Scan barcode
osbirci311's review against another edition
3.0
The only thing I learned from this book was the fact that Lewis and Clark didn't know proper spelling or basic grammar and the editor of this book (Bernard Devoto) was too lazy to go beyond copying and pasting the text which is full of spelling and grammatical errors which make the book pretty unreadable. I can't believe they even bothered to publish this.
patrickmuto's review against another edition
4.0
What a bunch of legends - some of the entries are a little dry, mostly in the beginning and end, but there's plenty of drama during the journey that kept me entertained. Probably the highlight was an indian attack when Lewis and Clark split up at one point on the journey back. Overall, it's just really cool to read something like this - the diaries of people exploring untouched land for the first time and on the forefront of creating a country. Very very cool.
gannent's review against another edition
medium-paced
4.0
It’s cool to get to read the primary source material. DeVoto has a lot of racist editorial comments about the Native Americans.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation and Animal death
Moderate: Murder, Pregnancy, Blood, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Racism, Violence, Chronic illness, Death, Medical content, Misogyny, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Sexual content, Slavery, War, Alcohol, Child death, and Pandemic/Epidemic
joerobson's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed this book because, much like the country Lewis and Clark were exploring, it is largely left to the reader to figure out; with no extensive explanation or endless footnotes, with no epilogue and only a brief introduction. We are left to wonder what Lewis means when he talks about “our jugglers”, or what the actual hell a “penis do.” is- whatever it is, they ordered four of them to bring along on their journey. As an amateur linguist, I enjoy imagining Lewis and Clark’s voices from the way they have spelled certain words. All this would be lost if the journals had been edited or standardised for readability.
There are downsides to these unexpurgated texts, however. Numerous times I silently begged Lewis to just draw a goddamn picture instead of entering his third page of attempting to describe in words a particular shirt a native man was wearing. He was clearly a man who, when faced with something that has a strong impact on him, feels an overwhelming desire to describe it in great detail. Numerous times I can imagine his raccoon-skin hat spinning round and steam coming out of his ears when he encounters a native woman with exposed breasts or clothing that is made in a way that “when she stoops or places herself in any other attitude this battery of Venus is not altogether impervious to the penetrating eye of the amorite”. Great, you could see up her skirt, got it. Calm down!
If Lewis is the uptight one then Clark is the loose cannon of the pair. He frequently expresses his emotions in his entries, complaining about the weather, the reaction to the natives and just about everything else. I laughed out loud when he described the wife of a chief as “a sulky bitch”. Some things never change.
Overall, it’s a fascinating look, not only into the journey and everything they encountered, but also into the mentality of these early white Americans. They’re not hostile to the native people, and they aren’t overtly racist, they respond in kind.
Some things that did annoy me or begin to grate were:
-Lewis and Clark copying each other or repeating their own entries
-Lewis’s lengthy and dull descriptions of plants and animals
-I had just a vague idea of where they were on the map at any time
-No real narrative apart from “We are going west” and then “we are coming back again”
-If you’re an animal lover, be aware that they do reference eating dogs and horses numerous times (and at one point Clark straight-up throws a puppy in a man’s face as hard as he can)
There are downsides to these unexpurgated texts, however. Numerous times I silently begged Lewis to just draw a goddamn picture instead of entering his third page of attempting to describe in words a particular shirt a native man was wearing. He was clearly a man who, when faced with something that has a strong impact on him, feels an overwhelming desire to describe it in great detail. Numerous times I can imagine his raccoon-skin hat spinning round and steam coming out of his ears when he encounters a native woman with exposed breasts or clothing that is made in a way that “when she stoops or places herself in any other attitude this battery of Venus is not altogether impervious to the penetrating eye of the amorite”. Great, you could see up her skirt, got it. Calm down!
If Lewis is the uptight one then Clark is the loose cannon of the pair. He frequently expresses his emotions in his entries, complaining about the weather, the reaction to the natives and just about everything else. I laughed out loud when he described the wife of a chief as “a sulky bitch”. Some things never change.
Overall, it’s a fascinating look, not only into the journey and everything they encountered, but also into the mentality of these early white Americans. They’re not hostile to the native people, and they aren’t overtly racist, they respond in kind.
Some things that did annoy me or begin to grate were:
-Lewis and Clark copying each other or repeating their own entries
-Lewis’s lengthy and dull descriptions of plants and animals
-I had just a vague idea of where they were on the map at any time
-No real narrative apart from “We are going west” and then “we are coming back again”
-If you’re an animal lover, be aware that they do reference eating dogs and horses numerous times (and at one point Clark straight-up throws a puppy in a man’s face as hard as he can)
yaz20100's review against another edition
4.0
I guess the most enjoyable part to read was description of the native Indian culture
acaleyn's review against another edition
1.0
I had high hopes for this, but I'll be honest: the discovery of the West is incredibly interesting; Lewis and Clark's journals aren't. These journals clearly were not meant for other people to read. They're tedious reading (because day-to-day routines are tedious), and are too close to the action to show the interesting bits of their journey.
grantkilgore's review against another edition
5.0
5 stars. Of course it’s got it’s issues, but as a primary source you can’t get better than this
ehtyler6's review against another edition
5.0
I read the version edited by Bernard DeVoto. This was an amazing book. You can really picture what the country was like when there was minimal influence of the Europeans. I loved the descriptions of their occasional evening parties. The explorers' team would dance for the Indians and "great hilarity would ensue". Also lots of "troublesome mosquitoes" (with mosquitoes spelled all crazy different ways). Lewis was quite a healer and described all kinds of strange boils, tumors, paralysis, blindness, and other mysterious maladies that he was able to relieve or to cure.
More...