BOOK REVIEW- Five Stars
Old Glory: A Voyage Down the Mississippi (Vintage Departures) by Jonathan Raban
“Riding the river, I had seen myself as a sincere traveler, thinking of my voyage not as a holiday but as a scale model of a life. It was different from life in one essential: I would survive it to give an account of its end. The journey would turn into a complete narrative, where life—my own life—could be only an unfinished story with an inconclusive plot.” The author, Jonathan Raban
Jonathan Raban’s account of floating down river across America on the mighty Mississippi and being submersed in every type of political, religious, and regional controversy that cursed a country that is often diverse and extreme paints a vivid picture and weaves an adventure.
Interesting and educational, this story is an on going escapade.
EXCERPTS
“I think God made the Mississippi as a sort of warning, to prove that things really can be worse than you think.”
I ran into the man again. “You’re not still thinking of going down that river, are you?” “I’ve written off about getting a motor.” “It’d cost you a hell of a lot less if you just swallowed a packet of razor blades.
The state fair sprawled across a hillside and a valley, and at first glance it did indeed look like a city under occupation by an army of rampaging Goths. I’d never seen so many enormous people assembled in one place. These farming families from Minnesota and Wisconsin were the descendants of hungry immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia. Their ancestors must have been lean and anxious men with the famines of Europe bitten into their faces. Generation by generation, their families had eaten themselves into Americans. Now they all had the same figure: same broad bottom, same Buddha belly, same neck less join between turkey-wattle chin and
sperm-whale torso. The women had poured themselves into pink stretch-knit pant suits; the men swelled against every seam and button of their plaid shirts and Dacron slacks. Under the brims of their caps, their food projected from their mouths. Foot-long hot dogs. Bratwurst sausages, dripping with hot grease. Hamburgers. Pizzas. Scoops of psychedelic ice cream. Wieners-dun-in-buns. Stumbling, half-suffocated, through this abundance of food and flesh, I felt like a brittle matchstick man.
The sound of dice being shaken in a wooden cup. “That’s a rattler. He’s in there somewhere.” Tickety-tickety-tickety. “He’s moving away from us now. He was right close up when I first heard him.” The noise of the snake was lost in the rustle of the leaves. “A while back, this was a real good place for rattlers.
When I was a kid, we used to come out and hunt them. You got twenty-five cents for every rattle then. They was trying to exterminate them. Then a whole lot got drowned in the summer floods.
There was rattlers all over, trying to climb aboard. They was just desperate to get on anything that was floating, logs, boats, I guess they weren’t discriminating too much. It wasn’t me they was after, it was just a ride on my boat.
Whenever anyone’s been in trouble in the world, we’ve gone in there to help them. Hell, we helped you out when you was in trouble in World War Two. Now America’s in trouble, and everyone’s looking the other way. No one wants to help us. Even your country, you ain’t going to come in with us and lend a hand. Even you.” His jowl was set in a melancholy line of deep personal grievance. “I reckon in America now, we ain’t got but one friend left in the world. Know who that is?” “I’m sorry it’s not England.”
“South Korea.” He gave an irritable snort of laughter. “Fuckin’ South Korea!”
I wasn’t a traveler at all; I was just another rubberneck in a city that made its living out of credulous rubbernecks. Go buy a guidebook! Take a buggy ride! Get your picture painted! Eat beignets! Listen to the sounds of Old Dixie! Have yourself a relief massage; then go home, shmuck!