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Verk av Ronald M. Berger

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A Must Read for Whitewater Rafting Enthusiasts

This was my first read after finishing Dune, and frankly I needed a fast paced, light read set somewhere other than the driest planet in the universe. The cover of The Gorge was just beautiful -- one of the best I have seen in a while -- and despite the old adage, I jumped in eagerly!

It was quickly evident that this was an insider's story of whitewater rafting. I knew nothing at all about the Ronald Berger, but it was clear he had been a rafting guide at some point in his life. (At the end of the book in the "About the Author" section, this proved to indeed be the case).

Other than perhaps the Kevin Bacon/Meryl Streep movie The River Wild I couldn't really think of any rafting stories, and the uniqueness of the genre intrigued me. Berger provided a very detailed description of all aspects of whitewater rafting, from the equipment to the rapids themselves, and I enjoyed the education! Berger also gave beautiful descriptions of the Adirondack Mountains, capturing the joys of being in the great outdoors. I have been camping countless times, and there were many passages in the book where I knew EXACTLY the feeling Berger was describing.

However, there were some areas of the novel that I felt detracted from its beauty. First, it really made me feel that it is extremely unsafe to go rafting. There was some sort of deadly, or near death, accident on every single trip. Now there's a reason for this that I can't talk about without a spoiler tag, but still. After two people die you'd think the rafting outfit might at least slow down for a week or so. But they keep charging on ahead like that's just how it goes. Let's hope this isn't indicative of true life rafting guides. Also, the guides all seemed to be a bunch of jerks, and every one of them had some near death story to tell. Maybe rafting guides are like this, but I doubt they are all jerks in exactly the same way. If whitewater rafting has this many deadly accidents I am surprised it has not been outlawed by now. Regardless of the level of true dangers of rafting and how they are portrayed in The Gorge, I felt Berger really missed an opportunity to add to the richness of the story by making the guides more individualized.

The one thing that really bugged me throughout the book, was the use of "What the hell" and "How the hell" and even "Who the hell." These phrases are totally overused in the book. A few here and there would have been fine, but this was really too much. An investigator approaches the owner of the rafting company after a death and says politely, "I'd like to ask you a few questions about the trip yesterday if you have time" and the reply is "What the hell do you want now!" Or a person might say, "I'm going to get a bite to eat" to which the response might be "Where the hell are you going?" Or perhaps an investigator asks, "What attracts you to the life of a river raft guide?" to which the response is "What the hell else could I do?" Or even, "Can I get you a cup of coffee?" to which the reply is "Why the hell not!" I mean, c'mon man. Regardless of which character was talking, or what was going on, one of these phrases was probably on every fifth page in the book. After you notice it, you can't stop seeing it. I'm pulling for Mr. Berger and I hope to see more from him, but he really needs a better editor. Somebody should have caught this before it went to press. It's such a small thing, and easily corrected, but with it in there, its like one of those great big boulders in the middle of the Indian River which he describes so beautifully -- a huge distraction and something to constantly be on the lookout for.

The dialog moves fast, which is good in a sort of Dragnet way, if you remember how they used to talk on that TV show. But because the characters were a little one dimensional (see above paragraph), the rapid fire dialog often had me losing track of who was talking.

If you like rafting, this is a must read. The issues I had with the book seemed to get better in the last 10% or so, I just wished Berger had corrected them in the other 90%. I hope if he reads this, he sees my criticisms as helpful and not as something to be discouraged by. This is a great first novel for a writer, and I will be looking for more from Ronald M. Berger.

4 out of 5 stars
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
Randy_Foster | Feb 13, 2021 |

Statistik

Verk
2
Medlemmar
6
Popularitet
#1,227,255
Betyg
4.0
Recensioner
1
ISBN
3