Rating: 
Summary: Not just about a river.
Review: This book is like the journey the author undertakes. There are frequent poignant moments, but they come after long stretches of tedium, with a final payoff at the end which makes it all worth it. I am a fan of the author's first book, Blue Highways. I read it in paperback and gave the book away to a charity. I remembered the book with such an intense degree of fondness that I re-purchased it just to return it to my bookcase, where it still resides. I actually could not NOT own it, which is to say, I had to have it. River Horse never really grabbed me in the same way. First, there are a few annoyances: the chapter titles, the name "Pilotis" (I never did get used to it), and the inadequate maps. Several times I found myself looking for spots on one of the book's maps, locations taken straight out of the narrative, but never did find them. It was as if the maps were prepared aside from the book. I recommend that readers get themselves a good map, even little ones copied from an atlas, to have along for the read, section by section. Another impression I get is that it is a narrative based on observations, not insight. Potential readers should note the book's other name; it is very much a "logbook of a ship." Despite references to marriage and ill parents and such, the author doesn't share much of himself on the pages here. My knowledge of American river geography was poor beforehand and I don't know how much it improved having read River Horse. I did learn a smattering of good words, ones new to me: rampike, tautological, slumgullion, oddment, and fluviomariner. And a few newly created words, like "yondering," as in, to look down yonder. There is a great deal more to be learned here, however. The author tells us that the Hudson River is a fjord, the only one in the contiguous states. That it is, mile for mile, richer in history, art, and literature than any other US river. That DeWitt Clinton's face was on cigarette tax stamps for nearly 100 years. That many canal towns are named after Mediterranean cities. That the east side of a river is deeper because of the earth's rotation, and that wind makes a river very complicated. That American perceptions of Indians come from the Sioux. That much of our weather is brewed up on the American Plains. That Lake Sakakawea (in North Dakota) is the largest manmade lake in the US. That the only contiguous state wider than Montana is Texas ("with its eccentric borders"). But there's a lot of reading ahead of you if you take up this book. So why take it on at all? Because, as the author's companion notes, "A river is not just about water."
Rating:
Summary: Muddled, murky...
Review: This book looked so promising. I've a fascination for rivers, and a kind of nostalgia when I think of American rivers and the vibrant part they played in the country's development. A whole book devoted to an exploration of rivers crossing the United States? Rivers have all that history and poetry, blood and romance, all those ghosts just waiting in the mist, to be wrapped in language and rediscovered. That's what I was expecting. Unfortunately the book is way less entertaining than hanging out with your grand-dad while he tuned up his Evinrude. I gave it a chance. Really, I did. I started off, glued to the first pages, determined not to miss a single nuance, and hoping that the trip and the book wouldn't end too quickly. It wasn't long before the author set me straight on that idea. No time for sight-seeing. He was rushed. He had his reasons, having to do with spring melt in the Rockies. I don't care. I hate it when people promise to take you on a tour and then weasel out of it by driving as fast as possible. To add some suspense and adventure, and presumably bulk, to the book, he adds in 'worries'. That's the device adventure writers resort to when they aren't really having any problems, but it occurs to them that the TV generation might find their story might be dull without a few. So they create things to worry about. Will they make the next lock or have to wait? Will they find engine parts in the next town? Will their friends meet them at the right dock? It all works out, but hey, they've added that all-important dramatic tension for a paragraph or two. If you're going to do this, you have to do it well, and not too often, or you wind up looking crotchety and nothing else. I wasn't expecting raging adventure. But I wasn't expecting a lifeless swamp of words either. The author's conceit of packaging his companions into one anonymous lump and naming it Pilotis added to the sterility, as if personalities were just way too much trouble. It felt uncomfortable and off, and I began to picture Pilotis as an alien, like the Grays of UFO tales, genderless, ageless, speechless. As we're all aware, adventure writers too often give short shrift to their travel buddies, but this has to be the most extreme case I've ever come across! Anyway, with Pilotis alienated from me, so to speak, that left the author, and I didn't find any reason to like or bond with him. And with nobody to like, it's not an enjoyable trip, not even from my armchair. The flat-out pedantic language contributes to the overall dullness. Granted, there's lots of information and facts, and if you want to know how efficiently the author could cross the United States, you'll find it in here. That's if you're interested in that sort of thing. I'm not.
Rating: 
Summary: River-Bore
Review: River Horse was a huge disappointment. It was about as exciting as a non-stop, cross country journey via an interstate highway. This is William Least Heat Moon at his worst.
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: Very diasappointing
Review: Least-Heat Moon's earlier books, Blue Highways and Prairy Erth, were terrific. This one is painful. It is self-indulgent, as were his earlier works in parts -- but without the wonderfully clean and accurate observations on humankind that make the other two must-reads. This is a book that seems to have been written to say "look at me, look at how witty and urbane I am." Unfortunately, he falls flat, and comes across as merely pompous. Save your money -- give this one a pass.
Rating: 
Summary: Getting to know our waters while laughing out loud
Review: I decided to read this book since a friend (my Pilotis) and I were headed to canoe the Upper Missouri River. Atypically I started the book in the middle as he began the trip on the Upper Missouri so that I could get Heat-Moon's perceptions of the river as I saw them first hand. This aspect was great since I could actually see the land he had to cross at midnight from Little Sandy to Virgelle, but the book turned out to be much more than this. It did give me a feel for the rivers and river towns in a way that is pretty hard for a typical traveller to experience. I often feel that he must enter a town and immediately work at finding the best place to get the best stories and meet the most interesting characters.The book is full of them - sometimes so full I thought his "clustered coincidences" came more from the characters he met than the continuing series of rescues that allowed him to complete his trip. However, for me it was the intelligent humor that held the book together. People on the plane out to Montana and back had to put up with my laughing out loud, that was obviously out of synch with the in-flight movie. While camping on the river my friend had to put up with my reading excerpts from the book. I was excited after they reached the coast, but also knew I had the whole beginning of the book yet to read. For me this was the best way to do it. There is also a pretty strong environmental advocacy message throughout the book. While I didn't agree with 100% of the negative conclusions, I was very happy to see the message there. Our waters are too important to treat like sewers. Once you get out on them you can see just how much they are worth keeping intact. Since I had liked Blue Highways I had hoped for another good tale with River Horse and I got it and many laughs to boot.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and entertaining
Review: This book chronicles William Least Heat-Moon's attempt to cross America completely by water. Though a simple premise, it is a difficult task. Setting out from New York Harbor with his friend, Pilotus, Least Heat-Moon journeys ever westward using canals, lakes, and rivers. And as he travels he records his thoughts on many subjects from pollution to politics. As with his first book, Blue Highways, Least Heat-Moon also records his conversations with the people he meets along the way. The book is thought-provoking and entertaining. I think it calls to all of us who have dreamed of taking our own voyage of discovery. I'd recommend this and his first book, Blue Highways.
Rating:
Summary: Least Heat, Most Hot Air
Review: Would someone please introduce Heat Moon to Stephen King's book, "On Writing"? The man who introduced me to the correlation between the number of calendars and cafe eats (which is 100% accurate even today)has forgotten what it was that made him a readable author. Somewhere along the line, this proud reborn native Amerian began to confuse his roots with a Monty Python version of Shakespearean prose, with the resulting unreadable drivel reeking of pithy arrogance and snobbery. Hey Bill, you are writing about America here - keep it simple, straight and direct and maybe you will catch the atmosphere and mood which is the heart of a story such as this. You've done it before.
Rating:
Summary: Promising Subject Matter, Poor Writing Style
Review: Having very much enjoyed listening to Barrett Whitener read P Nichols's Sea Change: Alone Across the Atlantic in a Wooden Boat, I was looking forward to listening to his reading of River-Horse. Unfortunately, the style of William Least Heat-Moon is long-winded and trite. His humor (or is it attempted wit?)is forced--especially in the failed witticisms with which he inevitably ends each chapter. Some of his iconographs are interesting, and the historical background he provides can even be gripping. However, listening to him describe his own life and experiences in his pretentious and overblown prose (did he write the whole thing with the thesaurus open in front of him?) made me shut off the tape recorder more than once.
Rating: 
Summary: A thoughtful, well-written and important look at America
Review: William Least Heat-Moon crafts an amazing look at America's heart and soul against a backdrop of a journey across the country via its rivers. He has much to say about history, native peoples, the state of the environment, and our own journeys through life. There were times I laughed out loud and times I cried while reading this book. Anyone who enjoys good travel writing, who is concerned about the environment, or who enjoys rich and multi-layered books will enjoy this.
|
