The Lost City of Z by David Grann
Apr. 23rd, 2014 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, the inspiration behind Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World, was mong the last of a legendary breed of British explorers. For years he explored the Amazon and came to believe that its jungle concealed a large, complex civilization, like El Dorado. Obsessed with its discovery, he christened it the City of Z. In 1925, Fawcett headed into the wilderness with his son Jack, vowing to make history. They vanished without a trace.
For the next eighty years, hordes of explorers plunged into the jungle, trying to find evidence of Fawcett’s party, or Z. Some died from disease and starvation; others simply disappeared. In this spellbinding true tale of lethal obsession, David Grann retraces the footsteps of Fawcett and his followers as he unravels one of the greatest mysteries of exploration.
In 1925 Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett led an expedition including his son Jack into the Amazonian jungle. An experienced Amazonian explorer, he was convinced that it concealed the ruins of an ancient civilisation, which he dubbed the City of Z and his expedition set off with a media fanfare. But Fawcett’s party never returned. Many other explorers tried to find out what happened to him only to die or disappear themselves without any trace. In this book (which was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize in 2009), journalist David Grann sets out to retrace Fawcett’s journey in an attempt to find out what happened to him while also examining Fawcett’s life to explain what drove his obsession.
The book is a curious mix of biography, history, anthropology, tropical disease, geography and, in the case of Gann himself, self-discovery. Fawcett’s story is a compelling one – driven, complicated and ambitious, he was one of the last gentleman explorers who genuinely loved the jungle he explored but who had no tolerance for weakness in others and who had a slightly more enlightened attitude to the indigenous people of the region than his contemporaries. However, the book doesn’t give a definitive answer as to what happened to Fawcett, which is a major failing and worse, Gann never even tries to test the answer that he does find. The writing at the start of the book is a little disjointed, with Gann going off on tangents as he seeks to introduce Fawcett, his own mission and then the kidnapping of James Lynch, a banker who set off on his own mission to discover what happened to Fawcett, only to get kidnapped by an indigenous tribe. I was particularly irritated by the Lynch element because Gann sets this up as a big deal very early on and then the resolution is given away as an aside when Gann finally meets him. I would have also liked to have known a bit more about Fawcett’s loyal wife, Nina, who stayed loyal to him until the end despite Fawcett originally breaking off their engagement on the grounds of a slanderous rumour about her chastity. Ultimately, I did find the story fascinating enough to keep turning the pages and Gann has a comprehensive bibliography, which I found interesting and as such I would recommend it albeit with the caveat that it doesn’t quite deliver on its set up.
The Verdict:
The book is a curious mix of biography, history, anthropology, tropical disease, geography and, in the case of Gann himself, self-discovery. Fawcett’s story is a compelling one – driven, complicated and ambitious, he was one of the last gentleman explorers who genuinely loved the jungle he explored but who had no tolerance for weakness in others and who had a slightly more enlightened attitude to the indigenous people of the region than his contemporaries. However, the book doesn’t give a definitive answer as to what happened to Fawcett, which is a major failing and worse, Gann never even tries to test the answer that he does find. The writing at the start of the book is a little disjointed, with Gann going off on tangents as he seeks to introduce Fawcett, his own mission and then the kidnapping of James Lynch, a banker who set off on his own mission to discover what happened to Fawcett, only to get kidnapped by an indigenous tribe. I was particularly irritated by the Lynch element because Gann sets this up as a big deal very early on and then the resolution is given away as an aside when Gann finally meets him. I would have also liked to have known a bit more about Fawcett’s loyal wife, Nina, who stayed loyal to him until the end despite Fawcett originally breaking off their engagement on the grounds of a slanderous rumour about her chastity. Ultimately, I did find the story fascinating enough to keep turning the pages and Gann has a comprehensive bibliography, which I found interesting and as such I would recommend it albeit with the caveat that it doesn’t quite deliver on its set up.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the review copy of this book.
Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, the inspiration behind Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World, was mong the last of a legendary breed of British explorers. For years he explored the Amazon and came to believe that its jungle concealed a large, complex civilization, like El Dorado. Obsessed with its discovery, he christened it the City of Z. In 1925, Fawcett headed into the wilderness with his son Jack, vowing to make history. They vanished without a trace.
For the next eighty years, hordes of explorers plunged into the jungle, trying to find evidence of Fawcett’s party, or Z. Some died from disease and starvation; others simply disappeared. In this spellbinding true tale of lethal obsession, David Grann retraces the footsteps of Fawcett and his followers as he unravels one of the greatest mysteries of exploration.
In 1925 Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett led an expedition including his son Jack into the Amazonian jungle. An experienced Amazonian explorer, he was convinced that it concealed the ruins of an ancient civilisation, which he dubbed the City of Z and his expedition set off with a media fanfare. But Fawcett’s party never returned. Many other explorers tried to find out what happened to him only to die or disappear themselves without any trace. In this book (which was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize in 2009), journalist David Grann sets out to retrace Fawcett’s journey in an attempt to find out what happened to him while also examining Fawcett’s life to explain what drove his obsession.
The book is a curious mix of biography, history, anthropology, tropical disease, geography and, in the case of Gann himself, self-discovery. Fawcett’s story is a compelling one – driven, complicated and ambitious, he was one of the last gentleman explorers who genuinely loved the jungle he explored but who had no tolerance for weakness in others and who had a slightly more enlightened attitude to the indigenous people of the region than his contemporaries. However, the book doesn’t give a definitive answer as to what happened to Fawcett, which is a major failing and worse, Gann never even tries to test the answer that he does find. The writing at the start of the book is a little disjointed, with Gann going off on tangents as he seeks to introduce Fawcett, his own mission and then the kidnapping of James Lynch, a banker who set off on his own mission to discover what happened to Fawcett, only to get kidnapped by an indigenous tribe. I was particularly irritated by the Lynch element because Gann sets this up as a big deal very early on and then the resolution is given away as an aside when Gann finally meets him. I would have also liked to have known a bit more about Fawcett’s loyal wife, Nina, who stayed loyal to him until the end despite Fawcett originally breaking off their engagement on the grounds of a slanderous rumour about her chastity. Ultimately, I did find the story fascinating enough to keep turning the pages and Gann has a comprehensive bibliography, which I found interesting and as such I would recommend it albeit with the caveat that it doesn’t quite deliver on its set up.
The Verdict:
The book is a curious mix of biography, history, anthropology, tropical disease, geography and, in the case of Gann himself, self-discovery. Fawcett’s story is a compelling one – driven, complicated and ambitious, he was one of the last gentleman explorers who genuinely loved the jungle he explored but who had no tolerance for weakness in others and who had a slightly more enlightened attitude to the indigenous people of the region than his contemporaries. However, the book doesn’t give a definitive answer as to what happened to Fawcett, which is a major failing and worse, Gann never even tries to test the answer that he does find. The writing at the start of the book is a little disjointed, with Gann going off on tangents as he seeks to introduce Fawcett, his own mission and then the kidnapping of James Lynch, a banker who set off on his own mission to discover what happened to Fawcett, only to get kidnapped by an indigenous tribe. I was particularly irritated by the Lynch element because Gann sets this up as a big deal very early on and then the resolution is given away as an aside when Gann finally meets him. I would have also liked to have known a bit more about Fawcett’s loyal wife, Nina, who stayed loyal to him until the end despite Fawcett originally breaking off their engagement on the grounds of a slanderous rumour about her chastity. Ultimately, I did find the story fascinating enough to keep turning the pages and Gann has a comprehensive bibliography, which I found interesting and as such I would recommend it albeit with the caveat that it doesn’t quite deliver on its set up.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the review copy of this book.
