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herbieridesagain's review against another edition
3.0
He’s confused me, has Michael Jacobs. I read this and remember when I finished I wasn’t sure what to make of it, I hadn’t enjoyed it as much as I had hoped, couldn’t make up my mind about Jacobs, but for various reasons, I didn’t write up my review at the time.
However, then I read Ghost Train Through the Andes, and although it was slow, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and had warmed to Jacobs by the end, and said as much in my review (here). When I looked back on my shelf at the forlorn books waiting to be reviewed, I realised that this was the very same Michael Jacobs.
After a small meeting with Gabriel Garcia Marquez where he reveals an interest in the Magdalena, which causes the old writer to flare briefly like a firefly in the twilight, Jacobs travels up the great river, pondering on the power of memory, in a country that has has a tacit silence on the terror that has torn at it for decades, perhaps in an attempt to forget, as well as the more personal introspection of his mother’s heartbreaking decline into dementia and his fathers death following Alzheimer’s.
The journey up the Magdalena is slow, and winding and the lower part seems to take most of the book. Jacobs explores as much as he can including the fascinating yet sad story of the paisa strain of Alzheimers discovered in the Central Cordillera of the Andes, where twenty five families had been identified with it, all of whom descending from a single Basque who had settled there around 1750.
Inter-sped with memories of his father and mother, as Jacobs ponders on the effect of memory and life, he finally makes it to the source of the Magdalena, drinking and washing his face in it’s calm waters. It’s right in the middle of FARC territory and sure enough he crosses paths with the guerrillas. Alongside long tedious lectures on Marxism, they also show a side that seems to want to genuinely boost tourism in the area, despite forcibly detaining people to tell them this.
While celebrating carnival (he seems to always time his trips right for this) he learns that two days after he left the army went in to take control of the area, he had narrowly missed a gunfight.
It is a harrowing ending, set amongst the raucousness of carnival, but one that Jacobs captures almost perfectly, and is a poignant ending to what was, despite my misgivings, an interesting journey.
(blog review here)
However, then I read Ghost Train Through the Andes, and although it was slow, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and had warmed to Jacobs by the end, and said as much in my review (here). When I looked back on my shelf at the forlorn books waiting to be reviewed, I realised that this was the very same Michael Jacobs.
After a small meeting with Gabriel Garcia Marquez where he reveals an interest in the Magdalena, which causes the old writer to flare briefly like a firefly in the twilight, Jacobs travels up the great river, pondering on the power of memory, in a country that has has a tacit silence on the terror that has torn at it for decades, perhaps in an attempt to forget, as well as the more personal introspection of his mother’s heartbreaking decline into dementia and his fathers death following Alzheimer’s.
The journey up the Magdalena is slow, and winding and the lower part seems to take most of the book. Jacobs explores as much as he can including the fascinating yet sad story of the paisa strain of Alzheimers discovered in the Central Cordillera of the Andes, where twenty five families had been identified with it, all of whom descending from a single Basque who had settled there around 1750.
Inter-sped with memories of his father and mother, as Jacobs ponders on the effect of memory and life, he finally makes it to the source of the Magdalena, drinking and washing his face in it’s calm waters. It’s right in the middle of FARC territory and sure enough he crosses paths with the guerrillas. Alongside long tedious lectures on Marxism, they also show a side that seems to want to genuinely boost tourism in the area, despite forcibly detaining people to tell them this.
While celebrating carnival (he seems to always time his trips right for this) he learns that two days after he left the army went in to take control of the area, he had narrowly missed a gunfight.
It is a harrowing ending, set amongst the raucousness of carnival, but one that Jacobs captures almost perfectly, and is a poignant ending to what was, despite my misgivings, an interesting journey.
(blog review here)
win_monroe's review against another edition
3.0
Read this a long time ago while backpacking through Colombia. I dont recall much about it, other than being an interesting, easy read.
jackwwang's review against another edition
5.0
I wish I could write as beautifully as this about my travels.
Jacobs works some magic with his prose as he weaves his travel down the Magdalena river seamlessly with the theme of memory and oblivion. Among it's many monikers, it's river is apparently known by some as the robber of memories. In the first chapter my appetite was whetted after a scene in which Jacobs meets an aged Garcia Marquez in Cartagena, marked by Alzheimers, but snapping back to lucidity to exclaim his deep affection and impressions of the river of his life and dreams.
As Jacobs makes his haphazard journey south, deeper and deeper into Colombia, further and further into danger, higher in elevation, closer to the source, the sense of shrouding fog parallels the decline of his mother's condition as her own clinical forgetfulness worsens across the world in England. The journey is rendered deeply personal for the author. As he witnesses the complicated forms memory and oblivion takes in Colombia, so too is he reminded the same sides of the coin in his personal and family history.
Along the river he meets victims and families thereof of the past, and sometimes not-so-past fraught Colombian history of violence. Deeper into the river, he languidly wanders through forgotten towns that inspired similar locations in Garcia Marquez' 100 years (the most memorable was Mompox, a village that seems to hang on the insistence of its residents' stake in a more glorious past).
At last in the end we reach the source, a land of permanent mist that seems to exist at the seam between our world and the void. Jacobs masterfully crescendos his story toward this point, and after certain dangers his completion of the journey reaches an inflection point and a internal protean choice between remembering and forgetting, between Mnemosyne and the water of Lethe. Which did he choose? I don't remember; moreover does that matter? The fact that I found this not at all overwrought I think is enormous testament to the author's abilities.
Jacobs works some magic with his prose as he weaves his travel down the Magdalena river seamlessly with the theme of memory and oblivion. Among it's many monikers, it's river is apparently known by some as the robber of memories. In the first chapter my appetite was whetted after a scene in which Jacobs meets an aged Garcia Marquez in Cartagena, marked by Alzheimers, but snapping back to lucidity to exclaim his deep affection and impressions of the river of his life and dreams.
As Jacobs makes his haphazard journey south, deeper and deeper into Colombia, further and further into danger, higher in elevation, closer to the source, the sense of shrouding fog parallels the decline of his mother's condition as her own clinical forgetfulness worsens across the world in England. The journey is rendered deeply personal for the author. As he witnesses the complicated forms memory and oblivion takes in Colombia, so too is he reminded the same sides of the coin in his personal and family history.
Along the river he meets victims and families thereof of the past, and sometimes not-so-past fraught Colombian history of violence. Deeper into the river, he languidly wanders through forgotten towns that inspired similar locations in Garcia Marquez' 100 years (the most memorable was Mompox, a village that seems to hang on the insistence of its residents' stake in a more glorious past).
At last in the end we reach the source, a land of permanent mist that seems to exist at the seam between our world and the void. Jacobs masterfully crescendos his story toward this point, and after certain dangers his completion of the journey reaches an inflection point and a internal protean choice between remembering and forgetting, between Mnemosyne and the water of Lethe. Which did he choose? I don't remember; moreover does that matter? The fact that I found this not at all overwrought I think is enormous testament to the author's abilities.
tronella's review against another edition
4.0
Read for Booktube-a-thon 2018 for the challenge "read a book about something you want to do", since I want to travel in Spanish-speaking parts of South America.
I generally enjoy travel literature, and I enjoyed reading about the landscape, people, history and politics of Colombia, but the highlights for me were the author's discussions of Alzheimer's, his father's diaries and his mother's dementia. This book was much sadder than I expected, but still a pleasure to read.
I generally enjoy travel literature, and I enjoyed reading about the landscape, people, history and politics of Colombia, but the highlights for me were the author's discussions of Alzheimer's, his father's diaries and his mother's dementia. This book was much sadder than I expected, but still a pleasure to read.
halfmanhalfbook's review against another edition
3.0
A book from two perspectives, one the journey along the Magdalena, Columbia's main river, the second through his parents history and their decline from Alzheimer's and dementia.
He meets all sorts of people in Columbia, from the FARC revolutionaries, and a chance meeting put him in touch with a group of people who suffer the greatest incidence of early onset Alzheimer's in the world.
I enjoyed the book, and Columbia is a fascinating, if scary place , but didn't feel that I could engage with Jacobs fully.
He meets all sorts of people in Columbia, from the FARC revolutionaries, and a chance meeting put him in touch with a group of people who suffer the greatest incidence of early onset Alzheimer's in the world.
I enjoyed the book, and Columbia is a fascinating, if scary place , but didn't feel that I could engage with Jacobs fully.
louissb's review against another edition
4.0
More akin to a meditation over a changing background than a travelogue (until the final section), I found this elegantly written and thoughtful. Jacobs' deep knowledge of Colombia is complemented by an intellectual humility that lets him guide the reader beyond the obvious initial impressions, but without becoming patronising. The beauty, heat, bustle and friendliness of the country are all palpable through Jacobs' prose, and I liked the interspersing of his own musings, family memories and research interludes, which brings a fascinating additional dimension to the book. The cast of characters that pop up are eccentric and varied, aided by the author's seemingly endless list of (often impressive) friends and acquaintances.
I'd recommend particularly to anyone with an interest in Latin America, Colombia or memory loss.
I'd recommend particularly to anyone with an interest in Latin America, Colombia or memory loss.
canadianbookworm's review against another edition
4.0
http://cdnbookworm.blogspot.ca/2015/09/the-robber-of-memories.html
halfmanhalfbook's review against another edition
3.0
A book from two perspectives, one the journey along the Magdalena, Columbia's main river, the second through his parents history and their decline from Alzheimer's and dementia.
He meets all sorts of people in Columbia, from the FARC revolutionaries, and a chance meeting put him in touch with a group of people who suffer the greatest incidence of early onset Alzheimer's in the world.
I enjoyed the book, and Columbia is a fascinating, if scary place , but didn't feel that I could engage with Jacobs fully.
He meets all sorts of people in Columbia, from the FARC revolutionaries, and a chance meeting put him in touch with a group of people who suffer the greatest incidence of early onset Alzheimer's in the world.
I enjoyed the book, and Columbia is a fascinating, if scary place , but didn't feel that I could engage with Jacobs fully.