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Simon Winchester is one hot literary property these days. In the past several years he has produced such splendid nonfiction books as THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN, THE MAP THAT CHANGED THE WORLD and, most recently, KRAKATOA. Now the Picador branch of Henry Holt has issued a paperback reprint of Winchester's riveting 1996 paean to the majesty, history and folklore of the Yangtze River, THE RIVER AT THE CENTER OF THE WORLD. It is still a superb read.
Winchester determined to travel the length of the 3,964-mile river (third longest in the world) from Shanghai, where it empties into the Yellow Sea, back to its source in the remote and forbidding mountain fastnesses of Tibet. Being a curious and observant fellow, Winchester stopped at cities large and small along the way to sample atmosphere, probe local history and meet interesting people. He darted off-course now and then, sometimes of necessity, at other times simply because there was something nearby that piqued his interest.
As traveling companion he enlisted a resourceful and intelligent Chinese woman whom he disguises (for fear of official retribution against her) under the name of Lily. She plays a hardheaded and outspoken Sancho Panza to his Don Quixote, and brings a revealing personal dimension of her own to Winchester's story.
In addition to being a fine writer, Winchester is a born reporter. Nothing seems to escape his notice. He has done his historical and literary homework thoroughly and is not shy about intruding his own strongly held opinions into his narrative. Most of those opinions oscillate between nostalgia for the rich pageant of China's past as reflected along the river and utter disdain verging on disgust for what has become of the country under its Communist rulers.
As in most good travel writing --- indeed, like the Yangtze itself --- the "tributary" digressions in this book are fully as interesting as its main course. We learn the exact process for making Chinese brown rice vinegar and the history of tea as a major Chinese product. We learn the stories of intrepid but largely unknown westerners with names like Cornell Plant and Joseph Rock, who were early explorers of the river. We are fed many fanciful legends from Chinese mythology and a number of facts --- often depressing but always interesting --- from Chinese history.
The famous Three Gorges dam project is examined in detail and the area itself described fully. Winchester considers the whole monster project a defilement of one of China's most beautiful areas, a venture meant more to glorify the government that planned it than to help the people who will be affected by it. Many of those people, he feels, will simply be made miserable.
Chinese national pride, in fact, is a major theme that runs through the book. From the dawn of its history, China has regarded foreigners with suspicion and mistrust. They are "foreign devils" and "barbarians," and as a matter of pride they have to pay more for just about everything than do the native Chinese.
Winchester sent me scurrying to my unabridged dictionary a score or more of times to look up unfamiliar terms that seem routine to him. A few of them --- nunataks, portolanos, ayurvedic --- were nowhere to be found, but I did learn something about haars, skerry, compradors, corvees and kentledge, among others. My only tiny complaint about this reprint is that the maps, so sorely needed as the upriver journey continues, are inadequate.
The only addition to the book's 1996 text is a four-page afterword in which Winchester speculates about the future of the great Chinese cities. Beijing will continue to be the country's capital, its Washington D.C., he says. Shanghai, sitting grandly at the mouth of the Yangtze, will be its New York City --- and poor Hong Kong down in the south of the country, will be merely its New Orleans.
Unless there is some sort of unimaginable government upheaval in China, this fine book is likely to remain a classic account for many years to come. For a "foreign devil," Simon Winchester has done the Yangtze proud.
--- Reviewed by Robert Finn (Robertfinn@aol.com)
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