, they discuss the plans for the flight. Cautiously, they discuss the war and how they struggled to reintegrate into society. Marian essentially deserted and used her savings to travel through Europe and Africa. On returning, she found Mathilda’s letters, as well as one from Sarah that told her that Jamie had a daughter. Eddie helps Marian come to terms with Ruth’s death and assures Marian that she cannot be blamed.

In December 1949, Marian and Eddie begin their flight in New Zealand. Eddie recalls the end of the war when was liberated from the prison camp and sent back to a world where his relationship with Leo was not as accepted. Eddie visited Leo a year later, discovering that Leo was about to marry his high school sweetheart and work at her father’s car dealership. They met briefly again, but Eddie could not convince Leo to go anywhere with him. During their flight, Eddie does not tell Marian that his worst fear is the fear of drowning.

The flight path takes Marian and Eddie to Hawaii. There, Marian reunites for a night with Caleb. He shows her the ranch where he works, and they ride horses together along a beach. That night, Caleb talks about his experiences in the war. He fought in many of the most intense theatres but was never injured. After the war, he could not return to his life of hunting in Montana because doing so dredged up traumatic memories.

By the end of January, Marian and Eddie reach Alaska on their way to Svalbard. They spent more time than intended in Hawaii, meaning that they may face more treacherous conditions in Antarctica. The extra days in Hawaii allowed Marian to spend more time with Caleb. She realized in those days that he loved her, but, as always, she left without saying goodbye. In Hawaii, Eddie had a brief romance with a man that ended with a group of sailors assaulting him. After a week of recovery, the only lingering injuries were a fading black eye and “headaches that ripple unpredictably through his brain” (422). Marian knew better than to push him for an explanation.

Marian and Eddie reach Cape Town in South Africa on February 9th. During their journey, Marian has noticed that Eddie has “taken to vanishing” (424), and sometimes he spends all night outside of his hotel room. She wonders whether the difficult conditions of the plane journey scared him. As they prepare to leave Cape Town, he admits that he has doubts. He is worried that he will not be able to navigate over Antarctica, that they might crash, and he is worried about the world to which they will return. Marian convinces him to fly with her, and they depart on the final, most difficult part of the journey. After more than 12 hours of flying, they reach the Antarctic ice shelf and land at a small expedition base.

Marian and Eddie sleep in a tent beside their plane. At dinner with the scientists who live on the base, Eddie seems lively and Marian is relieved. They begin flying again, passing over “an astonishing infinity of white” (429). As they pass over the South Pole, Eddie smiles. The plane’s dials and gauges begin to fail in the cold, but they have no choice but to continue. They land in difficult conditions and spend another night in the tent. After two days stuck in the tent, the weather clears, and Marian discovers that they landed the plane on a dangerous ice bridge that could collapse at any moment. The blizzard picks up again and buries the tent. They must stay inside and wait out the weather. The cold almost kills them, and supplies run low. Eddie’s spirits remain high, and he explains that he likes Antarctica because “it hasn’t been touched by the war” (432), so there is nothing that needs to be rebuilt.

When the sky finally clears, they dig the plane out of the snow and Eddie marks a safe pass off the ice bridge. They take off and resume their journey. Managing a fuel leak, extreme exhaustion, and impossible conditions, Marian reaches the abandoned outpost on the edge of the Antarctic ice shelf. They stay for a few days, taking advantage of the supplies left behind by the base’s previous occupants. Marian repairs the plane as much as possible but notices that “Eddie is behaving oddly again” (436). As they prepare to leave, Eddie announces that he cannot continue. He fears drowning and does not think that they can complete the journey to New Zealand. Marian is confused, then shocked, then angry. Eddie explains that he prefers the certainty of death in Antarctica to the kind of life that awaits him back in the United States. She accuses Eddie of being selfish and of condemning her to a certain crash without the help of a navigator. Marian writes a final entry in her logbook, promising that her “last descent won’t be the tumbling helpless kind but a sharp gannet plunge” (438). She leaves the book in the base and watches the small, dark figure on the ice waving goodbye as she takes to the skies again.