Review: Rapids by Tim Parks. The story was an adventure for six adults and nine adolescents coming together on a white water kayaking experience in Italy from a swelling river below the melting glaciers from above. With a twisting surface and threatening undertows, the rapid river was a hazard thrill to those who live to feel the rush of risk. Tim Parks also was creative enough to describe the harrowing white water ride not only through the landscape of the Italian Alps, but also through the expressions of quirks and eddies of the human heart. This group of people were on a Holiday vacation led by two licensed instructors learning how to allow the river to safely navigate them down through rough terrain, learning capsizing, spinning in the eddies, jarring around boulders and tree branches and still being able to have fun for the thrill. Just before dark they would carry their kayaks back to camp and sit around chatting of what happened that day and what lessons did they learn. At these moments in the story Tim Parks weaves the personalities, secret intentions, unrewarded ambitions and petty arrogance of the characters to make it not only an analogy of social and psychological but also a political novel. The two instructors, Clive and Michael are political idealist and estranged lovers which soon transformed an innocent pleasure trip into something darker, and eventually chilling. Than there is Vince who comes with his eighteen year old daughter Louise who he feels is pulling away from him because of the bereavement of her mother, his wife. The entire group had issues but took this trip to get their lives back on track and to find resolution before they went home. Parks embedded messages to the reader throughout the story on various issues as; global warming (the glaciers melting), three men handcuffed together as a human bomb in Berlin (terrorist threats), a kayaker from the group attempts suicide over the falls (mental insecurities) and teenagers drinking and having sexual encounters ( bad teenage behavior). Among reading all about white water rafting which was really interesting and enjoyable the reader also gets the messages that Tim Parks wants his book to deliver…. ( )

Gruppenerlebnis einer englischen Kajak-Fahrer-Gruppe in einem Südtiroler Gebirgsfluss. Verschmähte Liebe und die Globalisierung spielen auch eine Rolle. ( )

This book disappointed me. I thought the writing was very awkward, although apparently it was meant to simulate a rushing river. The descriptions of kayaking in it were not terrible but they were inedadequate. Whitewater kayakers will not be impressed--real people don't go from Class 1 or 2 paddlers to Class 4 in a few days.
I hated the ridiculous attempt to create a climax, but won't ruin the novel for those who might choose to read it. ( )