The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, by David Grann
David Grann's, The Lost City of Z was too irresistible to ignore when I was looking for a book at Borders prior to my Virginia trip. I had to have a backup after I finished Dean’s last book. I was happy to read a book and write a review on a positive note this time, after my last two disappointments. I love classic and contemporary tales of adventure with a hint of scientific stuff mixed in. This book was exactly what I was looking for, to explore a new place, get lost in the past, and find some answers to a mystery. Just what a Geographer needs to piqué his exploring interests.
The book was actually two stories in one. The first story was the life story of Victorian explorer Percy Harrison Fawcett, who began his career in the British military, stationed in Ceylon. His claim-to-fame was as a worldwide explorer of the Amazonian jungles and river ways, and as a World War I war hero. The book’s main focus was on Fawcett's last fateful expedition. Throughout the book, Gann recounts Fawcett's entire career. Fawcett and his companions routinely faced starvation, bloodthirsty indigenous tribes, horrific insect infestations and lethal tropical diseases, white-water rapids, snakes and anacondas, piranha and candiru, and other mysterious and terrifying creatures. It's hard to imagine the bravery it took to explore the unexplored and uncharted territories our planet has to offer, with little or no communication, lack of food, and for lengthy periods of time away from loved-ones.
Fawcett and his men faced death constantly. If it wasn’t the diseases, the bugs, or the Indians, it was Fawcett’s march to the next camp or his up-before-dawn attitude. Time after time he succeeded where others failed, until his last expedition in 1925 after he returned from the war. Fawcett followed his own instincts, which often were in direct opposition of conventional wisdom. He had a “I’ll do-it myself” attitude. Over the course of his long career, Fawcett had developed a hypothesis that there was once a great civilization in the depths of the Amazon, an El Dorado-like city that he simply called "Z." He became obsessed with the idea of finding the lost city. And in 1925, accompanied by his son and a friend, Fawcett entered the jungle determined to locate the lost city of Z--and was never heard from again.
Percy Fawcett became convinced that contrary to conventional wisdom, a highly advanced civilization once thrived in the extremely hostile climate of the Amazon. Fawcett made his first exploration into the region around 1910 and laid the groundwork for his world famous expedition in 1925. Several chapters detailed Fawcett's interactions with the native populations of the Amazon, which were most fascinating. Just what happened to Percy Fawcett, his son Jack and Jack's best friend Raleigh Rimell, some eight decades earlier is still a mystery.
For decades, would-be explorers would go out and search for any clue to the Fawcett story. In the eighty-some years since, hundreds have entered the jungle hot on his trail. Many have never returned. Author David Grann is the most recent in a long line of explorers passionate about this mystery. And it is Grann's tale that is intertwined as the second story throughout the book. Gann is a middle-aged staff writer for The New Yorker. He gets caught up in the saga while researching the book, so much so that he leaves his comfortable urban life, his wife, and his infant son to enter the Amazon jungle. Like so many others, he seeks to find out what truly happened to Fawcett, and/or if there really was a Z. Before long he found himself totally consumed by the mystery. He talked himself into traveling to Brazil in an attempt to find out from the government clues as to where Fawcett’s travels had taken him, he traveled to London to talk to relatives of Fawcett, and he talked to prominent anthropologists about theories about the Indians and Z. Gann did an excellent job of extrapolating diaries and logbooks, letter and correspondence, exploring companion’s letters and Fawcett’s rival’s documentation to create this fun adventure. If you are not afraid of the Xavante or the Suras Indians, the caiman or the mosquito, lets get in that aluminum canoe and see what we can find in the jungle.
In conclusion, the book's final pages, Gann meets Michael Heckenberger, a prominent anthropologist who reveals the discovery of twenty pre-Columbian settlements about two to three miles apart. They were connected by roads, a large moat, canals and bridges. Heckenberger believes the region sustained a prosperous, and a vast civilization, prior to the European expansion, which brought disease and hostility to the region. And so Grann's long search ends with the possibility that Fawcett was right all along, that the lost city was more than just a dream.
David Grann's, The Lost City of Z was too irresistible to ignore when I was looking for a book at Borders prior to my Virginia trip. I had to have a backup after I finished Dean’s last book. I was happy to read a book and write a review on a positive note this time, after my last two disappointments. I love classic and contemporary tales of adventure with a hint of scientific stuff mixed in. This book was exactly what I was looking for, to explore a new place, get lost in the past, and find some answers to a mystery. Just what a Geographer needs to piqué his exploring interests.
The book was actually two stories in one. The first story was the life story of Victorian explorer Percy Harrison Fawcett, who began his career in the British military, stationed in Ceylon. His claim-to-fame was as a worldwide explorer of the Amazonian jungles and river ways, and as a World War I war hero. The book’s main focus was on Fawcett's last fateful expedition. Throughout the book, Gann recounts Fawcett's entire career. Fawcett and his companions routinely faced starvation, bloodthirsty indigenous tribes, horrific insect infestations and lethal tropical diseases, white-water rapids, snakes and anacondas, piranha and candiru, and other mysterious and terrifying creatures. It's hard to imagine the bravery it took to explore the unexplored and uncharted territories our planet has to offer, with little or no communication, lack of food, and for lengthy periods of time away from loved-ones.
Fawcett and his men faced death constantly. If it wasn’t the diseases, the bugs, or the Indians, it was Fawcett’s march to the next camp or his up-before-dawn attitude. Time after time he succeeded where others failed, until his last expedition in 1925 after he returned from the war. Fawcett followed his own instincts, which often were in direct opposition of conventional wisdom. He had a “I’ll do-it myself” attitude. Over the course of his long career, Fawcett had developed a hypothesis that there was once a great civilization in the depths of the Amazon, an El Dorado-like city that he simply called "Z." He became obsessed with the idea of finding the lost city. And in 1925, accompanied by his son and a friend, Fawcett entered the jungle determined to locate the lost city of Z--and was never heard from again.
Percy Fawcett became convinced that contrary to conventional wisdom, a highly advanced civilization once thrived in the extremely hostile climate of the Amazon. Fawcett made his first exploration into the region around 1910 and laid the groundwork for his world famous expedition in 1925. Several chapters detailed Fawcett's interactions with the native populations of the Amazon, which were most fascinating. Just what happened to Percy Fawcett, his son Jack and Jack's best friend Raleigh Rimell, some eight decades earlier is still a mystery.
For decades, would-be explorers would go out and search for any clue to the Fawcett story. In the eighty-some years since, hundreds have entered the jungle hot on his trail. Many have never returned. Author David Grann is the most recent in a long line of explorers passionate about this mystery. And it is Grann's tale that is intertwined as the second story throughout the book. Gann is a middle-aged staff writer for The New Yorker. He gets caught up in the saga while researching the book, so much so that he leaves his comfortable urban life, his wife, and his infant son to enter the Amazon jungle. Like so many others, he seeks to find out what truly happened to Fawcett, and/or if there really was a Z. Before long he found himself totally consumed by the mystery. He talked himself into traveling to Brazil in an attempt to find out from the government clues as to where Fawcett’s travels had taken him, he traveled to London to talk to relatives of Fawcett, and he talked to prominent anthropologists about theories about the Indians and Z. Gann did an excellent job of extrapolating diaries and logbooks, letter and correspondence, exploring companion’s letters and Fawcett’s rival’s documentation to create this fun adventure. If you are not afraid of the Xavante or the Suras Indians, the caiman or the mosquito, lets get in that aluminum canoe and see what we can find in the jungle.
In conclusion, the book's final pages, Gann meets Michael Heckenberger, a prominent anthropologist who reveals the discovery of twenty pre-Columbian settlements about two to three miles apart. They were connected by roads, a large moat, canals and bridges. Heckenberger believes the region sustained a prosperous, and a vast civilization, prior to the European expansion, which brought disease and hostility to the region. And so Grann's long search ends with the possibility that Fawcett was right all along, that the lost city was more than just a dream.
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