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Old Glory : A Voyage Down the Mississippi | 
 enlarge | Author: Jonathan Raban
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $6.94
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Avg. Customer Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 253886
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 1
ISBN: 0375701001
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.70433
EAN: 9780375701009
ASIN: 0375701001
Publication Date: May 26, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Standard used condition.
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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."
Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 A Wonderfully Written Book July 6, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Cerebral, yet accessable, Jonathan Raban is hard to peg in terms of genre. A book such as Old Glory could be considered travel writing, but such easy classification would fall far short of the mark. He incorporates history, some incredible descriptive prose, and sparse but welcome bits of dry British wit. In fact, his Englishness is part what makes the book so interesting - you see America, warts and all, from the eyes of an outsider. Raban is a stylist, who reveals himself to the reader slowly. I found him to be a very interesting, complex, slightly tortured figure. I will never look at the Mississippi as just some long line on a map ever again. The whirlpools, the logs, the dangers; always moving atop and into the unknown and on a vessel ridiculously undersized for such a trip; a metaphor, certainly. In terms of pure writing style, there cannot be many better than Jonathan Raban. This is a writer, you think, you will come back to.
miserable bastard, but he can write April 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Raban left his wife in England and went to live in the States a number of years ago. He's written a number of great books about America and this is his best. He remarried and lived in Seattle, but is now divorced again. You won't see too many photos of a smiling, happy Raban- but apart from his Passage to Junea and his fiction, everything he's written is first class
An Englishman on the Mississippi February 17, 2008
This is the first book I would recommend to anyone who wanted to understand the Mississippi River. It is the story of an Englishman who dreams of seeing the river, from Minneapolis to New Orleans, and so buys a 16' motorboat in which to ride downriver, see interesting cities, boring cities, and judge everyone he sees on the way. Telling a narrative of his journey, Raban takes time to meet the people who make the river work, from lock operators to barge drivers, and gives a clear picture of how the Mississippi lives. He offers colorful, clear descriptions of river features like boils, eddies, wing dams, and tows (which actually push). And still, he takes time out of his trip to campaign for a mayoral candidate.
Nevertheless, in any book of this nature the author becomes the only major character, and I didn't find myself liking Raban the character very much. When I think of traveling the Mississippi, part of that dream is something of a wilderness adventure, but here is the wealthy Raban spending most of his nights in hotels, seeming rather weak and overly afraid of nature and wildlife. And while one's personal relationships during a solo journey like this are sure to be mostly superficial, Raban seems to take a uniformly negative, judgmental view towards the people he meets. Read this book to better understand the river, not mankind.
Borak down the river June 17, 2007
Raban is a very special travel writer and this book, which I read 18 years after he drifted down the Mississippi, warmed me like few others.
His conversations with such a diverse (but from my experience, typical) set of Americans were classic. I dont believe he is unduly pessimistic but rather realistic and in many ways he captured early , many growing influences that impact American society (and global politics) today.
Raban's Pursuit of A Dream May 5, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Um, fellow reviewers, do you think that every little town in America is a picture postcard? Or do you not think there is a dark side to life in London, New York, or in any little burg one might chance upon, say, going down the Mississippi? Do you think that people don't have a disgruntled, distrustful side as well as a kind, generous side? Would you, in short, prefer a chintzy Hallmark postcard to a well-penned, thoughtful, erudite travel book, such as this?--If so, why did you bother reading or reviewing it?
As Raban remarks to one of his inquisitors, he in not a journalist and this book is about him and his impressions on his, brave or quixotic, depending on how you view it, travel down the Mississippi inspired by dreams of it since a boyhood reading of Mark Twain.
Yes, some of it is sad and melancholy. But often it is laugh-out-loud funny at the author's expense as much as at the expense of any of the people he meets. It is often very bracing and generous; and erudite, like all of Raban's writings.
As a refutation to all the nay-sayers, please cast your eye on the last page of Chapter 10 where he opens the note from the tow captain he has been accompanying:
"I opened it ten minutes later and read it by the light of a city streetlamp, with the paper dimpling in the warm rain.
"I know very little
of writers, but people
I do no. You are a
Good man to ride
The River with, Jonathan Ravan
Bob Kelley
Master M/v Jimmie L.
Dec. 7, 1979"
It was the one certificate I had most wanted to earn."
Another fantastic book by Raban, the greatest, most thoughtful, introspective, literate travel writer alive today.
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