11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
At heart we are all world travelers, June 16, 2002
At heart we are all world travelers. Even for those of us who have not traveled more than 50 miles from where we were born, our mind attunes to the imagery that abounds in far away places and our hearts recognize that there are wonders in this world of ours that can certainly be read about if not traveled to.
Covering the swath of this exotic and intriguing part of territory in one of the world's lesser-known places, Edward Gargan gives us that spotlight not easy to mount from many other angled and elusive written pieces. A bit of local politics, more of its history, peppered with the faces of people and the kind of food, bamboo worms prepared with, "garlic, fermented beans and chili peppers" or "feng-er - bee larvae" all combine to remove us from our reading positions and hover precariously over this geographical region fearing that at any moment, Gargan may sever the cord that ties us suspended over his river journeys and cause us to tumble downwards to his reality.
For reality it is for Mr. Gargan when he braves the elements to travel from the high plateau of eastern Tibet down to sea level along the Mekong in Vietnam. It is as if the jungle encroaching the river viewed from Mr. Gargan's commissioned boats of various types and sizes as they careen southwards, seem to loom up in front of our eyes every time our eyes lift from the pages of the book.
The exemplary choice of words, I admit, contained a few that made me scrimmage for my bedside Oxford dictionary. The word 'pirogue' could only be located in my 2200 page Random House Unabridged Dictionary. This word, by the time I was half way through the book, had appeared more than a dozen times. Seems there is no other accurate substitute for 'native craft' or 'local boat'. I kept wondering what the boats Mr. Gargan was motored on looked like or how they were different from each other as he traveled down from Yunnan, through Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam though there is one photograph in the book of such a boat.
A unique style of describing scenes evokes the sharpest imagination and makes the world alive. Witness the onset of dusk being portrayed such: "A fat copper sun slunk away into the Burmese jungle, dragging dusk behind it". "Myanmarese jungle" just would not have cut it. Also, our majestic sun personified in yet another beholden way! And to imprint the picture of a town in our minds, Mr. Gargan uses, "....the town.... was draped over the pate of a small hill, was little more than a gnarl of small byways that wrapped around tidy whitewashed cement houses." Uniquely the town is presented to us and instantly, we perch.
Mr. Gargan "marvels at people...in the underdeveloped world.... with a procession of porters bearing luggage...". This might hold true in most areas he visits in the book; it certainly is not true in other regions and of other people in the underdeveloped world. Executives and housewives alike board and alight from trains, buses and airplanes with nary an eye for a porter. Could the people he sees be transporting merchandise to trade across the borders of China and Burma or between Thailand and Laos that burden these porters, as he himself writes about in other parts of the book? Generalization, albeit a tiny spot, hurts and takes away from other intriguing travel specifics described elsewhere in the book.
If any of us have never experienced a full year traveling without the support of the taken-for-granted amenities, we will definitely cherish an evening consuming the contents of a familiar menu; "insalata mixte, spaghetti aglio e olio, pollo cacciatore and chocolate mousse" in Vientiane, Laos and; imbibing an entire bottle of Chianti. With mixed feelings, I can lovingly relate to such a "glorious" repast and also reminisce about whether those of us who have moved west can ever move back "east".
Within this irresistible journey, well-deserved portions of local culture strike at us at every turn of the Mekong. The delicate history and effect of tea in these parts is really, "the stuff of legend, passion and art". The reader comes away with learning more from these writings than he or she had possibly bargained for. Add to tea, garnishes of the U.S.-Vietnam war, drug trade in the Golden Triangle, the atrocities of Pol Pot's regime on the Cambodian people and embellish it by bits of the Opium War, wanton destruction of the Buddhist Wats, thievery of its artifacts and the state of the local economy, you, the reader will carry away a trophy worth adorning on the mantle of your revered memory banks.
Of course, there are texts that abound in each of these subjects should we choose to study more on historic and social events depicted throughout the jaunt of this 300-page marvel, as Mr. Gargan has so dutifully listed for us under 'Sources'.
Should you perchance not get the opportunity to become a part of Mr. Gargan's travel-by-book group, you should, at least, enjoin in the delectable choice of phrases he has used to describe life's moments, such as the olfactory description of gardens with waterfalls that "..scents the air like a passing woman" and the "....angry gatherings of rocky outcroppings" embanked on the edges of the Mekong.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Gargan's Tale....., February 14, 2005
From Tibet to the South China Sea, Edward Gargan follows the Mekong while opining upon the people who call the watershed home. As travelogues go, this book is neither fantastic nor particularly poor. What heights it could have hit are limited by the imposition of his political views, yet Gargan's powers of description save it from becoming an ideological screed. Gargan deftly intertwines his geographical position with complaints about the oppressor most responsible for the local malaise. Some of these complaints are beyond doubt, such as Tibetan treatment at the hands of the Chinese and the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, but others seem a bit overwrought. Indeed, one is tempted to remind Mr. Gargan that, had he one positive observation about the U.S., he would not stand convicted of jingoism.
Edward Gargan makes a telling statement near the end of the book where he summarily announces that he'd rather live abroad than in any city in the United States. A reader of travelogues should expect an honest attempt to address the cultural issues, flora, fauna, geography, architecture, etc., of the locality advertised. Gargan's The River's Tale doesn't quite get there for the need to repeatedly identify an entirely different part of the world as worthy of his disdain.
Unquestionably biased, bereft of humor, at times shockingly myopic, (Gargan just can't wrap his mind around why many Vietnamese hold America in high esteem), The River's Tale somehow remains an entertaining read. I picked it up hoping for a riverine excursion through leafy asian jungles. Gargan doesn't deliver this, but something else: political travel. It deserves 4 stars for overcoming my disappointment. But, then, I love travel so much, I was willing to go along for the ride.
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