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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: £0.96
You Save: £7.03 (88%)
New (39) from £1.89
Avg. Customer Rating:  68 reviews
Sales Rank: 435
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
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| Customer Reviews:
Interesting and educational. March 22, 2008
14 out of 17 found this review helpful
The history of the Congo, from its discovery and Stanleys' epic journey to the present day is the thing that stands out for me in this book.
The story of the place is overwhelming, horrific and demoralising; a tale of a country pillaged by the west, devastated by it's own leaders, plundered by it's neighbours, and slipping backwards as the rest of the world moves forwards.
The story of the people he meets is on the whole more uplifting; the aid workers, missionaries and UN staff who are trying to help, and giving more in the process than most of us would ever consider.
It is these threads of the narrative that kept me reading, and makes me give the book four stars, and I would have given five stars but the book needs the photos he describes, and which are apparently available on the website. They really should be in the book!
Tim Butcher's journey through the country was something I was looking forward to reading about but it just wasn't all that interesting in the end. All I am left with from that aspect is the moaning about the mosquitos, the boredom and his frustration when things weren't going right for him (at least you don't have to live there, Tim). You were in central Africa, you should have expected mosquitos!
A good tale of a unique journey let down by anti-colonial polemic March 21, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Butcher deserves credit for going off the beaten track and following the path of HM Stanley who he blames for sparking the colonisation of Africa's interior when he discovered the Congo River's potential as a route into the legendary heart of darkness.
As he travels across Congo amid the chaos and danger of a country wracked by anarchy, corruption, misgovernment, violence and squalor, he laments ......the Belgians.
Yes, the state of the DRC today is all directly a consequence of its colonisation. Butcher seeks to refute the conventional wisdom of white colonials who contend that Africans cannot govern Africa successfully despite all that he sees, not just in the Congo but elsewhere.
In that regard this book is a bit tedious. At one point Butcher pours scorn on the paternalistic efforts of the Belgians. Father White Man looks down upon Son Native African as forever flawed and incapable of being regarded as an equal, rather than being nurtured and brought along, as it were, permitted to grow up and take responsibility. The Belgians are only a more extreme and avaricious lot than the British who governed neighbouring colonies.
What any sceptical reader may ask is this; surely, after nearly 50 years of post colonial government the blame for the state of the DRC today does not lie entirely with Stanley, King Leopold, Belgian colonial administrators and the other mythical white villains?
To that extent, whilst noting the corruption and inhumanity of Congo's long time ruler Mobuto, Butcher verges on becoming an apologist for this megalomaniac. It was Belgian misrule that begat Mobuto he infers.
With much of Africa headed in the wrong direction with corruption rampant, human rights and democratic freedoms as elusive as they ever were under colonial rule and discrimination still rampant (just tribal not racial and more vicious to boot - just ask the Tutsis) the question that Butcher is frankly desperate to avoid answering (why) has become his reason for this trek through the dark heart of Africa.
Butcher's trip is interesting, unique even, but his reasons for going to such extremes are pretty much bog standard anti-colonial white guilt. What he fails to note are the failures of Africa's latest wave of white colonisers, Aid Agencies and NGOs who claim to offer relief but have no real solutions to the causes of bloodshed in places like Darfur, the Congo and Zimbabwe.
To that end the tragedy of Africa remains and Butcher's journey is as futile as that of the long forgotten explorer Cameron who traversed the Congo without discovering the Congo River before Stanley.
 Tales from the (very long) River Bank March 20, 2008
7 out of 11 found this review helpful
This book caught my eye a while back and I later took the plunge but have mixed feelings about it as a whole.
Butcher knows his history (or how to cram - as he admits) and the passages on Stanley were probably the most enjoyable. If he were to write a book on him, I'd be tempted to buy it. However, trying to recreate Stanley's journey in these times of Discovery channel and National Geographic did not make an exciting read. I knew very little about the region and Belgium's chequered past there; King Leopold claiming the territory for himself before plundering it on a massive scale afterwards were very enlightening and pretty shocking.
I guess I bought this book looking to enjoy a modern day adventure but it did not materialize as this. Despite very bravely travelling through a lawless and dangerous territory, Butcher's accounts of his journeys were quite dry and lacking in interest. He seemed to form no relationships of note with his travelling companions, taking a rather aloof and humourless stance, perhaps taking his emulation of Stanley too far. His delivery is more Gordon Brown than Palin or McCarthy. Whilst you can only work with the material you're given, his prose seems distant and distracted, certainly not captivating which is a pity given the subject matter.
Overall, it has opened my eyes to this desperate part of Africa's traumas but I just wish he could have added a bit more depth and personality to his writing . . .
 A testament to the shredding of Africa's potential March 19, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
How appropriate that another Daily Telegraph journalist should make this journey through what must be the most varied and exciting country in Africa. It was always a difficult place to move around, even when the infrastructure still worked and after the repetitive destruction it has endured in the last twenty years, Tim's journey is all the more remarkable. One must admire his tenacity for it required much more than just journalistic persistence to overcome many of the obstacles that tend to grow as fast as the jungle in such situations. His descriptions bring to vivid life each of the places he visited such that one can almost smell the jungle, feel the decay and recognise despair he encountered everywhere.
At the same time Tim managed to meet, understand and appreciate some remarkable Congolese people for whom his words may turn out to be their only public recognition and memorial. In doing this his keen journalistic eye points a bright light on the deficiencies of the international community in leaving this shredded country in such desperate straits. By contrasting what used to exist in former times with what he found along the way he has given us a vivid historical perspective against which to appreciate his remarkable journey.
People who have not been to the Congo may view this as an adventure travel book, and will possibly get little from it beyond a sense of wonder. To anyone who knows Africa, even superficially, it tears at the heart. Like any good journalist Tim is a keen observer and detailed recorder of his experiences, but I suspect writing a book was originally a secondary consideration. He has, however, provided a powerful indictment of the effects of colonial mismanagement and post independence greed alongside a gripping tale of what has become of the land which could have been Africa's power house.
As an old Africa hand who has lived and worked in that country I found that Tim brought back many memories and exposed as many undeniable truths. This book is essential reading for anyone who would seek to understand the problems of modern Africa.
Ian Mathie - author of The Man of Passage and other stories out of Africa.
Gripping and relevant March 16, 2008
21 out of 27 found this review helpful
As a fan of writers like Jonathan Raban and Simon Winchester, who weave historical narrative into their own personal quests and journeys, I sent for Blood River after catching the tail end of a radio interview in which Tim Butcher described the various strands which run in parallel through his book.
I found it a compelling and satisfying read. There is the central account of the author's apparently impulsive decision to travel, against all advice, through the Republic of Congo in the first place, while it is in an on/off state of civil war; the lives of the equally intrepid Victorian adventurers who went before him; and as backdrop, the grindingly bleak and heartbreaking history of colonial, post colonial and present-day Congo. Three stories for the price of one - four if you count the heavy-hearted journey through the Congo in the late 1950's, after disappointment in love, of the author's mother.
Butcher's prose style, as you'd expect from a seasoned journalist, is crisp, economical and forward-flowing; but he is not afraid to share his vulnerabilities and his (abundantly justified) fear of what might easily have lain ahead at any point on the journey - `objective dangers', as he calls them, over which he had little control. I warmed to him for that, and for his empathy towards the ordinary Congolese he encounters: for me, they are the heroes of the story, helpless victims of an endless cycle of exploitation, violence and political bankruptcy.
Blood River is a gripping story well told; but beyond that, unlike some have-the-adventure-to-write-the-book yarns, it is highly relevant and by rights should tweak the conscience of those of us in the developed world who looked the other way.
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