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With a ragtag band of friends and smuggled equipment, Bangs sets out in 1973 to run Ethiopia's untried rivers. But revolution and the tragic death of a friend cause him to quit the country without running the Tekeze, one of Africa's most fearsome tributaries. When he returns to run the virgin river in 1996, the Internet revolution is dawning, and Microsoft (via satellite uplink) and the Turner Corporation (via a ride-along film crew) are among his travel companions. Such fascinating historical contexts might easily have been reduced to Forrest Gump-ish window dressing for Bangs's journeys. Instead, he makes them integral to his story, using anecdotal encounters with Candice Bergen, Haile Selassie, and even Richard (Shaft) Roundtree to gently steep readers in the history of Ethiopia.
As they encounter ecosystems and peoples making first contact with Westerners, Bangs and his companions also explore the ethical and ecological ramifications of adventure travel. But rather than preach a certain course of action, he judiciously presents the various arguments for "conservation" and "progress" and lets readers draw their own conclusions. Though lacking the stylistic verve that Mark Twain or Joseph Conrad bring to the river story, Bangs is clearly a kindred spirit, with lessons well worth pondering and incredible stories to tell. --Andrew Nieland
In any event, the narrative is always fascinating if the prose is somewhat heavy-handed or purple at points.
The first 2/3 of the book are well-written and include Sobek's tragic initial commercial trip ending with a client death in the first major rapid and later the death of Lee Greenwald, who Bangs met as a client on one of his Colorado trips. Greenwald had provided the financial backing to get the fledgling Sobek company off the ground, and became an accomplished river-runner under the mentorship of Bangs and one of his closest friends.
The book builds towards a climax of the much-anticipated exploratory descent of the Tekeze, a trip Bangs had promised to do with Greenwald two decades earlier and one he must complete to bring closure to Greenwald's premature death, but here the book begins to fall a little flat. The account of the Tekeze expedition reads more like a sequence of daily journal entries that could have used a bit more editing and the writing itself takes a slight downhill turn. There are daily accounts of setting up the satellite phone to transmit reports back to Microsoft's Mungo Park online travel magazine which Bangs was hired to create. For some reason, Bangs turns to language he must feel required to use to match the technology he is using and some of his phrases are a bit heavy handed:
...the tail of the wet season has made every tree and shrub burst into hectic leaf... it feels like we're in an oversized diorama, or the middle of an IMAX film--everything is exaggerated, the colors more brilliant than enhanced photos, or HDTV."
"...and every night I have slept fitfully, as though the night currents were arching through my cerebellum, conducting bytes and bits or worried thought."
"I contemplate pulling out my Minolta for a parting shot but instead grab my DC50 Kodak digital camera..."
Although the adventure aspects of the trip do not live up to the hype the reader anticipates, the story of Bangs coming to closure with the death of Greenwald provides a thread that keeps the story interesting.
While the book does not hold the reader with the drama of Into Thin Air or the Perfect Storm, as promised on the dust jacket, it is a revealing and deeply personal account of the joys and sorrows that come from modern exploration of uncharted territory. The book is a must-read for anyone who has enjoyed previous books by Bangs and those interested in the development of modern adventure travel, exploratory boaters, and those who want to learn how Sobek came to be.
Within three pages "The Lost River" grabbed me and when I looked up it was 3:30AM. I didn't want to stop reading, but I had a lot to do the next day, so I headed straight to bed. In the morning I decided to read some more and by 2:00 in the afternoon, I was making phone calls to cancel my appointments so I could finish the book, which I did by 6:00 that evening.
This story is one that will stick with me for a long time. It is not only a wonderful adventure story about how he and his partners started Sobek, his rafting company, it is also an intensly personal self examination by Mr. Bangs. He dives deep into his own feelings. Ultimately, he triumphs over these feelings and by bringing the reader along this journey with him he teaches the value of good friends, the hope of great visions and the catharsis of confronting your past, head on. This is one of the great adventure stories of all time, but for me, it also served as a "self help" book. You'll be amazed and entertained by a fabulous story while going through your own internal exam at the same time.
departments around the US and how Sobek's policy evolved. Paddle or die!
Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around
the sun. At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when
evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person can
doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact. That all present
life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic time, is
as firmly established as Copernican cosmology. Biologists differ only with
respect to theories about how the process operates.
-- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life".
A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.
-- Groucho Marx
