MADreads

Green paradise, green hell

March 2nd, 2010 Katie H.

David Grann’s nonfiction adventure/history The Lost City of Z walks a precarious line between worlds.  Half the story of Percy Fawcett, a British explorer to disappeared into the Amazonian jungle in the 1920s, and half the account of the many (including the author) who were drawn to the mystery of Fawcett’s fate, the real character is the Amazon itself.  Even today, the rainforest resists attempts to uncover its secrets.

In the early 20th century, the challenge was even greater.  Fawcett, a former soldier turned gentleman explorer, epitomized the Victorian ideal of manhood, to the extent that even his wife thought him incapable of succumbing to the diseases of the jungle.  By the time of his last expedition in 1925, the world was changing.  Fawcett’s greatest rival was using an airplane for surveys and sending his dispatches via radio.  The butchery of World War I shattered any illusions Europe had been harboring of its own superiority.  And the point of exploration was shifting from the discovery of elaborate ruins to an understanding of indigenous tribes.  Still, Fawcett set his sights on the grandest prize of all:  the lost city of El Dorado, the capital of a great ancient Amazonian civilization.  Suspicious that rival explorers would steal his idea, Fawcett referred to his goal as ‘Z’ and obscured his route with fake coordinates and false itineraries.  Amidst great fanfare, Fawcett, his son and a few other travelling companions plunged into the Amazon for the last time.  They never returned.

In the following years, numerous parties set out to solve the mystery of Fawcett and his vision of El Dorado.  Grann’s account of his own journey is paired along that of Fawcett’s, and it’s easy to understand why so many have been drawn to tackle what often becomes a suicide mission.  Grann, a writer for The New Yorker, sets the pace of the story at a good clip, without sacrificing a sense of the characters involved.  Sprinkled in are details about the study of the Amazon, including the ongoing question of whether this inhospitable paradise–so full of life, but yet deadly to even modern explorers–was ever capable of supporting the large populations that other parts of the Americas boasted prior to Columbus.

With a considerable amount of notes and a substantial bibliography, The Lost City of Z offers more opportunities for exploration.  Readers fond of history and adventure narratives along the lines of Simon Winchester or Candice Milliard’s River of Doubt might be drawn to Fawcett’s story.  A movie starring Brad Pitt is currently in the works.

Entry Filed under: Nonfiction, Travel