ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 19, 1996 TAG: 9605170091
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
It was 1802, Thomas Jefferson was president, and, except for a scattering of frontiersmen, the new nation's population had not ventured far from the East Coast. Jefferson was one of the smartest, best educated among us, yet neither he nor anyone else within his acquaintance knew very much of what lay in the Louisiana Territory that he had just bought. In "Undaunted Courage," Stephen E. Ambrose tells us what happened next.
Jefferson knew almost nothing about the new Louisiana Territory. He had learned from West Coast fur traders that there were mountains in the west but believed they had the same gentle slopes as the eastern Blue Ridge where he lived. He had also heard that the Missouri River stretched far into the West and hoped it was an all-water route to the Pacific Coast.
To lead a journey across this unknown land, Jefferson chose his Shenandoah Valley neighbor, Meriwether Lewis. Lewis answered Jefferson's summons and came to work in the White House. He and Jefferson spent long hours together for the next two years planning the Western expedition. Jefferson did not ask Lewis to just traverse this wild unknown land - he asked him to plot the course for those who would follow and to gather extensive geographic and scientific data. He taught Lewis what he knew of geography, botany, mineralogy, astronomy and ethnology and sent him to experts to learn more.
In the months before departure, Lewis recruited a friend and fellow army officer and frontiersman, William Clark, to accompany him on the journey, and these two recruited a team of some 60 soldiers. On Nov. 13, 1803, the two captains and crew launched their boats into the Missouri River near St. Louis and set out.
It took three years to reach the Pacific coast and return. The explorers discovered that there was no all-water route and nearly got lost in bitter cold, trying to hike across the snow-capped Bitterroot Mountains in present-day Montana. Lewis barely escaped an attacking grizzly bear, and the expedition was nearly destroyed by hostile Sioux.
When Lewis and party finally returned, they did so triumphantly. Lewis was celebrated and ultimately named governor of the Louisiana Territory by his mentor, Jefferson. Unaccountably, however, he never published the valuable geographical and scientific data he so meticulously collected. Indeed, his tragedy is that he lost his significant place in history because of his silence. He was forgotten almost entirely until more than 100 years after his amazing journey, when he was again remembered but only as a figure in the shadow of the expedition itself.
Ambrose fills this gap in American history. He portrays a real hero battling the odds in a story more exciting than fiction. As he tells of the hero, he also tells of the man, his genius and his frailties. Ambrose brilliantly illuminates Lewis: adventurer, commander, scientist, human.
Charles D. Bennett Jr. is a
Roanoke lawyer.
Fire ants are found in the Roanoke Valley.|
Ants are varied, complex and fascinating |Reviewed by CHIP BARNETT|
THE EARTH DWELLERS: ADVENTURES IN THE LAND OF ANTS. By Erich Hoyt. Simon & Schuster. $24.
So, thought an ant was just an ant, did you? Well, Erich Hoyt will whirl you through the Costa Rican tropical rain forest on a trip leaving you dizzy with the incredible physical and social diversity of ants. "Diversity"? Make that "complexity," as in the swarm raider army ants whose nest walls are formed by masses of workers linked leg by leg, protecting the queen and her brood. To move, they merely dissolve the next and trot on to a new bivouac.
Then there are the leafcutter ants, struggling to their underground nest with slices of leaves three times their weight. And the aggressive tree-dwelling aztec ants that go to war to drive other colonies off their tree. And the desert (yes, Hoyt takes you beyond Costa Rica) honeypot ants that store food in swollen slave ants hanging from the roof of the nest.
Even the bare facts would be interesting, but Hoyt makes a fascinating whole by turning the facts into a narrative, following several specific colonies and even individual ants. Without anthropomorphizing, he makes you care about those ants, to the point that your heart begins to pound when a flood strikes the leafcutters, putting the entire colony in danger of destruction.
"The Earth Dwellers" is marred only by redundancy (evidence of sloppy editing) and a scientific error: Hoyt's explanation of ant kin selection depends on all worker ants sharing a single father. Yet we learn later that the leafcutter queens mate with several different males.
Still, "The Earth Dwellers" is popular science writing at its best. It's not a important as Jonathan Weiner's tale of evolution research in "The Beak of the Finch," or as scholarly as Wilson and Holldobler's "The Ants," but it's enough to make you run outside and lie on the grass with a magnifying glass.
Chip Barnett is a Rockbridge| County librarian.
Talking about themselves |Reviewed by WENDY CLARK|
I AM A MOST SUPERIOR PERSON: The world's greatest egomaniacs outrageously explained by themselves and others. Gathered by William Cole. St. Martin's Press. $13.95.
If, as William Cole suggests in his introduction, we all consider ourselves the center of the universe, is it unreasonable to assume that some hold that opinion to excess? Cole, author of "Sex: the Most Fun You Can Have Without Laughing" and "Oh, What an Awful Thing to Say," shows us exactly what he means in this compilation of amusing, leg-pulling one-liners and quotations from and about the famous and infamous alike.
This is the perfect little book to present to your favorite egotist as a gentle reminder of his or her humanity.
Some of the more amazing one-liners come from actors and poets. David Carradine (of Kung-Fu fame) refers to himself as the "most gifted actor of my generation," while Paul Newman told Edwin Miller that he, Miller, was "privileged to have this interview." Walt Whitman, author of "Leaves of Grass," said, "I dote on myself, there is a lot of me and all so luscious," while William Butler Yeats said, "I am very foolish over my own book. I have a copy which I constantly read and find very illuminating." The poet Lord Byron is quoted as having said, "to my extreme mortification, I grow wiser every day."
As you leaf through this compact volume, you're sure to discover your favorite. This reviewer's choice is a quote about author Harold Robbins: "Harold could be the best conversationalist in the world - if he ever found anyone he thought worth talking to." Enjoy this short stroll through the magnificent ego of man (and woman).
Wendy Clark is a Roanoke area
librarian.
BOOKMARKS |Reviewed by MIKE HUDSON|
THE LEGACY OF INHERITED WEALTH: Interviews with Heirs. Edited by Barbara Blouin with Katherine Gibson and Margaret Kiersted. Trio Press. $14.95.
Katherine Gibson, a Montgomery County writer, began working with her co-editors 31/2 years ago on a book about the lives of people who have inherited money - how they deal with great wealth and how it affects their place in the world.
The editors found that having lots of money doesn't necessarily produce happiness. In fact, it can produce feelings of guilt and aimlessness.
One heir, paralyzed by shame, decided to take on a physical challenge to build her self-respect: she swam the English Channel.
Still another grew up enjoying the safety and comfort that wealth can offer - only to see her world shattered when her husband lost her whole inheritance playing the stock market.
Chuck Collins, the great-grandson of bologna baron Oscar Mayer, gave his $300,000 inheritance to peace and anti-poverty groups when he was 26 years old. "I believe that the root cause of our social and political problems is the great concentration of wealth in the hands of so few people," Collins explains. "For me to keep holding onto my wealth would have amounted to living a lie."
Gibson and her co-editors, both of whom are from Nova Scotia, first published "The Legacy of Inherited Wealth" simply as a collection of interviews. Their next step will be to write a book, "Coming into Money," combining their own analysis with the stories gleaned from the interviews.
Mike Hudson is a reporter with this newspaper.
IN THE PRESENCE OF THE ENEMY.
By Elizabeth George. Bantam. $29.95.
This 500-plus page book covers two kidnappings, a murder, several complicated relationships and quite a few (if not all) of the seven deadly sins. Along with some plot twists, Elizabeth George also gives us a glimpse into the world of the British "Fleet Street" scandal tabloids.
"In the Presence of the Enemy" deals with a great many moral and ethical issues. And although George treats most of them too simplistically, she knows how to tell a good story. For someone like me who religiously reads People each week, this suspense novel is a wonderful mix of "insider" sleaze and riveting mystery. |- JUDY KWELLER
THE SOUVENIR.
By Patricia Carlon. Soho Press. $20.
Patricia Carlon has crafted an intriguing and suspenseful puzzle. Her sleuth is known as a puzzle solver rather than a detective, and that is what brings a young woman to ask him to solve a 4-year-old unresolved murder case. The woman's brother was killed by one of two teen-age girls. The girls tell conflicting stories and the book follows their versions of a hitchhiking trip that started with youthful pranks and ended with murder.
The girls' journey is vividly described, the build-up to the murder is fascinating, and the writing is taut and sure. |- ANNA WENTWORTH
ASSUMPTION OF RISK.
By Jim Silver. Simon & Schuster. $22.
If someone were to tell me that I would stay up until 4 a.m. to read a thriller about an insurance claim adjuster, I would tell them they were crazy. But that's exactly what happened with "Assumption of Risk," the first novel of a major new fiction talent, Jim Silver. Silver, by the way, actually works for an insurance company.
"Assumption of Risk" is a spellbinding novel of greed and murder. Luther Sitasy is a Vietnam vet who discovers that someone at the insurance company he works for is making a killing by eliminating policy holders.
Unable to find his own solution, Sitasy gets the help of his Vietnam buddy, John Paraletto, now a top FBI operative. Together they return to the jungles of Vietnam to go after the bad guys.
Silver's explanations of how an insurance company works are lucid, and his descriptions are graphic and mesmerizing. |- ROBERT ALOTTA
Judy Kweller is a free-lance writer.
Anna Wentworth also reviews theater for WVTF public radio.
Robert Alotta is an author who lives in Harrisonburg.
LENGTH: Long : 202 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:(drawing) Meriwether Lewisby CNB