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A review by joerobson
The Journals of Lewis and Clark by Meriwether Lewis, William Clark
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)