Narrow Dog to Indian River, Darlington. Non-fiction. This was a book club selection, and my first taste of the hilarious travel journal. I am apparently not the audience for the hilarious travel journal, though I did finish the book. Right off the bat, I found a couple things distracting: each chapter has its own title page, listing its sections with names. These names do not appear with their sections, and sections are indicated in any of three ways (three stars, first line in all-caps, or both); the former reduced the usefulness of the section names for me, and the latter just seems sloppy. Darlington also eschews quotation marks, though the affliction has not progressed to full-blown Cormac McCarthyism, so punctuation is intact. I eventually was able to tolerate the affectation, but it was quite off-putting at first.
My conclusion that I am not the audience for this work comes from my observation that most of the hilarity seems to derive from exaggerating for effect. This leads, in some instances to easy stereotypes and cheap mockery, and in all instances to difficulty in empathizing with what could well have been genuine peril along the voyage but is washed out by so much being played for laughs. I’d much rather be given a straightforward account and see the humor for myself.
There are some fine turns of phrase, withal: I was especially struck by
Tom Paine’s books were burned in England by the public hangman, and books don’t get much better than that.
and
Since I had accepted that we were crossing the middle of the lake there had been a sound in my head like a single note from a distant sporano saxophone, steady in pitch, but slight ragged—the sound of fear.
If you are a fan of the hilarious travel journal, you may very well enjoy this book.
