Lewis and Clark have made it to the Pacific! While they aren't hanging out on a beach anywhere, they are facing the wintery storms and blustery winds of modern-day Astoria, Oregon at this point in the book. I'm almost 2/3 of the way through and so far we've packed for the journey, traveled up the Missouri river, met with bands of Sioux, Hidatsa, Mandan, Shoshone and Nez Perce Indians, suffered through a gross winter in North Dakota and discovered the culinary delights of roots, horse and dog. Hey, you've gotta eat what you've gotta eat.
I think Ambrose does a great job of mostly telling it like it is - he allows you to envision it for yourself and to come to your own conclusions about some things. Sometimes he does include his opinion about what most likely happened, the causes of certain events, etc. His most vexing mystery, for himself at least, is where are the rest of Lewis's journals? Surely the guy who was ordered by Thomas Jefferson to keep a daily log didn't just forget...or just disobey a direct order... Ambrose's theory? Lewis's manic-depressive nature caused him to sometimes turn melacholic and not write. It's not as if no one was writing - Clark wrote almost daily. There are notes everywhere for everything and Lewis went so far as to sometimes send live specimens back to Jefferson - he shipped back a prairie dog!
I haven't been disappointed with this book. It's insightful and I'm really able to see Lewis and Clark as characters and as makers of history - not just as two guys who decided to take a trip to the Pacific Ocean.
1 comment:
Random! B just finished that book and I'm just about to start it. Glad you're digging it :)
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