Like any true polar adventurer, Bruno saw penguins as a kind of leitmotif

August 23, 2019 11:08 AM

"Zehnder has been walking across the hard-packed snow for about 40 minutes, each step a small negotiation requiring delicacy, concentration, and luck—one can never tell when a hidden crevasse will snap your ankle or swallow you altogether....Forty-two hours later, when the Russians found him frozen to death nowhere near the penguins, the legend of Bruno was born. Never famous while he was alive, in death he became the latest in a long line of outsize polar adventurers whose obsession with the ends of the earth cost them their lives." The author investigates Zehnder’s secretive, playboy life in New York City; rumors of C.I.A. or K.G.B. ties; and the questions surrounding his icy grave.
posted by If only I had a penguin... (4 comments total)

Interesting, and eponisterical!
posted by filthy light thief at 11:11 AM on August 23, 2019

Apparently there is a documentary.
posted by larrybob at 11:13 AM on August 23, 2019 [4 favorites]

Interesting, and eponisterical!

Yep.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 11:24 AM on August 23, 2019 [4 favorites]

Oh my gosh, this post has so many of my favourite things in it. Thank you, If I only had a penguin...!
posted by daisyk at 3:13 AM on August 24, 2019