Blood River: A Journey to Africa s Broken Heart
£1.91
A great read - I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I found it a great blend of interesting history and a fascinating insight into the modern-day Congo. I was genuinely gripped by the descriptions of the suffering going on there and horrified at my lack of awareness. The descriptions of his travel were secondary for me but were well-written and interesting. The only bits of the book that grated for me were his constant reminders of the dangers he was facing and the amount he was suffering which, on a backdrop of the Congolese people who were genuinely suffering and had no way of escape, felt unfair and over-stated. Other than that it was a great read nad I would highly recommend it.
Disappointing! - This book sounded so promising!But I found this nothing more than a portrayal of one mans arrogance and self-absorbtion. Despite the opportunities and experiences described the author fails to demonstrate any true insight or understanding of this deeply troubled and complex region.
A fantastic book - How anyone can call this book dull is beyond me. I admire the way that Butcher persevered through what most travellers would consider pretty terrifying conditions. My stomach churned at times and I imagined how I would probably have bottled out of many of the towns that he ventured through. The book itself is brilliantly written with a keen eye on the historical context and some thoughtful and brilliantly expressed passages. I would like to ask any of the critics of the book to place themselves in Butcher s position and see if they could have managed it. How easy it is easy to give one star to a book like this in the comfort of your own home. Personally, I loved it.
Disappointingly dull - Tim Butcher is a journalist, no doubt good at reporting the facts (insofar as any journalist can). But he s not a writer. The main problem is that there is no change of pace throughout this book. It doesn t matter whether he s planning the journey (a good third of the book) or actually on the journey in dangerous places: it just plods along with the same dribble of information. Butcher is obsessively worried about the fact that the Congo is not the place that it was when the Belgians exercised their extreme authority there. So far, so unsurprising. And this obsession with what s been lost means that none of the places or the people ever come alive in the present. I wonder if the journey was all a bit too much for Butcher and lost the plot fairly early on. Although he meets numerous people along the way, he seems to be - and feel - distant from everyone. They re just thin sketches. It s not clear whether that s because: Butcher wasn t really interested in them, didn t make the effort to talk to them, is a rather stiff, diffident Englishman who can t interact, or just lacked the spirit to record the interactions. If you ve enjoyed O Hanlon s Congo Journey or love travel writing by Thubron and Murphy, you ll be sorely disappointed by this.
Engaging but ultimately unfulfilling - This is a page turner, no doubt. The details of his journey are mildly interesting, the people he meets much more so. But there are better books on the DRC and much of this feels over familiar and repetitious. Butcher writes well enough but lacks the ability to convey a deeper understanding. He aint no Kapucinski. But a worthy effort and hats off to him for meeting such a daunting challenge. More than I ve ever managed. But, hey, I m just an interested but slightly disappointed reader.