Teddy Roosevelt's Amazon Adventure

Yay me! I finished my first book!

It took me until February 19th, but I finally finished my first book of 2018. The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard is now complete and I'm ready to discuss with Books and Beer Club next week.

 

I thought I knew about Teddy Roosevelt. When my daughter was a student at the University of Tampa, I learned about his connection to the University (which was then the Tampa Bay Hotel) as a Rough Rider during the Spanish-American War. I felt like I knew more about that war than most other people I know. Only because I'm interested in historic buildings. I'd watched the Roosevelt mini-series on PBS either last year or the year before. Then again, maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention during the mini-series.

 

I learned that Teddy ran for a third term as president - as a third party candidate - 4 years after he left office. His main goal was to get the incumbent out. He succeeded with that. But when he wasn't re-elected, he needed another challenge. Going on an expedition to the Amazon seemed to be what was in order. Millard's book chronicles that expedition in an easy to read narrative style.

 

I learned a little bit more about South American, about the Monroe Doctrine and the Panama Canal. And I learned a lot more about the Amazon. I'd hear "rain forest" and I'd think of rain forests I'd visited on Caribbean islands. Nothing the same.

 

It became important to me about halfway thru the book that I really needed to know when  Teddy - and his son,Kermit, who accompanied him on the expedition, died. It wasn't important to know how they died. Just when. I googled it. Kind of weird, right? Like if was a novel, I would have needed to read thru to the end to find out which characters live and which die. Millard deals with the hows of their deahts in the epilogue. Oops, did I just give something away?

 

There were some things I really enjoyed about the book. I loved reading about the preparation for the trip, the family relationships, especially the father/son relationship. I enjoyed seeing how the expedition members worked as a team. I was astonished by all the provisions they thought to bring along with them and what happened to those provisions as they want along. (Parts of the books that dealt with provisions and illnesses so reminded me of playing one of my first computer games, Oregon Trail, first with my little cousin, then with my own kids and finally with my students. Different journeys, similar issues.)

 

I always find it mind boggling to think back to the days when people regularly traveled uncharted territories and what that meant. So that was fascinating.

 

But that's where I also got bogged down. I needed the details of the journey to understand the challenge of the Amazon, but sometimes the details became too much for me.

I'm anxious to discuss this next week. I'm glad the meeting got changed to a different day of the week since I wouldn't be available to meet on the regular day.