A river guide makes a desperate choice: In order to save the life of one of his passengers, he must sacrifice his own. Trapped under the rapids, he begins a new journey. He floats down a new river, one in which the most magical things occur, and he is thrown back farther and farther into his own history --- his genealogy and the characters in it coming to life in his own mind. DEATH OF A RIVER GUIDE by Richard Flanagan tries to make a case for the interrelationship that exists among all people: If this Tasmanian has ties to such a collection of men and women, then so do we all.

Aljaz Cosini is a normal man with many regrets and he revisits many of them during his travail. Couta Ho, the woman he loved, is a major player in this river trip he takes in his own head. His Aunt Ellie is also quite a character, and as characters go, Flanagan has some real control and feeling for the females in Aljaz's past and present. However, the language in general is so flowery that it is difficult to maintain a grip on the emotional intensity that the characters are supposed to be feeling.

Describing an old woman's face as "a dried-up apricot" is mundane, a student's way of describing a face that has seen many of the less opportune sides of life. There is this sort of language throughout the book and it feels amateurish, particularly when reaching for the heights of the magic realism that Aljaz is experiencing. DEATH OF A RIVER GUIDE has arms too short to box with the power and tenacity with which its protagonist struggles in his situation. The story is good, but the way it is told lacks the fervor a reader would expect from something as dire as a life or death tale.

   --- Reviewed by Jana Siciliano

Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.

© Copyright 1996-2008, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.

Back to top.