Book
River-horse : the logbook of a boat across America
Record details
- ISBN: 9780395636268
- ISBN: 9780140298604 (pbk.)
- ISBN: 0395636264
- ISBN: 0140298606 (pbk.)
-
Physical Description:
print
xii, 506 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm. - Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
Content descriptions
| General Note: | "A Peter Davison book." |
Search for related items by subject
Available copies
- 2 of 2 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 0 of 0 copies available at Sechelt/Gibsons.
- 0 of 0 copies available at Gibsons Public Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 2 total copies.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Monthly Selections - #1 August 1999
/*Starred Review*/ In the nineteenth century, America's waterways were its superhighways, the main routes of travel and commerce linking the territories and states of a country rapidly expanding across a continent. In 1995, veteran travel writer William Least Heat-Moon (aka William Trogdon) climbed aboard a 22-foot motorboat, with minimal equipment and provisions, and set out to retrace those historic travel routes across the U.S. interior. Heat-Moon made his unique voyage in under a year, traveling 5,000 miles and meeting dozens of Americans who still live their lives on or near the rivers. Heat-Moon has alchemized his log from that trip into a monumental travel book. In the constant company of his companion (actually a series of companions) known only by the pseudonym "Pilotis" ("my Pylades, my Pythia, my Pytheas"), Heat-Moon records storms, floods, mishaps, wildlife, scenic beauty, hilarity, and philosophic musings. His prose is straightforward and folksy, reminiscent of Twain and Melville. His journey becomes a living history of the U.S. as the well-read author refers to numerous historical events that took place along his route, quoting at length from other writers and adventurers who preceded him. At more than 500 pages, his epic does seem to run long, but the book is composed of self-containing chapters and can be read selectively. There is a timeless quality to Heat-Moon's stories, all remarkably spellbinding and enchanting. An excellent book. ((Reviewed August 1999)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews - BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 1999 October
October 1999 Eliza McGraw Readers familiar with William Least Heat-Moon's sojourns will welcome this latest addition to his works. Heat-Moon drove a van across America's back roads in Blue Highways, then walked around and through a part of Kansas in PrairyErth. Like the two books that precede it, River Horse is the story of a journey, this one across America by boat. As he did in its predecessors, Heat-Moon intersperses his narrative with bits from other books - here, Lewis and Clark's writings join those of Washington Irving, among others. These excerpts constantly remind readers that travel writings tell not only the story of a trip, but also explain its ramifications and context.River Horse - the English translation of the Osage name of Heat-Moon's boat, Nikawa - begins in New Jersey, as its skipper heads northward with his mate, Pilotis. Pilotis is a compilation of several different people who joined Nikawa's travels. Heat-Moon avoids any gender-specific pronouns when referring to Pilotis, so readers come to view his mate as a near-mythical friend and helper. River Horse is as much concerned with the people as with the waters. As Heat-Moon writes, "As if an old tar, Pilotis sang pieces of song, some of them one chorus more than necessary, but I knew the river was at last full upon my friend."
The towns through which Nikawa travels also play a large role in its voyage. Heat-Moon and Pilotis help one Missouri town through a flood, eat in diners, and tell successions of disbelieving strangers their planned route from Atlantic to Pacific. Like Blue Highways and PrairyErth, River Horse depends upon the events and places within. Heat-Moon spins tales of Pittsburgh, Wheeling, West Virginia, and smaller towns such as Vevay, Indiana, and Mobridge, South Dakota. Each place holds a different story as Nikawa motors along.
As in his other work, Heat-Moon's lyrical descriptions illuminate the landscape. He writes of birds the Nikawa passed: "It was a cool morning of hovering ospreys dropping to trawl their claws across the river, of magpies descending from the sage hills, mergansers taking off in their distinct tippy-toe, killdeer running along the few dry shoals . . . It was a winged morning." Throughout River Horse, Heat-Moon treats the reader to such poetic views, from sea to sea.
Eliza McGraw teaches English at Vanderbilt University. Copyright 1999 BookPage Reviews
- Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 1999 August #2
A coast-to-coast journey by way of great rivers, conducted by a contemporary master of travel writing. I ve visited every county in the contiguous states except for a handful in the Deep South, writes William Trogdon, a.k.a. William Least Heat-Moon (Blue Highways, 1983; Prairyerth, 1991). Put your finger at random anywhere in [a] United States atlas, and I ve either been there or within twenty-five miles of it. He d logged hundreds and thousands of road miles, true, but Least Heat-Moon a skilled sailor and navy veteran had spent far less time on America s rivers. To remedy that, he set out a couple of years ago on a 5,000-mile, four-month journey from Astoria, N.Y., to Astoria, Ore., in the company of an eminently pleasant Sancho Panza whom he calls Pilotis and a small crew, his craft a 22-foot-long dory called Nikawa, an Osage Indian word meaning river horse. Least Heat-Moon has a lovely, light touch as an instructor, but instruct he does, reminding his readers of the importance of rivers in American history as he travels along the Hudson, Ohio, Missouri, Salmon, and other watercourses. His asides, the kind of remarks you d hear in a roadside diner over a steaming cup of bad coffee, are uniformly interesting. Who knew, for instance, that for many years the Mississippi was considered a tributary of the Missouri and not the other way around? Why does history make so little of Abraham Lincoln s time working a flatboat along the Ohio River drainage, where he witnessed firsthand the horrors of slavery? Why was it that until the US Army Corps of Engineers got to tinkering with stream channels, American rivers rarely flooded, rarely caused the catastrophic damage that has shaped the news over the last few years? Writing with an eye for local color and little-examined history (and sneaking in a pages-long sentence worthy of James Joyce in the bargain), Least Heat-Moon turns in a stirring narrative of a journey into landscapes few have seen an America that isn t a big country but hundreds of smaller ones. Vintage Least Heat-Moon, radiant with intelligence and masterful storytelling. (First printing of 250,000; $250,000 ad/promo; author tour) Copyright 1999 Kirkus Reviews - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 1999 October #1
In this, the third title in his trilogy (following Blue Highways and Prairyerth), Heat-Moon strikes out to discover America through her rivers. Feeling that he "could never really know America until I'd seen it from the bends and reaches of its flowing waters," he acquired a small boat, which he named Nikawa (which means river horse), a copilot (referred to as Pilotis), and a logbook and set out to journey from New York City to the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon. In spite of the many obstacles he encounters, he has much time for reflectionAoften bordering on superstitionAand observation. The result is less a view from the river, which is obscured by natural valleys, river banks, and the usual border of trees, than of the people he meets along the way. His descriptions of them (and his ear for a good line) enhance our understanding of the places he visits. Heat-Moon set out to "experience the empire, learn the science, and report it to those who might not ever make the journey," and he has succeeded nobly. This evocative and masterly narrative is a reminder of the beauty and grandeur of our country. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/99.]AJulia Stump, Voorheesville P.L., NY Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 1999 August #4
Writing under the name Heat-Moon (Blue Highways), William Trogdon once again sets out across America, this time propelled chiefly by a dual-outboard boat dubbed Nikawa, "River Horse" in Osage. In this hardy craft, he and a small crew attempt to travel more than 5000 miles by inland waterways from the Atlantic to the Pacific in a single season. Citing 19th-century travelogues and dredging odd bits of the rivers' past, Heat-Moon conveys the significance of passing "beneath a bridge that has looked down on the stovepipe hat of Abraham Lincoln, the mustache of Mark Twain, the sooty funnels of a hundred thousand steamboats." Though at first he is struck by how river travel is "so primordial, so unchanged in its path," he later notes that the only thing Lewis and Clark would recognize on a dammed and severely altered stretch of the Missouri River is the bedeviling prairie wind. But what remains constant for him is "the greatest theme in our history: the journey." It is an American theme, though by "westering" and persistently believing that the voyage is destined to succeed, Heat-Moon seems to be on dangerous waters for someone who is part Native American. But his romantic attachment to the nature of exploration doesn't occlude his indictments of pollution, overzealous river management and aboriginal displacement. The book, though largely engaging, is not without its slow spots, which Heat-Moon avers are true to the trip's nature: "the river is no blue highway because the river removes reverie." Heat-Moon has written a rich chronicle of a massive and meaningful undertaking. Unlike Blue Highways, however, the focus is not so much on people and places as on the trials of a journey that bypasses them in favor of reaching its destination. Illus. 250,000 first printing; $250,000 ad/promo; 13-city author tour. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
