Blood River: The Terrifying Journey Through The World’s Most Dangerous Country
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Product Description
Published to rave reviews in the United Kingdom and named a Richard & Judy Book Club selection—the only work of nonfiction on the 2008 list—Blood River is the upsetting and audacious tale of Tim Butcher’s journey in the Congo and his retracing of legendary explorer H. M. Stanley’s legendary 1874 expedition in which he mapped the Congo River. When Daily Telegraph correspondent Tim Butcher was sent to Africa in 2000 he quickly became obsessed with the legendary Congo River and the thought of recreating Stanley’s journey along the three-thousand-mile waterway. Despite warnings that his plot was suicidal, Butcher set out for the Congo’s eastern border with just a backpack and a few thousand dollars hidden in his boots. Building his way in an assortment of vehicles, including a motorbike and a dugout canoe, helped along by a cast of characters from UN aid workers to a pygmy rights advocate, he followed in the footsteps of the fantastic Victorian adventurer. An utterly absorbing narrative that chronicles Butcher’s forty-four-day journey along the Congo River, Blood River is an unforgettable tale of exploration and survival.
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“Blood River” traces the footsteps of legendary explorer Henry Morton Stanley and his journey from Tanjanika to the mouth of the Congo River. Leader Tim Butcher attempts to follow this path and provides some appealing insight into the history and plight of the Congo and its people; despite this insight, not much happens as he traces Stanley’s journey. In fact, the leader bails out half-way through his trip and decides to take a helicopter to Kinshasa.
His writing style is a bit tacky; he ends his journey by staring at a stone that he has carried in his pocket. He says, “I looked at it for a final time. It was the colour of dried blood.”
The reader gets tired of the leader’s continuous whining and complaining about his hardships. He obviously knew from the start that it wasn’t going to be a picnic, but he can’t handle it. He says:
“…I was apprehensive about my health. I was feeling weak and nauseous after the riverboat journey, but I was still 400 kilometers fleeting of Boma… . It was only after two days of sleeping in a bed with laundered sheets, drinking clean water, eating healthy food, and dousing myself with antibiotics in the comfort of the luxury house that I ongoing to feel strong enough to contemplate attempting this final leg.”
These luxuries were things that Stanley did not have.
At the end of his account, he comes to the realization that Stanley only had his own interests in mind and was not much different from additional European imperialists. What a surprise.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
The leader’s premise is intriguing. A lone white man will journey through the horrific darkness of the modern Congo, tracing the steps of Henry Stanley’s legendary trek recorded in 1876.
Mr. Butcher’s account but falls flat with a loud thud.
The descriptions of his journey are wooden, unedifying, and whiny. “I got bitten this morning by a mosquito!” “I became hungry after noon having gone lacking breakfast!”
The leader bails out half-way through his mission and finishes the last 1,000 mile leg of his quest to the Atlantic virtually non-stop by freighter and helicopter, (hint: first 300 pages clarify about 1,000 miles: last 20 pages clarify the next 1,000 miles).
It seems that the leader became bored with his own tale and journey.
Prospective readers hoping for new insights into central Africa may delight in about twelve pages of this book. I would advise others to avoid the seductive promise of adventure here.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I establish this book to be reasonably a drag. The leader spends the first 80 pages seeking out various individuals who underline the alleged danger of the undertaking by telling him it can’t be done, it shouldnt be done, it would be reckless to do and various permutations thereof. When the leader finally decides he has sufficiently milked this angle he gets underway…and frankly nothing much happens, at least for the 200 pages I was able to get through. I, for one, can only take so much of the ‘today we made excellent time’ ‘my buttocks hurts from the rough roads’ and ‘wow, look at the decrepit towns we’re passing through’ sort of traveloge.
This book is strangely bloodless. I get no sense of who the leader is and no sense of the personalities of the people he meets along the way. The only time it comes alive is when it recaps the adventures of Stanley who was a right adventurer and, in comparison to whom, the leader of this book seems forced and artificial.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
I downloaded this to my Kindle because I read a note in an in-flight magazine where Tony Bourdain said he was reading it – he’s on some kind of African kick. OOPS!
Tim Butcher starts by telling us how he has wanted to make this trip for years and how much research he has done into just about anything and everything having to do with the Congo, Stanley, Livingston, etc. He then takes an entire book proving to us that he really knows this stuff cold. His demonstration of his grasp of the material is truly commanding. And frightfully dull.
Somewhere along the way the tale (which could have been compelling in the hands of a novelist) gets buried in endless and rather pointless side bits. What becomes obvious is that this is the work of a reporter/journalist. It is really just a series of factoids, most going nowhere. Certainly not engaging this reader. And I usually like dull fact-filled stuff.
If you read far enough to get to the lady that serves him her homemade wine you will know what I mean. Really, what was the point of that?? It happened, so what? He doesn’t even tie it into the next paragraph.
OMG: “Hey, here’s a river. I bet Stanley went across this river in 18?? Here’s a rock he might have stepped on… blah, blah, blah.”
Save your money unless you have distress sleeping. Me, I am going to read it all the way to the end. Why? Because I paid way too much money for it.
Maybe I’ll write a note to Tony Bourdain, too!
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
Blood River
Africa has been in the US news during the recent Presidential battle and water cooler discussions about what we should or should not be doing prompted my British co worker to suggest Blood River. The book is a recollection of a fantastic adventure. An incredible journey retracing Stanley’s journey in the Congo. The discriptions of this demanding and treacherous journey are both revealing and sad. This feat was so incredible that locals questioned his honesty when he told them he had travelled overland. Commenting on the decline of the area, the leader questions why the Africans are so inept at governing themselves. It is not for the lack of foreign aid or natural resources. The answer is a lack of solvent African leadership and the a resulting breakdown from an infant civilization to a condition where the safest place to be in the bush. “City terrible, bush excellent”.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5