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thebookbin's review against another edition
Only white people like this book.
The gorgeous environment and friendly people cannot overcome Colin Thubron’s racism, somehow feeling superior even though he cannot speak any of the languages or survive on his own in this climate.
I just DNF’d The Amur River by Colin Thubron because he’s a racist prick. It’s so disappointing because I’m very interested in the Mongolian steppe and I was so looking forward to reading more about it. Instead this is a diary of a self-important white man who describes everyone but himself as stupid or incompetent. He doesn’t even try to hide his racism: everyone Asian “looks like a child” or “has a childish face.” At one point he meets the last monk whose temple was destroyed by the USSR and all the monks viciously executed, and Colin’s own recount of the conversation with this traumatized monk is horrifically callous. He describes the monk—who laughs nervously (keep in mind Thubron only speaks English, so everyone else is working to accommodate him) and he says “it was this giggle that made me erroneously convinced he was stupid." THAT IS A DIRECT QUOTE
Words cannot express how much I hate Colin Thubron and my intense interest in the area of his exploration doesn’t even come close to making me read this book. If you want to read about a self important white man there are plenty to choose from who actually have a modicum of relevancy. This book will be the reason I make the trip to the steppe myself just so I can write about it in all it's glory and shove it in Colin Thubron's racist boomer face.
-50000 racist ass stars
The gorgeous environment and friendly people cannot overcome Colin Thubron’s racism, somehow feeling superior even though he cannot speak any of the languages or survive on his own in this climate.
I just DNF’d The Amur River by Colin Thubron because he’s a racist prick. It’s so disappointing because I’m very interested in the Mongolian steppe and I was so looking forward to reading more about it. Instead this is a diary of a self-important white man who describes everyone but himself as stupid or incompetent. He doesn’t even try to hide his racism: everyone Asian “looks like a child” or “has a childish face.” At one point he meets the last monk whose temple was destroyed by the USSR and all the monks viciously executed, and Colin’s own recount of the conversation with this traumatized monk is horrifically callous. He describes the monk—who laughs nervously (keep in mind Thubron only speaks English, so everyone else is working to accommodate him) and he says “it was this giggle that made me erroneously convinced he was stupid." THAT IS A DIRECT QUOTE
Words cannot express how much I hate Colin Thubron and my intense interest in the area of his exploration doesn’t even come close to making me read this book. If you want to read about a self important white man there are plenty to choose from who actually have a modicum of relevancy. This book will be the reason I make the trip to the steppe myself just so I can write about it in all it's glory and shove it in Colin Thubron's racist boomer face.
-50000 racist ass stars
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
This book is so racist. I am questioning the integrity of any agency that has awarded this man a prize.pearseanderson's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
medium-paced
4.0
This is my first Thubron and wow did it pop: an old man on a river between two worlds, what's the more classic story than that? But Thubron makes each page glow with description and glory for the region and its people who have been displaced, oppressed, empowered, and forever altered throughout the centuries of this borderland's history. From keeping exiled kings in fake capitals to steppe fortress last-stands to surreal money-making schemes in the Russian Far East, this book covers a lot of ground and does so in a soothing, crisp, empathetic way for all people involved.
gherbud's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
taylormcneil's review
adventurous
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Don’t be misled by the prosaic title—this is a powerful literary voyage with one of the best travel writers of the past 50 years. At age 79, Thubron undertook to travel the entire length of the Amur River, the 10th longest in the world, from its origins in the deserted forests of Mongolia, into Russia, and then along the 1,100 mile border it creates between China and Russia.
His rusty Russian and Mandarin come back to him, and he is able to travel with a freedom others would find impossible. He spends a week on horseback, hitches rides with an Orthodox monk, hunkers down in an almost deserted abbey while Russian troops hold war games outside, ventures into far northeastern China, evading the authorities, crosses back to Russia, and finally ends at the Pacific.
But mostly what he reports on are the people he meets. These are ordinary people whose lives linger in our imagination: the blowhard Cossack who fears and hates the Chinese just a cross the river; the Chinese father whose sole child, a daughter, is living a better life far away from these northern borderlands and their frozen winters, and will never return; the bluff Russian outdoorsman who takes him to the far reaches of the Amur as it nears the Pacific, mingling with marginalized Siberian natives, poachers, and policemen in this back of beyond, the people so cynical about their fatherland that hope for the future is impossible.
It’s a sobering journey—and a glimpse into a vast part of the world mostly forgotten. Thubron’s writing is crystalline, honed to a fine finish, and always in service of telling the story of people and history and place.
His rusty Russian and Mandarin come back to him, and he is able to travel with a freedom others would find impossible. He spends a week on horseback, hitches rides with an Orthodox monk, hunkers down in an almost deserted abbey while Russian troops hold war games outside, ventures into far northeastern China, evading the authorities, crosses back to Russia, and finally ends at the Pacific.
But mostly what he reports on are the people he meets. These are ordinary people whose lives linger in our imagination: the blowhard Cossack who fears and hates the Chinese just a cross the river; the Chinese father whose sole child, a daughter, is living a better life far away from these northern borderlands and their frozen winters, and will never return; the bluff Russian outdoorsman who takes him to the far reaches of the Amur as it nears the Pacific, mingling with marginalized Siberian natives, poachers, and policemen in this back of beyond, the people so cynical about their fatherland that hope for the future is impossible.
It’s a sobering journey—and a glimpse into a vast part of the world mostly forgotten. Thubron’s writing is crystalline, honed to a fine finish, and always in service of telling the story of people and history and place.
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