Books : Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart

Rating: - Fascinating and insightful
Full of insight into the Congo, its history and relationships with its neighbours. The author's personal story makes it a good read, thanks to his detemination, sensitivity and the hardship he endures. The information he includes gives it a valuable educational quality. At the end I was filled with frustation, a sense of futility verging on anger. Colonisation has left scars and horror everywhere. It is understandable that the Congo may want to forget all that it was as a Belgian colony. But what is in its place?
Reminiscent of the potential and beauties of Africa and its people, there is a seeming disabilty for the Congo to rise above its past and take control of its future. The author clearly makes the point that in other parts of the world, this has happened successfully.
If you want to look inside the Congo (Africa?), and try to understand its issues this is 'must read'. But be prepared to wrestle with these issues, which the author so brilliantly highlights, for a long time afterwards.

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Rating: - over-hyped
this book has a very good intro and that must be what prompted the likes of le carre and william boyd to big it up

But butcher comes across as naive and a whiner, and the book quickly gets boring and repetitive.

to be honest it's hard to believe this guy is a war correspondent, he gets scared very easily while his analysis of Congolese history is oversimplistic and his UN apologism frankly nauseating

one point for trying

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Rating: - Middle of the Road Travel Book
Just finished reading `Blood River`. Not bad but not as good/insightful as Dark Star Safari. I`m not sure Stanley would have considered Mr Butcher a true adventure traveller but in a country that is a lot more dangerous and corrupt now than it was back in the 1870`s you could forgive Mr Butcher for taking advantage of some of the more luxurious modes of tranport that he did for his Congo journey. The book Gives a slight insight into the extremely difficult circumstances in which people in the Congo have to live, but did not really delve into the heart of many of the issues. One might surmise that Mr Butcher was rather more interested in fulfilling a dream (and self preservation/`dollar preservation` during said fulfillment!) than shedding any meaningful light on this giant of an African country. Nevertheless a worth while read for anyone interested in modern African travel.

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Rating: - Stanley never rode in helicopters!
Butcher is a vainglorious charlatan. Look at his compressed, hand-drawn maps, and how he tries to distract your notice away from his 600km-long helicopter ride! (p.291) Overland adventurer, my arse. Did Stanley ride 1000km in a UN patrol boat?

And much like his predecessor Stanley, he misuses Africans to achieve his own ends: one of his pirogue paddlers collapses from fever and malnourishment because Butcher hasn't paid them anything up front and has demanded that they paddle double-quick.

Get this from a library, but don't buy it.

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Rating: - Fascinating tale of a country destroyed by greed
Loved the book - Devestating to read of how the Congo has been destroyed. I can only hope that the future leaders will learn from past mistakes.