Rating: 
Summary: Take Me From the River
Review: This is a wonderful idea for a book, and I approached it with much enthusiasm. While there were several entertaining passages, "River-Horse" was a disappointment. Mr. Heat-Moon attempts to paint this hundred-day tour as some deep, metaphysical journey, a search for himself in America's Heartland. It reads more like the story of a guy with commitment problems, whose mid-life crisis includes a boat, some beer, a couple of buddies and a crazy dream. The writing, as others have mentioned, frequently veers into pretension; much of the book reads like some paper prepared by a 43 year old grad student, bent on proving that he's just as smart as any of his whippersnapper classmates. Heat-Moon's faithful companion, Pilotis, is actually a compilation of seven men and women with whom he shared various parts of this journey. Serving as a punning Greek chorus to Mr. Heat-Moon's Ahab, Pilotis does offer some moments of levity. Mr. Heat-Moon, comes off as dour, self-righteous, and pendantic: in the immortal words of Mark Twain, he's 'chloroform in print.' I wonder what Bill Bryson, or better yet, Robert Sullivan could have done with this material.
Rating: 
Summary: Riverhorse Sufers from High Expectations
Review: River-Horse has the unenvious distinction of being preceded by two other Heat-Moon books which were outstandingly great reads. My favorite was PrairyErth and coming in second was Blue Highways. River-Horse lacks the depth of PrairyErth and the wonderfull stories told to the author as he rambled around thirty eight states for thirteen thousand miles in Blue Highways.More importantly, where are all the gems of philosophy of which his other two books were loaded? However I did find the book fascinating as he related so much about the water ways and the envirommental challenges that face them in the future. Moreover he informs the reader of how important whether is to navigation on these water ways from rainstorms to snow melt. The best feature of the book was how it raised my consciousness regarding the trade-offs that are made when man chooses development over simply leaving nature alone. In particular, how the Corp of Engineers has robbed the upper Missouri of much of its august beauty through the construction of so many hydro- electric dams.All in all a good read, but one that left me wanting regarding the keen detail and observation which was so prevalent in his other two giants which he so brilliantly penned.
Rating:
Summary: No "Blue Highways"
Review: "River-Horse" is an OK summer read, but it's written by a Heat-Moon who's changed in the last twenty years, about a different sort of a journey. His motivation has changed from curiosity and wanderlust to a kind of grim obsession with executing a plan. Instead of a shoestring voyage of self-discovery and nation-discovery after the end of his first marriage, the transcontinental boat trip of "River-Horse" is conceived as a well-financed grind so hard that broke up his second. Heat-Moon's connectedness with the small towns he visited is what made "Blue Highways" such a wonderful book, but in "River-Horse" those connections are all but lost. "Pilotus" could have been seven interesting people, but instead is rendered as a somewhat pretentious and preachy amalgam. Sadly, I think "Blue Highways" was a flash in the pan, and the present Heat-Moon will never again charm us in the same way that the past one did.
Rating:
Summary: Water-Weary Traveler Challenges America's Tributaries
Review: In the wake of his successful sojourn over the back roads or "Blue Highways" of the U.S., author William Least Heat-Moon accomplished an east-to-west journey of a different sort: seven years ago along the inland rivers and waterways, with little time out for other than wearying commentary. Accompanying him on this journey is a seven-headed hydra, a character known simply as Pilotis, who takes on both genders as the plot progresses. He/she represents those who committed themselves to supporting the crew and captain throughout the journey. If you like Heat-Moon's writing, you'll probably enjoy this book. The writer is to be credited for his research, courage, spirit, and fortitude. An excellent writer, he delivers substance, but lacks the popular interest factor found in his first book, Blue Highways, a book far superior to this one.
Rating:
Summary: River Horse-- it shows imagination.
Review: The catchy descriptive title said it all as I scanned for books that spoke of the outdoor world. Heat-Moon's Blue Highway was terrific. This book could be no different. I found the river travelogue entertaining, informative and necessary to write. America's waterways (as well as all rivers) need protection. He says it -- clear, simple and to the point. Sure he got sermonizing but he's forgiven. Heat-Moon is passionate about the future of the world's environment. Let him have his piece. When you close the cover open LIFE WITH NOAH, another outstanding (really a classic) book. Who better to know a river than Noah John Rondeau, an Adirondack hermit who, in 1913, wandered into the Cold River country to make his permanent home for the next 37 years. His close friend, Richard Red Beard Smith (a white Indian to his friends) recounts to the author vintage tales of living afoot in the Cold River country with the hermit. The huge variety of photographs are also classic. Some readers will even hanker to strap on a pack and visit this region of outstanding beauty -- today a protected, wild river.
Rating:
Summary: No "Blue Highways"
Review: "River-Horse" is an OK summer read, but it's written by a Heat-Moon who's changed in the last twenty years, about a different sort of a journey. His motivation has changed from curiosity and wanderlust to a kind of grim obsession with executing a plan. Instead of a shoestring voyage of self-discovery and nation-discovery after the end of his first marriage, the transcontinental boat trip of "River-Horse" is conceived as a well-financed grind so hard that broke up his second. Heat-Moon's connectedness with the small towns he visited is what made "Blue Highways" such a wonderful book, but in "River-Horse" those connections are all but lost. "Pilotus" could have been seven interesting people, but instead is rendered as a somewhat pretentious and preachy amalgam. Sadly, I think "Blue Highways" was a flash in the pan, and the present Heat-Moon will never again charm us in the same way that the past one did.
Rating: 
Summary: Neat idea, sunk by water-logged prose
Review: The idea behind this book is fascinating: is it possible to go coast-to-coast by water? What do you find along the way? How has riverside America changed in the interstate highway world?
Alas, this book is almost unreadable. The writing is pretentious, stilted and overwrought; unnecessary literary devices (most notably the "Pilotis" schtick other reviewers have complained about) bog down the narrative, and the boat is barely onto the Erie Canal when you vaguely hope it will sink. I'm rooting for Bill Bryson or (better yet) Calvin Trillin or (even better) Ian Frazier to take this voyage sometime.
Rating:
Summary: Unique Travelogue Sunk By Pretentious Writing
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Obstructions of his own making
Review: One of the seven Nikawa co-pilots William Least Heat-Moon lumped into the singular entity of "Pilotis" was a woman, New Jersey registered nurse Linda Barton. That one female among seven presented Heat-Moon -- or as I knew him at my alma mater, the University of Missouri, professor Bill Trogdon -- with a little problem: To keep to his plan to create a singular Pilotis from this seven-headed hydra, he could never refer to the character with gender-specific he-she pronouns lest he reveal on which segment of the cross-country river journey Barton accompanied him (although he did slip once by calling his Erie Canal companion a "squire"). The result was an entire thick volume full of some of the most awkward, forced sentence structure I've encountered since substitute teaching sixth-graders at Orchard Farm Middle School, near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Bad or inexperienced writers paint themselves into such untenable corners. The Bill Trogdon I knew from the wonderfully flowing "Blue Highways" should have been better than this. What possible reason did he have for this incredibly clumsy device which he created and then had to nurse Boone-County-Ham-handedly through all those pages? It wasn't the co-pilots' privacy, for he names them all in a foreword. Was his resulting self-aggrandizing focus on himself at the expense of his fellow travelers devised so that readers who loved him from his past work would end up despising him as much as he despised himself? The Bill Trogdon I knew in the '80s was not a pedantic boor. His quest was to gather insight with every mile and then share it with us, not to excruciatingly pound us with what he already knew before he rounded the next bend. I longed to travel every blue-highway mile with him in Ghost Dancing. The 20-years-older Trogdon aboard Nikawa seemed more Ted Baxter than Mark Twain, and I wouldn't want to travel around the block with him. What a pity. What a waste.
Rating:
Summary: USA from the river
Review: I found the book to be very readable and compelling. I read it in just a few long sittings and enjoyed it. At times, especially as Least Heat-Moon traversed the continental divide I felt the weariness of the author compared to the optimism at the beginning of the book. It was an immense undertaking and therefore a challenging book to write but in the end he discharged his task well. His account certainly gave me a new and valuable perspective on America's sadly neglected and abused waterways that were once the life blood of this nation.
I read some of the other reviews and was surprised by the triviality of several of the reviews. It is a much better book than they describe it.
One small cavill with our "Bill". In the section of the book where he makes fun of the silly town names in Pennsylvania which was based on the premise that these were all "made-up" names, there is one egregious error. NANTY GLO is not a made up name. It comes from the Welsh Nant-y-glo, meaning valley of coal and was imported to Pennsylvania by those same Welsh miners who named Bryn Mawr; big hill or mountain in the original Welsh. Both are names of real towns in south Wales.
It certainly has suffered some anglo modification but as Bill points out frequently so have many other town names which began with authentic American Indian names.
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