BOOKS The author acknowledges the assistance of the Mariners Museum but does not list Louis Feuchter, despite the fact that the museum's erstwhile curator, Robert Burgess, wrote an entire book about him. He furth er appreciates the help of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, yet Clifford W. Ashley is not listed. The existence of this massive, commendable, but flawed tome is likely to dissuade any publisher or author from covering the same ground for years to come. In the meantime the assumption may grow that it is definitive. More's the pity, for here' s a good " dictionary" missing some fine " colloquialisms." P ETER W. R OGERS
The Adirondack Guide-Boat, by Kenneth and Helen Durant, with plans and commentary by John Gardner (The Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, N.Y., and International Marine Publishing Company, Camden, Me. , 1980, 270 pp., 119 illus., 16 construction plates, endpaper maps, $30.00). The Adirondack Guide-Boat is a delicious book, handsomely produced, and a milestone in the literature of American small craft. It deals lovingly with the regional boats of its title, and even with flaws it will remain the authoritative work on them for many years. No other volume has so completely captured both the personality and the technicalities of these exquisite double-enders, usually not over 16 feet long, delicately framed yet strong enough to bear over 500 pounds in a storm, so lightly planked that a man may carry one over an Adirondack portage, lovely to look at and speedy to row, yet quite ready to dump the unwary into cold water at one false move. Mrs. Durant's style is very readable, yet neither so relaxed nor sure as her husband might have been. Too often she writes for drama rather than from conviction, and one may feel the shift into a coda at the end of too many chapters. Her editors also allowed too many paragraphs to recur, almost verbatim, in more than one place. Hints of Kenneth Durant'scharming prose, by contrast, appear in fragments quoted in John Gardner's Foreword; the easy, convincing and often pungent manner of a journalist totally at ease with his story. If this work has a major flaw, it is an unstated bias against commercial boatbuilders. The preface assures us of "an exhaustive inquiry . .. all-inclusive and not limited ... " But on page 25 we are told that the guide-boat '' . . . was built by trappers and hunters and guides ... " So much for the man who just built boats, no matter how well! The commercial builders are inSEA HISTORY, SPRING 1981
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