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Summary: River-Horse earns a place on my shelf.
Review: Books come and books go - a handful stay on, as old friends. William Least Heat-Moon's previous books: Blue Highways and Prairyerth have stayed, well-thumbed and well-loved. If you read and enjoyed the first two, you should not miss out on River-Horse.My initial reaction to River-Horse was that it was different. For one thing, the author has company this time, where the previous volumes had an air of solitary observation. Nonetheless, perseverance with River-Horse was rewarding, perhaps the reading being a little like a voyage in itself. Once again, WLHM provides a rich insight into the "48 contiguous states": a little history here, a thumbnail portrait there, glimpses of vanishing wildlife, and of enduring geology. The best books leave you with a feeling of having been there - WLHM certainly does this for me. Read it, enjoy it. Oh! And keep a good dictionary at hand - the author provides glimpses of a vanishing vocabulary too! River-Horse earns a place on my shelf.
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Summary: Want the answer to the NY Times acrostic?
Review: I found this book highly enjoyable and a thoroughly entertaining publication. One of the most powerful parts of the book was the following passage: I have an old highway atlas, the pages so soft from a thousand thumbings, they whisper as I turn them. Put your finger any place in this United States atlas and I've either been there or within twenty-five miles of it. Now isn't that the most beautiful thing you've ever read? It gives me goosebumps. I'm so moved it makes me cry. Read this book. It changed my life and it'll change yours too.
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Summary: "Proceed as the Way Opens"
Review: Least Heat Moon has crafted a masterpiece of American travelogue with River Horse. I have found this work one of the most enjoyable reads I've stumbled upon in many years. Five hundred plus pages full of passages as vivid as the riverscapes, history, and people they describe, language that is lovingly and lyrically crafted with a rythmic tug suggesting the pull of the currents that alternately opposed then carried the author and his companions across a continent. More than anything, River Horse is a fine story told with plenty of playful humor, strong opinions, and a native son's keen sense of America, past and present.
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Summary: Heat-Moon is the best!
Review: The first time I read Blue Highways, it took my breath away. Every time I thought about it, I could see everywhere he went and I thought of the people he met like I met them myself. I was so relieved when River Horse came out that we could get some more of this wonderful authorship! Heat-Moon doesn't make as many stops on this trip to meet the locals (though he does make a few). But his travelling friend, Pilotis, well makes up for that. This is an awe-inspiring book about a man realizing a life-long goal of crossing the country only on water. His wisdom and wit alone makes it a great read. I do feel like he is keeping us a little away from the intimacy in the breakup of his marriage, but who wouldn't be? This isn't a story about his home life, but his life where he belongs, out in the free. Everything about this book is wonderful.
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Summary: Vicariously Sailing the Ikawa
Review: For those who love a journey rich in details about landscapes visited, people met, difficulties resolved through chance, and sailing challenges surmounted, this is the book for you! I was raised in Ohio, so greatly enjoyed this opportunity to visit again towns along Lake Erie and the Ohio River. The author, also the captain of the Ikawa, a small, flat-bottomed boat, sails East to West across America, and while doing so, documents his voyage with honesty and humor.
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Summary: Awful Awful Awful
Review: This is one of the worst books I ever read. I hope the author would consider another vocation. May I suggest sleep therapy. The best thing about this bomb is that the pages work well in the out house
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Summary: Need an Atlas
Review: River Horse is nothing like "Blue Highways." Make sure you have an Atlas and Dictionary nearby when reading River Horse. Difficult to follow, difficult to read, and pompous.
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Summary: River travel
Review: It was interesting. However the author kept sticking in political views that showed he was entirely lacking in knowledge of the how and why politically. I know that his information about the rivers was correct, but his political views, since they were without scholarly foundation, should have been left out. However that is his opinion, but it detracted from the factual story of his trip, and was totally unrelated. He doesn't seem to understand that this country has been under control of the Democrats 90% of the time since 1929. They effectively ran against Hoover until Nixon came along,then continued their Tax and spend tactics until 1994. Clinton continued to fight for runaway spending until the Republicans stopped him. Now he takes credit for the surplus. He should stick to what he knows, boating, until he studies political history with an open mind.
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Summary: Pretension Aplenty
Review: WLHM had a great idea; to recycle Blue Highways, this time on a boat. However, what made Blue Highways a wonderful read was not the highway or even the van - but the people he encountered on his way. When you travel across America on a boat you don't interact with very many interesting people. The result - a lot of water, shoreline and pretension. I don't which was worse; the author's struggle to complete the journey or my struggle to complete the book.
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Summary: The real Blue Highways of America come to life
Review: 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"!
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