Customer Reviews

Floating Down the Country

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

In David L. Miller's book The Complete Paddler, he speaks of certain people who "somehow managed to stay alive and recover from mishap after mishap as they bungled themselves down the river." Speaking humbly as someone who's had his share of disasters, I do think some of the excitement in this book must be due to Mohlke's ill preparations. A 1-star reviewer here said that this was a story of a "drunken frat boy" with poor equipment and planning who survives by "sheer luck". This is basically true, but the knowing immaturity of the author at the time he wrote this book carries much of its charm. He's not going to preach at you -- not when his confused readings of the Bible and the book of Mormon on the water aren't enough to help him avoid temptation on land. Yet the conclusion of this book clearly allows you to frame the text as a warning to be better prepared physically and spiritually on whatever river you may be traveling.

Mohlke's decision to write this in journal format allows you to go along for the ride, as he tries to find dates, gets intoxicated, and fails to make sense of the world or himself. His writing style is straightforward, and his humor deadpan. He records each of the promises made to himself just before they're broken. Although his lifestyle is very different from mine, his honesty about his weaknesses made me grow to understand him.

I wish this book had been edited. His spelling is idiosyncratic and there are passages that could have been smoother. I got tired of his descriptions of women, which rarely went beyond them being "pretty" and a certain age. It seems typical and perhaps unavoidable for solo travelers to typecast the people they interact with, and while Mohlke does this, his attitude toward them is at least generally positive.

I would recommend any compiler of true short essays on roaming the country to take a look at Day 72: Natchez, Mississippi, easily the most packed, hilarious day of the trip. I would certainly recommend this book (among others) to anyone interested in accounts of major American river journeys. I doubt it would be the first book I'd recommend. Although Jonathan Raban has quite the negative attitude in his book Old Glory, it is more expertly written, and he spends more time visiting different aspects of how the river functions. After that, you can read this book, and Mohlke will show you a powerful way to wrap up this kind of narrative.

this is trully an adventure! the book is well written to include the reader in the excitement. what a journey....the poetry is thought-evoking....great book!

Okay, so I am a distant cousin, but that doesn't cloud my review. I never even met the author until after I read the book. I enjoyed it because it was well written for a first book and the adventure takes place in such a fashion that I was able to be on the river with Matt, and yet be warm and dry in my own home. He does capture the flow and ebb of the river, I believe. Good use of terminology. It is a good read, since, after all, how many of us are going to take the actual ride?

I actually disliked this book twice. The first time I read it I bought it in Grand Marais MN while camping. After reading it I agreed that it was one of the least enjoyable books I have ever read. I took it camping last week on accident, thinking it was a different book (holding up my futon). But no, I was forced to read it again. His constant typecasting of people while expressing his religious beliefs was ridiculous. I also liked the inner voice saying he was going to quit poisoning his body but instead did the exact opposite. I also think a lot of this tale was embellished a little. Anyway i'm tired, I don't normally write reviews but I just don't want anyone to make the same mistake I did. Next time maybe get some one to edit it before you publish it? later

I picked up this book after reading Mohlke's most recent book "The Man who Swam the Amazon", which chronicled Martin Strel's world record swim down the Amazon River. Mohlke's writing style of daily journal entries, is easy to read, and makes the book hard to put down. This book is interesting, exciting, and at times heartbreaking as the author stuggles with not only the Mighty Mississippi, but with the changes that inevitably occur in a young man daring to reach his dreams. There's a new adventure on every page. I strongly recommend this book!

Adventure starts even before the river in the troubled soul of a successful young man who decides to leave his fortune 500 job to follow his dream. Mohlke manages to insinuate himself into the lives of all kinds of characters on the river and wrote about them in a deeply insightful manner. His gift for words puts you into the story as he struggles with feelings of his evolution from young rebel into master of his own destiny.

That I've read and recorded every word in this book and then edited the result is my own fault for electing to record it for an agency charged with providing that service to its reading-impaired clients. While I have to acknowledge Matthew Mohlke's fortitude in canoeing almost the full length of the Mississippi river, I also wish he'd been satisfied with that achievement alone. But he wasn't, and this book is the result. It is an adventure yarn interlarded with puerile philosophizing, all scribbled by a less-than-fully literate, inarticulate, self-indulgent, adolescent drunk claiming to be seeking some meaning in his life by piloting a canoe down the Mississippi. He has recounted his trip in a distracting effusion of bad grammar, misspellings, and often puzzlingly off-target word choices. It is a depressing chronicle by an author battling the Mississippi while handicapped by the deliriums resulting from prolonged drinking bouts with a succession of onshore roisterers -- bouts that occur as often as can be arranged and that leave our sodden author repeatedly vowing to be more pure of spirit in future, advice he lacks the willpower or the will to follow. Indeed, the writer apparently navigates by means of "alcohol-acquisition radar," since he seems to stumble into every bar and tavern that presents itself between Minnesota and New Orleans, seeking to cadge a free meal and a few beers.

I suppose other such adventures have been recounted with wit and insight. This one has not, however, and if ever a manuscript needed a competent editor to either rewrite it or put it out of its misery, this is it. But I fear that in the age of "self-publishing," that humane intervention may no longer be counted on to protect the hapless reading public and incidentally to help save our forests.

If a representative of Winona State University happens to read this review or Mr. Mohlke's book, I would hope he is moved to contact Mr. Mohlke requesting that the school not be identified as his alma mater in any future writings.

Only read this book if you want to learn what NOT to do as you float down the Mississippi!

This idiot makes all kinds of mistakes and drinks like a fish the entire trip despite multiple promises to himself to keep his body pure on this trip.

I learned a ton about planning my own trip down the river but that does NOT make this a five-star book!

If you're looking for information about traveling the Mississippi River, you would be better off reading anything by Mark Twain. If you're interested in an account of a solo paddler's spiritual journey, keep looking. If you want a story of a drunken frat boy who bar hops his way through a summer, and survives by sheer luck, add this to your reading list, but don't put it near the top of that list. It starts off with some promise. The author is fed up with the rat race, and claims he's been planning this escape down the river. Turns out that's more cliche than insite. As you read you learn he has been day dreaming rather than planning. It seems he has shoddy equipment, he is counting on his family to acquire maps as he goes, and he intends to 'not polute his body and mind with chemicals' on this journey, but ends up guzzling beer 'til he can't see straight every time he gets the chance.