Review: The River of Doubt by Candice Millard

Subtitled Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, this tells the story of Roosevelt's trip into South America to map an unknown Amazon tributary after his defeat for a third Presidency. Equal parts true life adventure story, biographical portrait of a larger than life politician, and South American history, this is a generally interesting, sometimes gripping story I had never heard before. I will admit that my knowledge of long dead presidents is fairly sketchy and generally limited at best to their major accomplishments (or failures) in office, but I did have some inkling of the adventure-junky aspect of Roosevelt's character. After all, which school child hasn't heard about the hunting trip that resulted in the naming of the teddy bear or about his African safaris or about his Rough Riders? But about the expedition down an uncharted tributary of the Amazon, nothing.

After his final defeat, Roosevelt obviously needed something to take his mind off the political failure and to test him physically, despite suffering from numerous ailments that would have kept a less determined man from the hardship and danger that faced him in the Amazonian jungle. The South American officer leading the expedition wanted to chart the course of the the River of Doubt. The museum naturalists accompanying the former president wanted to catalog new species of plant and animal. The Catholic father who had been the originator of the plan wanted a South American adventure. Kermit Roosevelt was along to make sure no ill came to his father. And the local men were there to paddle the inadequate log boats and do most of the hardest work of the journey. Like all good adventure stories, this has murder and hardship and ultimate survival only by the skin of the men's teeth. It has inadequate knowledge coupled with appalling risks and near starvation. And it has the larger than life figure of Theodore Roosevelt. Even with all of this, there are still times when Millard's narrative bogs down in details. The journey took far longer than anyone had anticipated and perhaps drawing the narrative out was intended to mimic the increasingly desperate slog down the river in a race against time but the end especially really dragged until the men emerge from the renamed Roosevelt River. Once the objective of conquering the river has been met, Millard speeds the narrative on, giving a quick overview of what happened to all the notable (or traceable) men of the party.

I didn't originally want to read this book when it was chosen by my bookclub but it certainly turned out to be more interesting that I had suspected. Ultimately I ended up liking it but I can see my friend's argument that it was dry. I will pass it along to my husband as he's a history buff for whom I suspect it will be a perfect read.

Review: Kristin Lavransdatter: II The Mistress of Husaby by Sigrid Undset

I read the first book in this trilogy years ago and struggled through it. At the time, I was told that the translation I happened to have was probably the hardest to plug through so I put off, and put off, and put off reading any further. But I wanted to because I had heard such wonderful things about this medieval set saga written by Nobel prize winner Undset. I don't really know what finally inspired me to pick up the second book this many years onward (good thing I have a decent memory for most books or I'd have been rather lost I suspect) but I am glad I did and am now looking forward to the third and final installment in Kristin Lavransdatter's life.

This portion of the saga starts with Kristin and Erlend arriving at Husaby, his ancestral estate, as they start their marriage. But Kristin and Erlend's life is not destined to be easy, even once they have the sanction of marriage, and Undset draws a full and captivating portrait of life in 1400's Norway. Domestic and political, male and female spheres, religion and secularity are all played out on a grand and a small scale, providing the reader with and intimate glimpse of a time long since passed from memory. Kristin is a strong and fascinating character but she has her faults. Erlend is weaker and more wayward as a character, a bigger picture thinker than his wife, who focuses on the small details. But their inability to temper each other's weaknesses in a true partnership leads them into great difficulty.

Once I settled into the language of this translation (and that took a bit), I was interested to see how Kristin and Erlend developed. In general I sympathized more with Kristin because she did so very much, always cognizant of the consequences of her actions. But there were times that I found myself getting annoyed with her, as if she was indeed a real person making poor choices and ill-advisedly holding onto grudges instead of a character in a book. The setting of the book was rich and well-detailed. And the historical imformation in the story line itself and in footnotes was fascinating since Norway's history is not even touched upon in classes in this country. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to live in the Middle Ages but I enjoy visiting there on occasion through the pages of a book. And I plan to visit Kristin in the last third of her story sooner rather than later.

Review: Slam by Nick Hornby

Sam is nearly 16 and everything in life is going really well for him. His mom has dumped the boyfriend Sam didn't like; he's learned new, more difficult skating tricks (that's skateboarding, not ice skating--he's a huge Tony Hawk afficiando, even talking to his Hawk poster and having it talk back to him and show him his future); his teachers think he might have college potential; and he's started dating Alicia, a girl he'd thought was way out of his league. As Sam himself says in the novel, when everything's ticking along this well, it's time to go and screw it up. And this generally normal, average kid does that in spectacular, life-changing fashion. He gets his girlfriend pregnant, echoing his mother's worst nightmare for him (she had him while still a teenager as well). This is the story of Sam, how he screwed up, came to grips with his screw-up, and makes a new, unexpected and imperfect but liveable life for himself.

I'm sure there are a load of novels dealing with teenaged pregnancy but Hornby has managed to add a fantastic new one to the mix. With Sam narrating, rather than girlfriend Alicia, the reader gets a much different perspective than usual. How a soon-to-be teenaged father reacts is different than a soon-to-be teenaged mother. We are taken along in Sam's world as he battles the desire to flee without finding out if Alicia is indeed pregnant (well, he does flee but he comes back), as he tries to finish enough schooling to become something, and as he struggles through life with a new baby and a girlfriend he's not sure he wants to be with any longer. As in his novels for adults, Hornby is quite adept in drawing an adolescent boy and all the confronts him in life. Sam is realistic and sympathetic. The other characters make fewer appearances on the page than Sam does and in fact the other characters are fairly few in number. But the focus on Sam works and while this isn't the usual cautionary teen pregnancy tale, there is certainly no glorification, rather a humorous but still difficult realism. I generally tend to like Hornby's non-fiction better than his fiction but I can recommend this one as a well-written and satisfying read for young adult or even adult.

Review: That Went Well by Terrell Harris Dougan

I hadn't heard of this book before I read a fellow book blogger's post saying that she had gotten it as a review book in the mail. After doing a little research on it, I commented on her blog that I was interested in reading it as well. Little did I expect that to lead to a review copy in my own mailbox, but it did. And I am not only glad that I heard about this book but I am also very grateful for the opportunity to read it and let all of you know about it too. Dougan has written quite a lovely book in her book That Went Well: Adventures in Caring for My Sister. Dougan's younger sister Irene is mentally disabled. This memoir covers the time from Irene's birth to the present, when Dougan has taken care of Irene, both now in their sixties, in one way or another, for years. Dougan doesn't flinch from telling the hard bits about having a mentally disabled sister but she leavens this with large doses of humor and love, also part and parcel of their lives. She tells of the toll that Irene's disability wreaked on their family but also the wonderful positives that came of it: when her parents were told that Irene couldn't go to school, they started their own to serve the children and later adults who had been left out of mainstream public education, knowing that all people deserve access to an education. Dougan joined in the crusade when she was old enough, advocating for Irene and many others like her. And when the Harris parents both passed away, Dougan took on the full time care of Irene even as she raised her own family, overseeing Irene's caregivers in the apartment where she could live on her own, keeping track of Irene's medical needs, and just generally being available when Irene or her companions needed her. The book is organized into fairly short chapters given that it spans 60 years and there were portions where I wished for more detail or extended versions of the entertaining bits she was recounting, but overall, this was a very sweet, candid tale of two sisters, both of whom have greatly enriched her sister's life.

Sunday Salon: Review: I Wanna Be Sedated: 30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers edited by Faith Conlon and Gail Hudson

I found this one sitting in my stacks and added it to one of my challenge lists with the thinking that I have a child racing towards the teen years so I should start reading along and preparing myself. After reading this book, I can see a good reason to follow the adage "Ignorance is bliss." Yowza! I am not ready for some of the challenges in this book. Will I be ready in a year? Probably not. But I don't think I get to stop the train now. My own personal state of panic aside, this was an interesting read. Very few of the writers focused on the really big issues you see in the news so frequently: drugs, alcohol, teen pregnancy, etc. Instead, they mostly confined themselves to the everyday irrationality of teenagers. They detailed frustrations, challenges, hormonal swings, and heartbreaks but the essays in here gave equal time to the overwhelming love the writers all felt (feel) for their teens, who amidst strife and chaos, are untying the apron strings and emerging from the chrysalis of childhood. I suspect that it's still hard to see exactly who the teens will be as adults, but these famous writer parents seem, for the most part, to be enjoying watching the transformation. The essays do run the gamit from humorous takes on the moodiness we all expect of teens to the pain of watching as your two oldest run away again. In the first essay, W. Bruce Cameron writes, "Congratulations! You are now the proud new owner of a teenage daughter. Please read this manual carefully, as it describes the maintenance of your new daughter and answers important questions about your warranty (which does NOT include the right to return the product to the factory for a full refund)." This essay stands in sharp contrast to Debra Gwartney's heartbreaking essay about her struggles with her daughters. Her essay details her attempt to change the situation after her daughters run away the first time but towards the end, she writes, "In the end, they had to go and keep going until they decided to return. I must have known that on some level, hard as it was to accept. When they left the second time, I didn't try to stop them."

Obviously, experiences with teenagers are as varied as the teenagers themselves and this book doesn't make any claims to be a parenting manual or even to dispense advice (except in the most flip and humorous of ways). It isn't designed to scare the pants off of parents (although some essays did have that effect on me) nor is it designed to fool them into a sense of complacency about the trials of living with teens (no chance of that!). It is merely an entertainment, filled with well-written and interesting essays about a time of life that no parent escapes. And on that level, it fulfills its purpose. As in most collections, there were essays I enjoyed far more than others. Some were better written than others. And as is often the case with specialized collections such as this, I'm not convinced of its universal appeal but for parents who can stomach reading about the teen years, this is a pretty decent choice. For my own part, after reading this, I have decided that "Dee Nile ain't just a river in Egypt, baby." If I ignore it hard enough, maybe I won't even notice the teen years as we plow through them here, right?!