River of Shadows

AWESOME

Beautiful writing style.

I wish all biographies were morelike this, although this book is not strictly a biography. What I mean is that the focus is on the achievements and significance of the remarkable central character, Eadweard Muybridge. It was Muybridge's photographic work that led to the development of modern cinema, which Slonit recognizes as "splitting the second" and therefore as significant as splitting the atom. In the hands of a less skill author, a central character as eccentric as Muybridge could easily have overtaken the narrative. I mean he did kill a guy in a jealous rage. But the murder, the insanity defense and the legally impossible jury verdict are all contained in a single chapter. The larger story, the technological development of the 19th century, continues. We also get a close look at Leland Stanford, the beginning of the transcontinental railroad and the early history of San Francisco, although I did feel Slonit sometimes strained to connect the camera, the railroad and California into a coherent story. This is the first book I have read by this author, but it won't be the last. I was really blown away by this.

What an insightful piece of work on the birth of cinema. Im positive Jordan Peele read this book prior to production on NOPE because so many of the elements in this book overlap with that film. The film seems to call back to the climax of this book which involved moving pictures and horses. I found this book to be incredibly insightful and will definitely merit a second read down the road.

I read Ms.Solnit's book after learning that it had inspired actor/director Gary Oldman to write a screenplay called Flying Horse, with an eye toward directing the film about photo pioneer Eaweard Muybridge. RIVER OF SHADOWS is a meandering but thoughtfully entertaining journey through the energetic, sometimes tragic life of Eaweard Muybridge whose motion-study images were midwife to modern cinema. Solnit grandly sets the stage of Muybridge's era and how the lure of the early photographic process gave the Englishman a new career and a fresh start. His whole-hearted embrace of the burgeoning technology continues to impact us and our perception of time via motion pictures and all forms of emerging visual media. The book title's reference to the "technological wild west" is so appropriate by guiding us through the historical cloud of dust kicked up by an America of the late 1800s with its growing railroads, vanishing cowboys and struggling native tribes, to reveal how science was a significant part of the rough and tumble mix.