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| Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart | 
 enlarge | Author: Tim Butcher
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.92
You Save: £7.07 (88%)
New (39) from £1.89
Avg. Customer Rating:  68 reviews
Sales Rank: 408
Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 4.9 x 1
ISBN: 0099494280
EAN: 9780099494287
ASIN: 0099494280
Publication Date: January 3, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Worn/used- good second hand reading copy. Fast dispatch from experienced British seller.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Can go Congo September 7, 2007
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
Too many foreign correspondents come back from their posting and write the same old book about what they did when they were away.
Butcher instead reinvents the genre with this pith(helmet)y melange of travelogue and reportage. The structure mimics the journey. We motor rapidly across the continental history, haul round the catarcts of a failed state, only to coagulate in the sanguine stream of the title.
Or one could take this as a well written satire for any "customer" on their own foetid journey through the London Underground with its own trajectory of "un-development", delay, indolence, violence, corruption and state incompetence.
Butcher must write more.
Mad September 4, 2007
12 out of 17 found this review helpful
Godwin's Law of internet mudslinging states that "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one".
Similarly, any English-language book, (first time) article or drunken conversation about the Congo will sooner or later refer to Heart of Darkness. In Conrad's book the horror which did for the once-saintly Mr Kurtz was the horror which he brought into the jungle in his own, supposedly civilized heart, and not whatever it was that the locals tried (and failed) to do to him.
Similarly, the insanity which Tim Butcher discovers on his epic journey through the world's most failed state is mostly his own. What possessed this mild-mannered reporter to set out alone through a region haunted by massacre, banditry and genocide, through places where roads have reverted to bush and where overland travel is so dangerous that even foreign aid workers no longer set foot there?
Some of the best passages in this book involve the author's own musings on his obsessive quest to be the first white man in living memory (if not ever) to retrace H.M. Stanley's notorious journey from Lake Tanganyika down the Congo to the sea.
Stanley, a newspaperman like Butcher, was able to shoot his way to the coast with his own private army equipped with vastly superior weapons. Butcher travels alone and unarmed in what is now the heart of Kalashnikov country.
The book is a compelling adventure story and an insightful travelogue, but above and beyond these achievements it illustrates, in graphic detail, how corruption, brutality and external exploitation have left the ordinary decent people of the Congo at the mercy of the lowest forms of warlord, bandit and corrupt politician. But the man is clearly insane.
 doesn't cut the mustard.... August 27, 2007
23 out of 48 found this review helpful
either as a gripping travel reportage narrative, informative factual commentary or combination of the two on the ongoing crisis occurring presently in The Democratic Republic of Congo.
In essence the book could simply be summarised as an ego trip by a journalist whose dream/ambition (with a tenuous link to Stanley once being a reporter of his newspaper) to follow in Stanley's footsteps and travel the length of The Congo river - which he ultimately fails to do. He requires three years preparation, help and resources of NGO's and UN peacekeepers (have they not got better things to do) in his effort. On his journey he encounters a number of 'grim' experiences, dangerous encounters - who hasn't when travelling extensively either in Africa or elsewhere, but we don't all write books, and ubiquitous UN personnel. We are informed on a number of occasions that he is the first white to travel such and such an area of the Congo independently - how does he know, what is the importance or relevance and do we really care?
Little pieces of his story begin to grate. For example his surprise at the common side-effects of his malarial tablets, his inadequate basic inspection of his motorbike before going on a long journey smacks of stupidity but I suppose provides dramatic licence, and his basic lack of forward planning for the provision of fresh water along the way!! One small mosquito bite curtails his trip but the symptoms aren't described and we aren't told why he had to cancel the final leg.
His superficial interpretation, understanding and discussion of The Congo's recent problems are sadly exposed for their lack of depth when compared to Wrong's 'In the footsteps of Mr Kurtz'. I was certainly surprised at the glowing comments garnered by various commentators in praise of this book, which is why I purchased it in the first place combined with an interest in The Congo.
One has to look no further than Wrong's book above, King Leopolds Ghost or even fiction like the Poisonwood Bible to gain a greater capacity for understanding the catastrophe that is now The Congo and certainly not the antics of 'Ill-prepared danger man on a motorbike that has lots of punctures'.
A triumph of human courage over all odds August 26, 2007
14 out of 22 found this review helpful
Tim Butcher's debut novel weaves a personal quest through the political and historical heart of the African continent with the magic and skill only possible when a belief in the importance the story overrides its madness. Butcher's rich prose reflects the sheer magnitude of his extraordinary feat against the terrifying extremes of the Congo. He takes the reader with him every step of the way on a personal, gripping and informative journey that goes a long way to deepen ones understanding of the enigma that is the Congo.
This book will fly off the shelves - buy yours before it's out of print!
(Loved the artful map sketches.)
Fantastic August 18, 2007
17 out of 25 found this review helpful
A gripping adventure that keeps the mind racing as well as the heart. Tim Butcher takes you to an Alice in Wonderland Africa where time is running backwards and modernity exists only in the memories of the old.
Congo's history is effortlessly interwoven with the action, but the real lessons in this story come from the people he encounters on his journey. Kindness and humour light up what otherwise might be a dark tale of decline. You're not only rooting for Butcher to survive Congo - but also for Congo to survive itself.
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