Customer Reviews

The River at the Center of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The subtitle "A Journey up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time" more or less explains this combination travelogue/history. Winchester's aim is to travel the length of the Yangtze heading upriver. In doing so, he does a superb job of explaining the importance of the Yangtze River in Chinese history by blending in all manner of history from Western gunboat diplomacy to Mao's Long March to the Rape of Nanjing to the current Three Gorges Dam project. In fact, the book isn't bad as a way to sort of dip into Chinese history for the uninitiated. The travelogue aspect is also well handled, as Winchester travels with a Chinese woman translator/problem-solver. Modern China doesn't come across very well in his description, as he encounters the usual corruption, but also amazing episodes of lethargy and apathy from the locals. At times, the technical hydrology/geology stuff gets tiresome, but overall, it's an excellent read--especially for prospective travelers to area.

Winchester's idea to travel "backwards" through time by following the Yangtze to its origin could have led to a very compelling tale. Unfortunately, Winchester made very little effort to set his journey apart from the way most Western tourists travel. Soft-seat trains and boats maintain a significant separation between the author and his subjects. Consequently, aside from some well-researched historical stories, there isn't much insight into the Yangtze region or its people.

Winchester's condescending tone also reinforces the outsider's perspective of the book. The further one gets into the book, the more it becomes obvious Winchester views Western culture as inherently superior to Chinese culture. This is a major flaw in the book because it prevents Winchester from observing and describing what is going on around him effectively, and perhaps more importantly, from being influenced and changed by his travels.

Overall, the book has a few interesting passages but the author's cultural biases reduce most of it to what is essentially a tourist's impressions of a vacation. Two books that touch on the Yangtze region with much greater insight are Red Dust (Ma Jian) and River Town (Peter Hessler). I recommend reading either book before picking up Winchester's book.

The back cover of the book tells of Simon Winchester's reverse-the-Yangtze boat travel from Shanghai back to its origin up in the western mountains. That sounds quite appealing to me as I have never traveled through the Three Gorges (not to mention that upon completion of the great dam near Xilin Gorge the river will raise at feet 400 feet and inundate thousands of pagodas). I have decided that the book was an instant disappointment after finished reading the first few chapters. Two things about this book that REALLY bother me:

1)Winchester, though researched all these interesting (historical) stories, does not say much about lives along the Yangtze River. He would spend pages and pages talking and reflecting on his memories as he sails through the river sceneries. You will ask: what about the Chinese people living along the river? How are their lives? What about his interactions with the locals? He omits all these as if they simply don't exist or he is just sailing along some remote uninhabited towns.

2)Over and over again Winchester implies his superiority (or superiority of the Western culture) over the Chinese. What on earth is this all about? But thanks to this book so I know what a REALLY good travel narrative/memoir is all about. Peter Hessler's "River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze River" is a completely opposite account to Winchester's in terms of both contents and attitude. Peter interacted and spent time to get to know the locals without judgmentally commenting on their disparaging lifestyles.

I simply don't like and don't agree with this book. Neither do I like the writing style nor the stories it has to offer. The narrative is repetitious and cliched. Not recommended. 2.2 stars.

Simon Winchester fascinates the reader with his storytelling ability. As he takes us along on his journey up the Yangtze, the reader feels compelled to read chapter after chapter in a shared journey to the source of the river. Unfortunately Mr. Winchester story is grim and unpleasant - from his hatred of the Shanghai Oriental Pearl TV tower and the Nanking occupation by the Japanese to his altitude sickness in Tibet. He also mentions on more than one occasion seeing corpses in the water. In September 1999 while traveling 1649 miles up the river I saw paper cups, plastic bottles, and other litter but no bodies of any kind - animal or human. Fortunately, I traveled the Yangtze before reading Mr. Winchester's book. I may not have gone if I'd read it first. If that happened, I'd have missed a wonderful adventure filled with beautiful scenes and friendly people.

For the discerning Western reader with an interest in all things Chinese, Simon Winchester's "The River at the Center of the World" makes for an enthralling read.

His arduous journey from the mouth of the Yangzi River to its source high in the Tibetan Plateau, is far more than merely a commentary of his travels. Entwined amongst his own colourful experiences, Mr Winchester captures a fascinating analysis of the river's history.

Indeed the Yangzi has a history worthy of telling in a book of this type. Charting a course that initially wanders from the urban delights of Shanghai near the Pacific coast then along the meandering, lower reaches of the Yangzi, the reader is taken through hundreds of years of Chinese history. The author touches on elements as diverse as the Opium Wars, the turbulent history of the tea trade, the Yangzi High Dam and Emperor Da-Yu - who is attributed with rerouting the river and keeping its vast waters within China. There is space even for the origins of Asian-man to be pondered upon.

Occasionally the author takes the reader on self-indulging investigative expeditions, such as seeking the anchor reportedly captured by communist forces in 1949 from the stricken warship HMS Amethyst at Zhenjiang. Upon finding it he declares it more likely to have come from a river junk. These expeditions are interesting nonetheless and aid his overall goal of depicting the Yangzi as a fascinating place both in present and past tenses.

Simon Winchester has certainly done his research. He tells of otherwise obscure river-navigators, chart-makers and naturalists who made their marks in respective fields along the river's twists and turns in times long past

Two thirds of the book is allocated to the more sedate stretch of water, between Shanghai and Wuhan, perhaps because this is where the far greater proportion of recent history lies. Other experiences though, like the Three Gorges, Tiger Leaping Gorge and the trip along forbidden roads in Tibet, are also allocated their due space.

The end product, though is one that vividly colours the mind with written-images of a river that has formed the very heart of the world's most populated nation -continuing to very much dominate day to day life today. It is a narrative of a journey that inspires the arm-chair reader to do likewise.

Indeed, I myself started reading Simon Winchester's book in far-off New Zealand, finishing it a few weeks later while visiting China - on the river itself aboard a ferry boat from Shanghai bound for Wuhan.

Very inspirational stuff indeed Mr Winchester.

As a Shanghai-based expatriate seeking a better understanding of China, its tumultous history in the earlier part of the century and what it has became today, I find the the author's integration of the history, geography and the psyche of the Chinese an excellent read.

A lot of what the author noted from his trip in 1995 have already manifested as very real problems of today.

The aniticpated surge in overseas tourists wanting to cruise down the Yangtze River before the Three Gorges Dam is constructed has not materialised, leaving ports near the Three Gorges full of idle luxury boats. A newspaper in Beijing recently reported that overseas tourism has declined from the peak of 100,000 travellers in 1994 to fewer than 50,000 in the first eleven months of this year. At least 10 of the 28 cruise operators had closed and the remaining are heavily in debt. As of November 1999, only 2 of the cruises were stilling operating. So most of the 60 luxury vessels on the river remained docked in Chongqing, Yichang and Wuhan. Tourism interest has cooled due to poor service and the destruction of scenery by the construction work.

The English must have a special talent for combining the personal with the universal, the anecdotal with the historical, and the entertaining with the learned.

Following the Yangtze river upstream, Simon Winchester tells the story of modern China from the bustling, modern city of Shanghai near the mouth of the river to the highlands of the Himalayas where the Yangtze originates and where China has not changed much in 5,000 years. Embedded in the story of his journey is the history of China since the late 18th century: the arrival of the European powers, the Opium Wars, the Japanese invasion, the Civil War, and the years of Communist rule which culminated in the construction of a new Great Wall - the Three Gorges Dam that will irrevocably change the Yangtze river.

Winchester observes, describes, and rarely comments. He has an eye for the right details and the odd anecdote, and he is so well-read that he never loses the big picture. He loves the subject of his narration, and his enthusiasm is palpable on every page - especially when he tells the stories of the English sailors who explored the Yangtze River. His non-judgmental, open-minded way of writing makes the book a pleasure to read.

For people initiated to the ways of China there are many moments of recognition. Take the seemingly bizarre behavior of some village officials, for example, who claim they cannot show Winchester an ingenious invention on which they have spent their time because the key to the room where it is kept is lost. Of course, there is no invention at all, they have been idly wasting their time, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes in their offices but what a loss of face it would be to admit it!

Among travel books about China, "The River at the Center of the World" has no equal. It is simply the best, and most entertaining, introduction to China at the beginning of the 21st century.

Simon Winchester's journey up the Yangtze river is often poetic and overruns with historical detail every eddie of the way up the river. If anything, this is an incredible historical text of China. The author's research is impeccable and undeniable. However, every word of the way through this book I couldn't help but feel a profound disappointment in what could have been, but clearly is not, one of the the most epic journeys of our time. Mr. Winchester's timing was perfect, a trip up the Yangtze before the Three Gorges dam would change it forever and as the country is experiencing a rebirth that will soon make it the largest economic superpower in the world where it is destined to stay for the next century.

Yet with all his research, all the planning, and all the help he received along the way, we're left with only a few hundred pages of text. Where are the thousands of pictures? Where are the video clips of his journey? Where is the interactive website? He mentions in the opening pages that he packed a Leica M6 camera but, at least in the paperback edition, there is not a single picture in the book. From a man who successfully sued the Defense Department over the Freedom of Information Action in order to get the Pentagon's most detailed maps of the river, I expected more. Instead, we are left with a very long-winded account of the author's journey, but not a deserving account of China's journey.

I agree with some of the previous reviews that it would have been an asset to the book to include more images of the trip (especially the Three Gorges Area), and to have more content on the people of the areas he visits. The book is still excellent. To cover every interest for a region like this would make it a three volume, 2,000 page edition. China is a rich subject and this is a one person of a billion view.

The author has done his work and achieved permits to travel the entire length of the River from the China Sea to Tibet. I am grateful to be able to read an account of a journey that is probably impossible for most of us. I read the book last summer and I still find myself thinking of it from the impression of the 21st. century city of Shanghai to the horrific history of the city of Nanking, the ledge walks above the Three River Gorges, and the remote, cold, snowy heights of the headwaters.

If you are not upset about a Brit-centrict view of the history of China and long for an impossible journey through lands beyond reach you will feel that this book is a very worthwhile read.

I agree with Caroline Higgens. I have travelled in China and enjoyed Peter Hessler's "River Town: Two years on the Yangtze". I suspected there would be problems right from the beginning when I noticed that Mr. Winchester never expressed in a single sentence what couldn't be expanded into three paragraphs. I reached as far as page 28, where Mr. Winchester writes "...she could be the ideal companion: when matters became too trying she would brook no nonsense, give no quarter, take no prisoners".
Three cliches in a row is about three more than I want to read.