Through the Dragon's Mouth: Journeys into the Yangzi's Three Gorges

by Ben Thomson Cowles

Release Date: April, 1999

Edition: Hardcover

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Three Gorges

I like this book more than some of the previous reviewers but I can only offer medium praise. Dr. Cowles is truly an "old China hand" of the first order. His experiences and trials in China, especially his voyages through the Yangtze Gorges before they were "made safe" by demolishing hazardous rocks in the 1950s, the constuction of the Gezhouba dam in the early 80s, and the on-going constucton of the Three Gorges Dam, can be considered an adventure of a lifetime. Having said this, as someone who has travelled through the Gorges over 170 times by ship and by foot (and read nearly everything written about the Gorges), his book is a big disappointment. Before you purchase this book, I would recommend Hersey's A Single Pebble or Winchester's River at the Center of the World if you truly wish to learn about the Gorges. The dialogue in Cowles' book is very contrived and dry. Cowles' recollection of past adventures are stikingly similar to other books written about pre-1950 voyages which leaves doubt in this reader's mind if these are Cowles' experiences at all, or if he is just borrowing from others, given that his voyage was over 50 years ago. The illustrations and some accounts are outstanding, but Cowles' attempt to mold his characters around discussions of the I Ching, each discussion conveniently broken off by some new trial that the crew faces as they negotaite the treachorous rapids of the Gorges, comes up lacking and is not very believable. Unfortunately, the dryness of the dialogue (which I don't believe) and the similarity to other books about the Gorges forces me to give this book a poor rating. Buy the other books first and make your own informed opinion. I would recommend this book third behind other books about the Gorges. With Kemp Tolley's Yangtze Patrol and Diedre Chatham's new book due in March, I would bump this book to fifth.

three gorges

I must agree that the book uses very contrived dialogue which clearly reduces the interest level. With the subject topic, this should have been a dynamic powerful book but winds up forcing the reader to continue in search of something to grab onto. it was dry, very dry, and found lacking - I picked it up because I am interested in anything relating to the Three Gorges area but I was terribly disappointed.