Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen E. Ambrose

4 out of 5 stars

Read in July 2013

Large, thick books do not scare me.  If you've delved into my blog here at all, you'll quickly learn that I read constantly and I read epic fantasy for fun.  The longer, the better.  The more characters and plot lines, even better.  With one exception, or wait, two exceptions.  I tried but didn't like G.R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones series and Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen.  Not my cup of tea.

So when July rolled around and saddled me with the 521 page Undaunted Courage by Ambrose, I barely batted an eye.  I even took a stab at actually reading the print edition our Stranger Than Fiction discussion leader handed out to us last month when we turned in our Unbroken copies.  I think I made it a couple of hundred pages before I decided listening to the audiobook would be faster (and less painful on the eyes grammatically).  I checked out the audiobook on CD from the Kansas City Public Library.  One thick 521 page paperback translates roughly to twenty-one hours and twenty-seven minutes (21 hr 27 mins) of narration.  While technically, I could have completed listening to this audiobook in less than one day, practically and physically, I can only handle about two to three hours a day of listening, with long breaks between to give my poor eardrums a rest.    The disadvantages to listening include the absence of 1) maps, 2) illustrations and photographs, 3) footnotes, 4) end notes  and 5) the bibliography.  The greatest advantage to listening to the audiobook was not having to learn how to properly pronounce the names of less commonly known objects, tools and places.  Luckily, I had the best of both worlds at my fingertips.

I learned an incredible amount about Lewis, Clark, Thomas Jefferson, the Louisiana Purchase and the Corps of Discovery Expedition to find a water route to the Pacific Ocean via the Missouri River.  Since I grew up within twenty miles of that river, I also grew up with the names "Lewis & Clark" plastered on various road signs and parks.  While I had some idea of the adventures of those early trailblazing frontiersmen, Ambrose provided me with an incredible wealth of detail and anecdotal gems to keep me forging ahead.  One of my favorite moments involved a nearly indestructible grizzly bear and four members of the Expedition.

I finished listening to the audiobook edition with just 26 hours to spare.  After a full day of work in the same building, I arrived just a few minutes past seven o'clock to a nearly full meeting room.  A couple of the usual suspects were missing, but I thought nothing of it since it's summer time and many normal people take vacations.  I arrived in the middle of a conversation involving the August 2013 edition of Car & Driver, specifically the review of the 2013 supercharged Land Rover Range Rover, which was tested in the Bitterroot Valley in Montana and specifically mentioned the Lewis & Clark expedition.

Our discussion leader soon roped us back into discussing Undaunted Courage by relating a hand-written note he received from one disgruntled Stranger Than Fiction reader.  That person only made it to page 28, where they couldn't stomach the 'run on sentences' and 'sixteen adjectives for the same word' or the fact that it appeared the author was being 'paid by the word' to write.  'Life was too short and there are too many good books to waste time with such poor writing.'  I made the comment that long sentences were the norm for early 19th century writing, but apparently Ambrose was being accused of this egregious error.  Our leader did confirm that he found a sentence written by Ambrose that surpassed one and a half pages.

We moved on from that dead-end when one of the readers mentioned that they watched all four hours of the Ken Burns' documentary of Lewis & Clark, which our local PBS station, KCPT, conveniently re-aired in mid-July.

At least one reader struggled with this book, commenting it felt too much like being in a history class.  She half-expected to see questions at the end of each chapter.

Our leader began posing questions to spark discussion, one of the first being on our definition of "discovery."  Only to the Western World (aka Europeans) could any of these plants, animals, rivers, mountains, etc. be considered "discoveries."  To the Native Americans, none of it was new or unknown.  He also asked or mentioned a scenario wherein Native Americans hopped on a boat and visited Europe, is it still considered a "discovery" because all of that would be new to them?

We also discussed Sacagawea and the plight of Native American women.  Are they just footnotes in history?  Were most of them little better off than slaves, doing the majority of hard labor for their communities?

And speaking of slaves, how about poor old York?  He had a good sense of humor, but was mistreated and not freed upon his return.

With respect to Manifest Destiny, the Corp of Discovery Expedition was just the first phase (and the origin of the phrase).  There was a religious aspect - God deemed Europeans should have the North American Continent from short to shore.  Our leader asked us if this was similar to eminent domain today? Or was it just theft?

We discussed Jefferson, and by extension, Lewis' policy towards the Native Americans.  Their vision of an American Trade empire and the integration of the Native Americans proved an impossible mountain to scale.  The 'civilizing' of the Indian Nations by forcing them to become peaceful among themselves and then ultimately wholly dependent upon America was either naiveté or hubris or both.  With the exception of the Mandans and the Nez Perce, the Expeditions' interactions with the Indian Nations were strained at best and left a legacy of lies and distrust that resulted in even worse relations for generations to come.

Does man ever progress without harm?

At this point, our leader recommended another book by Ambrose entitled Nothing Like It In The World about the transcontinental railroad.

On a lighter note, one of the readers related that her favorite story from Undaunted Courage involved the collapsible boat.  Recently, some archeologists believe they have found it near Great Falls, Montana.

I related that my favorite story involved the grizzly bear that refused to die and jumped after two of the Expedition's men from a twenty-foot high bluff into the Missouri after being shot eight times.

We returned to the more depressing tale of Lewis' death.  Our leader asked us if we believed it was murder?  We all agreed it was not murder, unless you consider suicide self-murder.  Some contributing factors could have included the amount of mercury consumed by Lewis (and the rest of the Expedition).  One of the readers noted that archeologists today have no trouble tracing the Lewis and Clark expedition because of the incredible amounts of mercury still present at their campsites.  Other contributing factors includes Lewis' alcoholism, use of opiates, lead poisoning (from being shot), he could have been bipolar and/or recurrence of malaria.

Suggested field trips included the Lewis & Clark museum in Nebraska City and Ft. Osage in Missouri.

After some more tangential and heated discussions on right and wrong, good and evil, our leader brought us back down to Earth and distributed next month's book of a much lighter fair:  A Walk in the Woods by Billy Bryson

Looks like next month I may get to encounter bears ... again.

Book Review: My Luck Life In and Out of Show Business by Dick Van Dyke

My Lucky Life in and Out of Show Business by Dick Van Dyke

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I barely read any non-fiction (outside of the technical writing found in information technology reference guides) in any given year. When I do branch out away from fiction, I prefer to read a biography, autobiography or memoir, or a history book, usually on a particular brief period.

I breezed through Dick Van Dyke's autobiography quickly, probably because it felt like he sat in my living regaling me with tales from his past in his engaging and witty manner. His charm and good will bubbled out of the pages. Even the troubles and tragedies he confessed only evoked my compassion or caring in my assessment of him.

A couple of excerpts that really struck a chord for me:

I was all about living a kind, righteous, moral, forgiving, and loving life seven-days a week, not just the one day when you went to church. ... And if there's not a higher power, no one's going to be worse for the wear for his or her effort. Was there one way? No, not as far as I could tell -- other than to feel loved, to love back, ... as simple as making sure you spend time helping make life a little better for other people.

(from the Family Values chapter)

A few years ago, I told Esquire magazine that the Buddhists boiled it down to the essentials. They said you need three things in life: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. The message does not get any clearer. I heard walt Disney, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Carl Reiner all say the same thing in their own way. Hope is life's essential nutrient, and love is what gives life meaning. I think you need somebody to love and take care of, and someone who loves you back. In that sense, I think the New Testament got it right. So did the Beatles. Without love, nothing has any meaning.

(from the Curtain Calls chapter)

When I finished the book, I wanted to give him a big hug, but of course, I'm too far away to do that. So I'll send him a little love for all the laughs and love he's shared unconditionally with me, with all of us really, for some many decades. As long as I've been alive, there's always been a Dick Van Dyke to make me smile.

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Book Review: Maphead by Jennings

For my twenty-first installment in my 'Thirty Days of Thankfulness' I am grateful for my sense of direction, my spatial awareness and love of maps and geography. This post will do double duty as it also masquerades as a book review of Ken Jennings' recently released Maphead.

Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks
by Ken Jennings

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
(actually more like 3.5 stars, but GoodReads doesn't allow half star ratings)

A quick read, similar in format and informality to Ken's inaugural Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs book. All twelve chapter titles included a cartographic definition together with a quote. For example, the first chapter entitled 'Eccentricity' with the definition 'the deformation of an elliptical map projection' and the Pat Conroy quote 'My wound is geography.'

My favorite chapter falls in the center, halfway from nowhere to somewhere, Chapter 6 'Legend' with a definition of 'an explanatory list of the symbols on a map' and the C.S. Lewis quote 'Most of us, I suppose, have a secret country, but for most of us it is only an imaginary country.' I did a double-take when I read on p. 113 that Brandon Sanderson and Ken Jennings were college roommates. I heartily agree with Brandon's assertion that 'The hallmark of epic fantasy is immersion' and that's why he always includes maps in his books. Brandon goes on to relate to Ken that he 'started to look and make sure a book had a map. That was one of the measures of whether it was going to be a good book or not." When Brandon first read The Lord of the Rings he thought, 'Oho, he [Tolkien] knows what he's doing. A map and an appendix!' Ken states a few paragraphs later that 'Fantasy readers like that abrupt drop into the deep end and the learning curve it takes to keep up' further affirmed by Brandon's confirmation that 'By the end of a big epic fantasy novel, you'll have to become an expert in this world that doesn't exist. It's challenging.'

Pauline Baynes' map poster of Middle-earth
published in 1970 by George Allen
& Unwin and Ballantine Books.

I felt affirmed and validated for years of pouring over maps of fictional non-existent realms. I once thought to recreate the map of Middle Earth as a tapestry to hang proudly in my living room or library. One of the first prints I purchased from a newly favorite epic fantasy author, Janny Wurts, was a large format (40x30 inches) map of Athera, solely because I wanted to be able to trace (without squinting or resorting to a magnifying glass and the loss of the center of the map to the no man's land in the binding of the books) the routes of Arithon, Elaira, Dakar, Lysaer and other characters intrinsic to her Wars of Light and Shadow epic fantasy series. The first thing I did upon receiving the next Wheel of Time novel was to skim through for any new maps interspersed in the chapters and sections. Back in the mid80s, I purchased both the Atlas of the Land and the The Atlas of Pern by Karen Wynn Fonstad so I could pour over even more imaginary maps while waiting for the next Pern or Thomas Covenant novel to be published. But I digress, tangentially, from the book at hand.

In Chapter 9 'Transit' (definition: 'a piece of surveying equipment used by mapmakers: a theodolite with a reversible telescope'), Ken sparked my interest in road rallies (something I always wanted to do when my husband was a member of the local SCCA). I always excelled at those trick-question instruction test in school, so I might just try Jim Sinclair's annual St. Valentine's Day Massacre (a contest by mail where you travel a circuitous course across American from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Statue of Liberty entirely by maps) next year. That is if I can find a way to sign up; an Internet search came up oddly sparse.

Ken introduced me to 'geocaching' in Chapter 10 'Overedge' (definition: 'the portion of the map that lies outside the neatline border'), which so intrigue me that I grabbed my Nook Color and signed up at Geocaching.com, even though I don't even own a GPS unit (outside of the one in my dumbphone which doesn't have any 'free' software associated with it to assist in finding or placing geocaches).

Overall, I enjoyed the few hours I spent geeking over cartography and geography with Ken Jennings as my tour guide. I learned a few things and I laughed out loud a couple of times. I can't think of a better way to spend a weekend, especially if cold November rain greets you on the other side of the door.
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Book Review: A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets by Paraschoff/Menzel

A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets by Jay M. Pasachoff

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I checked this dense compact field guide out from my local library in the hopes of using it in the field with my telescope. Due to its size and weight, I found it nearly useless to use in the dark with my red flashlight at my telescope. The atlases were too small, requiring my reading glasses, and the binding too stiff and tight to allow the field guide to be laid flat and free up a hand to adjust the telescope.

The information provided in the guide appears current as of a dozen years ago (circa 1998). I'll run through the table of contents with some observations below:

1. A First Look at the Sky - How to differentiate between a star and a planet. Includes a pair of sky maps showing the brightest stars with arrows showing the pathways that help observers find them.

2. A Tour of the Sky - Highlights of the seasonal skies for both hemispheres and a bit on solar observing.

3. The Monthly Sky Maps - Maps are drawn to minimize distortions in regions of the sky most studied, using 45 degrees altitude (halway up the sky to the zenith).

4. The Constellations - History and origins of the constellations and where they can be found in the night sky.

5. Stars, Nebulae and Galaxies - Descriptions of stars, star clusters, nebulae, galaxies (including our own) and quasars. Includes color photographs of the most familiar objects.

6. Double and Variable Stars - Includes graphs and charts.

7. Atlas of the Sky - Fifty-two charts, each accompanied by a half-page (three or four paragraphs) detailing the best tourist destinations for the observer (like a travelogue for your vacation to the stars). This was the main reason I checked out this field guide but, as I mentioned above, the binding prevented me from effectively using this guide while out on my star safari.

8. The Moon - I read this chapter several times and used the excellent maps of the moon during an extended observing period (over several days) in April 2011.

9. Finding the Planets - Tips and timetables for tracking the planets (mostly the easily observed planets like Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn).

10. Observing the Planets - A tour of all the planets (including the recently demoted Pluto), with lots of color photos.

11. Comets - Description, observing and photographing tips.

12. Asteroids - Only two pages long, includes a table of the brightest asteroids.

13. Meteors and Meteor Showers - Table of major meteor showers and how to observe them.

14. Observing the Sun - Concise breakdown of the sun's composition, but the majority of the chapter deals with solar eclipses and how to observe them.

15. Coordinates, Time and Calendars - Definitions of right ascension and declination and an analemma graph and photograph.

After reading this field guide, and being disappointed in its field usefulness, I decided upon the Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas for use on my observing nights. While the Pocket Sky Atlas lacks the travelogue features of this Field Guide, it makes up for that in ease-of-use and weightlessness.

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Book Review: David Levy's Guide to the Night Sky

David Levy's Guide to the Night Sky by David H. Levy

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A good, but somewhat sporadic, book on astronomy by one of the astronomers who discovered the comet Shoemaker-Levy (yeah, the one that crashed spectacularly into Jupiter). The information seems a bit dated, even though this is a second edition (or a reprint ten years later). I went in search of astronomy books on the shelves of my local library and gave this a whirl.



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