- Hardcover: 409 pages
- Publisher: Harperperennial Library; 1st Edition edition (May 1992)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0671250612
- ISBN-13: 978-0671250614
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.7 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 772,225 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Few writers have quite such an unerring eye for the idea of America as Jonathan Raban, and his best books have been about this topic. In this, he pursues his childhood fascination with the Mississippi, the river of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, by chartering a small boat to sail the entire navigable length of the river: all the way from Minneapolis down to the Delta and New Orleans. This is a formidable task, and the words of one person at the outset - "You gotta respect the Mississippi or she'll do you in" - recur as Raban discovers the unpredictability, moodswings, and deceptiveness of the genuine river.
Along the way, as the river alternately bewitches, intrigues and frightens him, he makes numerous stops and meets a great many ordinary Americans. Raban seems to have a remarkable knack for drawing deep-rooted beliefs out of those he encounters on the journey, and his great gift here is for recreating these people on the page, as real as if you'd met them yourself. The book was first written in 1980, and the sense of wounded pride in the wake of Vietnam, Watergate, the seizure of the US Embassy in revolutionary Iran, and the others disasters of the 1970s, is a constant theme throughout the book. Raban catalogues the idea of America in the minds of its citizens and its often bitter clash with reality, in much the same way as he contrasts the reality of the Mississippi with the romantic idea in his head. He travels through cities, small towns and tiny burgs, finds time for a short and sad love affair in St Louis, and in one of the highlights of the entire book watches a fascinating mayoral election in racially-divided Memphis.
This is one of Raban's best, even if his acute eye sometimes observes people in the same dispassionate way that a scientist looks at microbes through a microscope. The old adage that "America's fate is not to have an ideology but to be one" has rarely had a better exponent.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This man is soo good that I buy second hand copies on Amazon Marketplace and send them to all my friends.I am an unconditional fan§
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Excellent read; though you may take issue (as he sometimes does himself) with some of the narrator's reactions and statements the prose is a joy and the content as mesmerising as the river itself.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Great book - shame about.......
......about the quality of the paper that it's printed on. It looks and feels like very rough toilet paper and there were nasty marks on the edges of the pages.
Published 15 months ago by rednige
Very enjoyable.
Very enjoyable. A good contrast to William Least Heat Moon's River Horse (who went UP the Missouri amongst other rivers..).
Published 19 months ago by Paul Harris
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