The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey
Product Description
At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.
The River of Doubt—it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its shadows; piranhas glide through its waters; boulder-strewn rapids turn the river into a roiling cauldron.
After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil’s most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believe it. In the process, he changed the map of the western hemi… More >>
Pasteing together a series of magazine/National Geographic articles does not make a novel. I was very excited to read this book because of the primary subject, however, I was greatly disappointed. I read up to page 82 and could no longer endure the torture. I felt as if I was in a haze while reading, due to the long mundane details about hardtack etc that detracted from the story rather than enhancing it. Teddy has been dealt an injustice here.
I thought this would be a fascinating adventure strory with some cool history and natural science thrown in. Instead it was a boring, repetitive slog through the jungle that had me wishing the whole group would be slaughtered by the indians so the book would end! How many times do I need to be told mosquitoes cause malaria, T.R. was disappointed by his election loss, etc.? Where was the editing?
Teddy should have been more involved in the details of planning for this expedition.
The book brings forward an avalanch of information rarely found today. I paid particular attention to the relationship between the US of North America and the rest of the Americas to the South. It is like a window into a world gone by, that one can only hope never to return. It is plagued with contradictions and inflated statements of bravado by the author, Roosevelt’s actions and recollections, are almost that of a charlatan. However, it is like a window into the soul of the man made out to be much more than he really was during his River of Doubt expedition.
Firstly, Miss Millard helps perpetuate ignorance in this book, i.e. when she calls indigenous peoples of the Amazons–Indians. Is she still living October 12, 1492, when Cristoforo Colombo, whose name now was Cristobal Colon, NOT Christopher Columbus, as he was by then a Spaniard subject, believed they had arrived in India. Ingnorant of the fact Colon had NOT arrived in India, he called the continents peoples Indians. That is as much I would like to say about what we today, in the 22nd century, should call the peoples of indigenous or Native American ancestry from Canada to the Southern most tip in South America.
Statements made by Roosevelt of “no civilized men had explored the river or the interior of Brazil”. This is either ingnorant or milgnant with the filth of prejudice and dismissal of 400 years of Spaniard and Portuguess explorers, who preceeded Roosevelt’s expedition. And to dismiss a much better man, a superb man in character and leader of men, Col. Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon and other Brazilians, who already had traversed the interior years before him or any of the others, like father Zahm, is laughable and borderline charlatant.
Perhaps, Col. Rondon’s pictures next to Roosevelt are testimony of his feelings towards Roosevelt and his companions. His body language is most careful and diplomatic. But, one cannot escape his body language. From his posture and look on his eyes revealing how he felt indignity–disconfort standing next to Roosevelt. Perhaps, the result of what he had to endure from the arrogance and ingnorance, and the duplicituous and misguided notion that they were not civilized or cultured or that the life of a camarada or Brazilian was lesser.
I can’t figure out exactly why everyone thinks this book is so wonderful. Basically, it’s about a bunch of guys floating down a river. The only reason it has any historical significance is because one of the members of the company was a former President of the United States (T.R.). The story, however, is well written and Millard does a good job of portraying this relative non-event in relation to the events of the time and in the lives of the major characters (T.R. and his son). This book is kind of like the Seinfield series: a story about nothing but relatively entertaining nonetheless.