- School & Library Binding
- Publisher: San Val (Dec 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0613366336
- ISBN-13: 978-0613366335
- Product Dimensions: 22.2 x 14 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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First Sentence
FOR ABOUT HALF A LEAGUE after we came out of the little harbor on Newark Bay at Elizabeth, New Jersey - with its strewn alleys and broken buildings, its pervading aura of collapse, where the mayor himself had met us at the dock and stood before a podium his staff fetched up for him to set his speech on, words to launch us on that Earth Day across the continent as he reminded us of history here, of George Washington on nearly the same date being rowed across to New York City on the last leg of his inaugural journey - and for the half league down the Kill Van Kull (there Henry Hudson lost a sailor to an arrow through the neck), we had to lay in behind a rusting Norwegian freighter heading out to sea with so little cargo that her massive props were no more than half in the water and slapping up a thunderous wake and thrashing such a roil it sent our little teakettle of a boat rolling fore and aft. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
FOR ABOUT HALF A LEAGUE after we came out of the little harbor on Newark Bay at Elizabeth, New Jersey - with its strewn alleys and broken buildings, its pervading aura of collapse, where the mayor himself had met us at the dock and stood before a podium his staff fetched up for him to set his speech on, words to launch us on that Earth Day across the continent as he reminded us of history here, of George Washington on nearly the same date being rowed across to New York City on the last leg of his inaugural journey - and for the half league down the Kill Van Kull (there Henry Hudson lost a sailor to an arrow through the neck), we had to lay in behind a rusting Norwegian freighter heading out to sea with so little cargo that her massive props were no more than half in the water and slapping up a thunderous wake and thrashing such a roil it sent our little teakettle of a boat rolling fore and aft. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I really enjoyed William Least Heat Moon's 'Blue Highways' which, although in a sense was just another American road trip, I thought came at it from a different angle and introduced us to a "backroads" America we don't often see. This book is much more original and unique, the account of an attempt to cross the U.S. by water - i.e. rivers and lakes.
However, I'm afraid that I found its 500 pages a bit of a slog, I thought the writing was a bit clumsy and didn't seem to flow. At times I quite enjoyed the account of the journey, set against facts about the history of the places they pass through, the geography, ecology etc. but I would have prefered a bit more human interest and mundane details - what they ate, drank etc. I also thought that the maps included in the book were very poor and were hard to find.
However, I'm afraid that I found its 500 pages a bit of a slog, I thought the writing was a bit clumsy and didn't seem to flow. At times I quite enjoyed the account of the journey, set against facts about the history of the places they pass through, the geography, ecology etc. but I would have prefered a bit more human interest and mundane details - what they ate, drank etc. I also thought that the maps included in the book were very poor and were hard to find.
Format:Hardcover
Accusations of pretentious writing can't be denied, and the conscious attempts to be 'literary' can be annoying - nonetheless, the journey itself is so epic and the writer's determination to complete the ziz-zag path across America is so urgent this makes a compelling read. The passage along the upper Missouri river (memorably illustrated by Karl Bodmer in the 1830's) is especially moving.
If, like me, you can spend hours gazing at maps you're likely to enjoy this voyage.
If, like me, you can spend hours gazing at maps you're likely to enjoy this voyage.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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103 reviews
39 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Lighten up & leave the map at home next time
8 Mar 2000
Format:Hardcover
First of all, if you enjoy the writings of William Least Heat-Moon [as do I], then by all means, buy this book. That having been said, you should also beware-this is NOT the wandering, see-where-the-wind-takes-me journey of Blue Highways. This is an obsession. This is a mission, a quest; a race to arrive at fixed destination by a fixed route before a fixed time, and devil take the hindmost. Moon [I'll just call him "Moon", if that's okay] decided long ago that he wanted to cross the country by navigable rivers, using as few portages as possible. Fine & dandy. The country looks a lot different from the river than it does from the highway, and such a journey would be a fine companion piece to Blue Highways. The problem is: in order to cross the country via river in a single season, timing the journey to take advantage of the snowmelt of the western mountains is vital. This is where the journey [and the book] lose their way. The Moon of Blue Highways always had time to talk, to investigate, to explore [I recall one episode of speaking to a man in Tennessee for over an hour, all while stopped in the middle of a seldom-used road]. The Moon of River Horse has no room for such frivolities. Those people who appear in River Horse are described by a thumbnail sketch, pumped for information about the route ahead, and then sent upon their way. Moon is determined to complete his journey-but most of the time forgets to take the journey. There are passages which describe the lazy, dialed-down atmosphere of life on the river; but there are far too many passages which feel like a salesman trying to make airline connections. Almost twenty years after first reading Blue Highways, those people and images still resonate in my mind. Two months after reading River Horse, I simply wonder which one of us has changed the most. The book is very readable, and a must for Moon fans; but be aware that it is deeply flawed.
38 of 40 people found the following review helpful
The real Blue Highways of America come to life
4 Jun 2000
Format:Hardcover
As a Kansan, rivers have played relatively little role in my life, although I have enjoyed the occasional canoe trip down the Cottonwood and the K-State/KU canoe race on the Kaw. However, William Least Heat-Moon's earlier books fascinated me with their combination of travelogue, social history and natural history, and I expected the same from "River Horse." I wasn't disappointed. In fact, I enjoyed this book much more than "PrairyErth" even though I grew up only a few miles north of Chase County, KS, the subject of the earlier book. Although he is constantly impelled to move onward and westward for fear (unfounded mostly) of having too little water in the West, Heat-Moon still takes plenty of time to learn and relate the histories of many of the small river towns he finds along the way. This is the sort of personal, anecdotal history at which he excels and which I enjoy. Unlike "Blue Highways," this book did not necessarily make me want to attempt the trip myself--my lack of familiarity with boats and rivers would be a major hurdle! However, it did send me looking for more information on many of the sites and I have my own list of places I now hope to visit as a result of reading this book. In a way, I feel some of the same need for hurry as Heat-Moon did, though, thanks to the insane amount of control large farming and corporate America have over what are supposed to be public lands and waterways. Who knows but that by the time I can visit some of these areas, they may be flooded by a new dam or eroded to nothingness by thousands of cattle hooves? Some may not appreciate the political bent of this book, but I find it understandable that if a person loves an area enough to row, push and carry a canoe through it, then he should speak up for it in every way possible. Get in touch with the America too few of us appreciate by reading "River Horse"!
38 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Unique Travelogue Sunk By Pretentious Writing
11 Oct 2002
Format:Paperback
Of Heat-Moon's previous travel epics, I have not read *PrairyErth* but I did greatly enjoy *Blue Highways* and where that book is lean and to the point, *River-Horse* is big and bloated. Heat-Moon has pulled off a real accomplishment here, travelling across America east-to-west almost entirely in small boats. But you barely notice his rewarding revelations on the acts of traveling and soul searching, the state of America's natural places, and the people he meets. All of these are sunk under a never-ending wave of waterlogged writing.
Heat-Moon can't stop piling on his heavy-handed style, with a flood of arcane words that will make you run exasperated to your dictionary. Some examples include jactitation, brummagem, atraxia, atrabilious, genetrix, and lacustrene. Before you recommend use of a thesaurus to the lazy reader, these plodding words actually serve little purpose other than to illustrate Heat-Moon's use of a word-of-the-day calendar on his desk. Then there's soggy prose like "inspiration flowed like the sky" or "in my moustache I can smell river like a sweetly scented woman from night before." This is all showing off at best, with little reward to the increasingly weary reader.
Worst of all is Heat-Moon's impersonal treatment of his crew during the voyage. He combines seven different first-mates (one of whom was a woman) into an anonymous entity called Pilotis that has the same personality throughout the voyage. The same goes for at least two different people called merely Photographer, plus a succession of faceless folk with names like Reporter or Professor. Heat-Moon spends more time naming and describing passersby who he met for five minutes, than these valuable companions who he spent thousands of miles with, and who saved his voyage (and possibly his life) many times. Heat-Moon apparently meant this de-personalization as some sort of literary method to make a grand point about his narrative, but what that point should be he never explains. The result is a disservice to his many valuable companions, while he tries to draw all the attention to himself. This book is a potentially tremendous travelogue that could be fascinating but is only tedious and waterlogged. Heat-Moon's greatest strength is his achievements as a traveler, while his writing is a lesser strength. Unfortunately, this book wastes all its energy on the wrong strength.
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