“A man’s got to know his limitations” ~~ Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) in the 1973 film Magnum Force.
Part of me is really glad I read this book, and another part is not.
Why am I glad?
This is a well written, well researched book. While it relates a true story, it reads like a novel. As opposed to an actual novel, there is a minimal of dialog. What little dialog that is included, is taken from the various journals, diaries and other documents written by the people on the expedition. It is also a mix of history, as taken from the aforementioned documents and news stories of the time, as well as a brief history of Teddy Roosevelt before and after this journey and the history of parts of South America. Add more than a generous dollop of biology, anthropology, ethnology, geology, geography, biographies of other individuals, well you get the idea. It made for some very interesting reading. If I have any criticism, it is that in a few of the passages of critical moments of the voyage, the author made a few suppositions about motives or reasons of the persons involved. While probably correct, there is no way to know for sure. However, such a vehicle served to move the story along nicely.
My favorite presidents
If I were to list my favorite presidents, you would be looking at Mount Rushmore with the addition of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Of course, those carved into stone in South Dakota are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.
I first became enchanted with Teddy Roosevelt after reading Edmund Morris’s book, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. I have often wondered how much better off this country would have been had Teddy Roosevelt chose to run for another term directly after his, more or less, two terms in the White House. I say more or less as Roosevelt was William McKinley’s Vice President. Since McKinley was assassinated six months into his second term, Roosevelt felt like he had had two terms and wished to follow the example of George Washington. Of course, there was the failed campaign of his progressive Bull Moose Party four years later.
Morris’s biography did mention Roosevelt’s “canoe” trip in South America, but it was more or less in passing, mentioning that the trip broke Roosevelt’s health, which had always been a little fragile, not matter what the public image. I also came out of Morris’s book with an impression of Roosevelt attempting to be super masculine, hence the big game hunting obsession, a sport which has always had me scratching my head.
Very brief synopsis
The impression I garnered, almost from the beginning of Millard’s book, was that this “canoe” trip was ill conceived and horribly mismanaged.
Roosevelt had been invited to Argentina to give a series of speeches which expanded into a speaking tour. Roosevelt decided to add a little adventure to his journey, and a water trip was planned down some better-known South American rivers. He left the trip planning to a friend, Father Zahm, who in turn left the trip equipping to a failed arctic explorer, Anthony Fiala. Neither were competent to plan such a trip. Then when Roosevelt made a snap decision, after an off-hand comment by a Brazilian official about an unmapped river, to change the itinerary to go down that unexplored river, things went south rapidly.
Roosevelt’s son, Kermit, who was working in South America at that time, went on the expedition with his father at the urging of his mother… to look after Father. Perhaps the real hero of this story was a Brazilian military man, Colonel Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon. He had extensive experience in the Amazon running new telegraph wires, exploring unmapped regions, and making contact with indigenous tribes. He was an advocate of Indian rights at a time when most Brazilians saw them as something to be eradicated. I seriously doubt if another man had been in charge of the expedition, they would have made it through. Rondon went on to have an illustrious career and now is considered a national hero, especially so after Brazil renamed one of it states to Rondônia in honor of him. As it was, three men died, Roosevelt came within a frog’s hair of dying, partly from a preexisting condition he chose to ignore. No one, except possibly Rondon, came out of the voyage without scars, physical or mental. Why the indigenous people did not kill everyone on the expedition still remains a bit of a mystery.
Why am I not glad?
As I read the book, I kept thinking how can smart people be so stupid. Roosevelt seemed always to be striving to prove his masculinity. Couple that with obsessive determination, and you have a recipe for great success or great disaster. Also, many folks were perhaps too differential to the ex-president, but then again, he had an overwhelming personality that made it difficult to not be so. I came away with the feeling that their survival was mostly due to an overabundance of luck.
Stepping outside the book momentarily, it is like the expedition has been mythologized into a Greek epic. The Smithsonian Magazine started an article about Rondon thus:
“It ranks as one of the greatest feats of exploration in modern times. For five months, beginning in mid-December 1913, a team composed at its peak of more than 100 men, Brazilian and American, made its way across South America’s great heartland, by land and on rivers, on foot and by horse, mule, truck, steamboat, barge, launch and canoe, moving supplies, pack animals and boats across more than 2,500 miles.”
Millard’s book does not give the ill-conceived, ill-planned trip a Homeric spin.
Then there is Kermit’s story. I have always heard that it is difficult being the child of a great man or great woman. How much more difficult must it be to be the son of a great man who is such a driven, controlling father. Having said that, Kermit did comport himself well on this expedition.
El propósito
I don’t really write book reviews per se, and I certainly do not wish to write a summary of this book. However, if you are looking for something to read, I hope I have piqued your curiosity. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if it took the clay feet of one my favorite presidents and mounded the clay to up around his thighs.
Available at your public library and fine bookstores everywhere.