Download Old Glory : A Voyage Down the Mississippi, by Jonathan Raban
After downloading and install the soft data of this Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban, you could start to read it. Yeah, this is so pleasurable while somebody must review by taking their big publications; you remain in your brand-new way by just manage your device. Or even you are working in the workplace; you could still make use of the computer system to read Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban totally. Certainly, it will not obligate you to take several web pages. Simply page by page depending upon the time that you need to review Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban
Old Glory : A Voyage Down the Mississippi, by Jonathan Raban
Download Old Glory : A Voyage Down the Mississippi, by Jonathan Raban
Why must choose the trouble one if there is easy? Obtain the profit by getting the book Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban below. You will certainly obtain different way making a bargain and also obtain the book Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban As known, nowadays. Soft file of guides Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban come to be incredibly popular amongst the users. Are you one of them? And also right here, we are offering you the extra compilation of ours, the Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban.
As known, several individuals state that e-books are the windows for the globe. It does not indicate that getting book Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban will suggest that you could buy this globe. Simply for joke! Reviewing a publication Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban will certainly opened up an individual to assume far better, to keep smile, to amuse themselves, and to encourage the expertise. Every book also has their unique to influence the viewers. Have you understood why you read this Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban for?
Well, still puzzled of ways to obtain this publication Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban right here without going outside? Merely link your computer or gizmo to the net and also begin downloading and install Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban Where? This page will certainly show you the web link page to download Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban You never ever worry, your preferred book will certainly be earlier yours now. It will certainly be a lot easier to enjoy reviewing Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban by on-line or obtaining the soft file on your kitchen appliance. It will despite which you are and also just what you are. This e-book Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban is written for public and also you are one of them who could take pleasure in reading of this e-book Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban
Spending the leisure by checking out Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban could offer such terrific encounter also you are just seating on your chair in the office or in your bed. It will not curse your time. This Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban will certainly guide you to have even more valuable time while taking rest. It is quite delightful when at the midday, with a cup of coffee or tea as well as a book Old Glory : A Voyage Down The Mississippi, By Jonathan Raban in your device or computer system monitor. By enjoying the sights around, right here you can begin checking out.
The author of Bad Land realizes a lifelong dream as he navigates the waters of the Mississippi River in a spartan sixteen-foot motorboat, producing yet another masterpiece of contemporary American travel writing. In the course of his voyage, Raban records the mercurial caprices of the river and the astonishingly varied lives of the people who live along its banks. Whether he is fishing for walleye or hunting coon, discussing theology in Prairie Du Chien or race relations in Memphis, he is an expert observer of the heartyland's estrangement from America's capitals ot power and culture, and its helpless nostalgia for its lost past. Witty, elegaic, and magnificently erudite, Old Glory is as filled with strong currents as the Mississippi itself.
- Sales Rank: #873891 in Books
- Color: Cream
- Brand: Raban, Jonathan
- Published on: 1998-05-26
- Released on: 1998-05-26
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x .90" w x 5.20" l, .75 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 416 pages
Amazon.com Review
"It is as big and depthless as the sky itself. You can see the curve of the earth on its surface as it stretches away for miles to the far shore." So begins Old Glory, in which Jonathan Raban recounts his eye-opening descent of the Mississippi River in a 16-foot aluminum motorboat. As the English author explains, his obsession with the subject began with Huckleberry Finn, which he first read as a 7-year-old. And in fact, his opening sentences refer as much to the imaginary river as to the real one, which turns out to be less bucolic than Raban expected. Three miles upstream from Oquawka, Illinois, he's nearly pulverized by a towboat. Later on, the intrepid voyager only just manages to escape a treacherous whirlpool near St. Louis, calming himself afterwards with a generous dose of tobacco and Valium.
True, when Raban isn't cheating death he encounters some stunning terrain, which he describes in no-less-stunning prose. Yet Old Glory is much, much more than a travelogue. It is also a brilliant interrogation of the American psyche, in the tradition of De Tocqueville and Crevecoeur. And ultimately, Raban tells us a great deal about the very phenomenon of travel, with all its rigors and rewards, and its peculiar, metaphysical dislocations: "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."
From the Inside Flap
The author of Bad Land realizes a lifelong dream as he navigates the waters of the Mississippi River in a spartan sixteen-foot motorboat, producing yet another masterpiece of contemporary American travel writing. In the course of his voyage, Raban records the mercurial caprices of the river and the astonishingly varied lives of the people who live along its banks. Whether he is fishing for walleye or hunting coon, discussing theology in Prairie Du Chien or race relations in Memphis, he is an expert observer of the heartyland's estrangement from America's capitals ot power and culture, and its helpless nostalgia for its lost past. Witty, elegaic, and magnificently erudite, Old Glory is as filled with strong currents as the Mississippi itself.
From the Back Cover
"Stunning . . . more successful than 99 percent of the books about America since de Tocqueville." --The New York Times Book Review
"Wonderful. . . . Mr. Raban is excellent company. He is a popcorn-popper of opinions." --The New York Times
"Vividly captures the texture of small-town everyday life. . . . Old Glory has given us a fresh portrait of ourselves." --Newsweek
Most helpful customer reviews
24 of 28 people found the following review helpful.
Good but not Raban's Best
By John C. Bradley, Jr.
I read Bad Land, Raban's book on homesteaders in Montana several years ago and it has become one of my all time favorite books. Since that time I have read some of Raban's other books, this one included. Raban's subject is fascinating, his writing is first rate. However, like some of the other reviewers have noted, this book is marred by the author's cynical tone and approach and an air of condecension that preveals throughout this book. Raban continually gives the impression that in his brief stops along the river he "figures out" what the locals have been unable to or have failed to figure out for years. I am sure that Raban did encounter his share of rubes and rednecks, but if this book is to be believed, those types of people are practically the only ones he encountered (maybe this has something to do with the fact that he sought out bars and watering holes as his first contact with many of the places he visited). His take on the South is typical of someone who has never lived in it.
This is a very good book and worth reading. However, it would not be my first choice of books written by this author. This book is marred by an attitude of superiority and condecension that Raban appears to have lost in his later books.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
Bringing the Mississippi River to life........
By nto62
Old Glory tells the tale of Raban's solo journey by boat down the Mississippi from Minneapolis to New Orleans. Along the way, he visits the great cities and backwater towns that dot this legendary American wonder. Raban demonstrates that the Mississippi is, in myriad ways, much more than a river. He records the life-altering relationships between people and place and brings us the history and experience of this ultimate American artery. I have crossed the Mississippi by bridge and plane countless times and, with a cursory glance, acknowledged it as a major American marker. Raban, however, brings a soul to the Mississippi that, at once, uncovers a latent reverence, inspires a profound understanding, and rekindles a vicarious sense of spirit and adventure in the American citizen for "our" river and it's lore. This is an excellent book that deserves, and will certainly earn, your attention.
18 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
a tattered flag, still waving
By A Customer
I have traveled a fair amount through the small towns of the United States and have to concur with Mr. Raban's depiction of both the towns and the people who live in them. Other readers who have taken the time to write reviews of this book here seem to have remembered only about half of what Raban wrote about each of the towns that he visited.
His initial impressions were often filled with disappointment. He had approached this trip with a boyhood dream in his head and he was continually set back on his proverbial heels by the reality of these river towns in 1979. More often than not, however, further exploration of the town, conversations with some of its citizens and reflection on his part, caused Raban to revise his evaluation of many of the places that he visited.
Some reviewers may perhaps have forgotten that this book describes this region as it was after years during which the US economy struggled through an oil crisis, bouts of inflation, intervals of high unemployment and the tail end of the history of the "old economy". Should someone have the time and inclination to retrace Raban's steps nearly 25 years later, I would not be surprised if they found these towns and their people had changed quite a bit, probably for the better in social and economic terms. For instance, Raban devoted most of a chapter to the failed election campaign of Memphis's first black candidate for mayor. A quick Google (keywords: Memphis Tennesee government) will show you that the present mayor of Memphis (Willie W. Herenton) is African-American. I'm going to guess that he is not the first black mayor of Memphis.
I loved Raban's modus operandi for getting to the heart of a place. Tie up your boat, go to the nearest bar and strike up a conversation. This would seem to me to be the most reliable means to quickly get an unvarnished opinion about a place. Sure, someone on a bar stool is likely to have a slightly dimmer view of the place where he or she lives than the average citizen, but Raban was rarely, if ever, content with their views. He basically used the tavern-sitters as a 1979-era local flesh-and-blood Google; he found out the basics about a place like who are the local characters, what are the main industries, which are the burning local political issues etc. His fellow barflies were more important as sources of germane questions than as sources of definitive answers.
Raban's perspective on the St. Louis metropolitan area is one that I can vouch for personally, having visited there 10 years after he did. Furthermore Jonathan Franzen's novel The Twenty-seventh City is an elaborate description of the city-county socio-politico-economic tensions during the late 1980s. The continuum between Raban and Franzen's descriptions is pretty easy to imagine. Franzen grew up in the county and would have been a teen-ager when Raban was shacked up with his rich, wigged-out girlfriend out in Clayton.
I took one long journey through the US accompanied by a Danish friend. Upon learning that my traveling companion was a foreigner nearly every American that we encountered relaxed almost visibly and began to wax philosophical about the state of things. The radius of their sphere of interest varied, but everyone had an opinion about something. It was delightful to see that Mr. Raban experienced this same lowering of guard and move toward introspection as soon as he announced that he was an Englishman traveling in the US.
The parochial character and narrow-mindedness of many of the people he encountered matches up well with my own experiences in similar terrain four years after his journey. It is important to note though that Raban was treated to extraordinary amounts of generosity, both material and emotional, by the people that he met, however rhetorically bigoted they might have been. The author is at pains to acknowledge both the generosity and the puzzling disconnect that he sees between their rhetoric and their behavior.
Just one of the wonderful things that Jonathan Raban does in the course of Old Glory is show the reader the essence of American character. Their aggressive rhetoric is their shield against the unknown, but once you are brought in behind that shield, Americans are among the most outrageously generous and genuinely good people that you are likely to find.
Old Glory : A Voyage Down the Mississippi, by Jonathan Raban PDF
Old Glory : A Voyage Down the Mississippi, by Jonathan Raban EPub
Old Glory : A Voyage Down the Mississippi, by Jonathan Raban Doc
Old Glory : A Voyage Down the Mississippi, by Jonathan Raban iBooks
Old Glory : A Voyage Down the Mississippi, by Jonathan Raban rtf
Old Glory : A Voyage Down the Mississippi, by Jonathan Raban Mobipocket
Old Glory : A Voyage Down the Mississippi, by Jonathan Raban Kindle
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar