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The Lost City of Z was reviewed by Rich Cohen in the Sunday New York Times Book Review, who said it was "a powerful narrative, stiff-lipped and Victorian at the center, trippy at the edges, as if one of those stern men of Conrad had found himself trapped in a novel by García Márquez. A stirring tale of lost civilizations, avarice, madness and everything else that makes exploration so much fun…marked by satisfyingly unexpected twists, turns and plenty of dark portents. Its quiet, shaded halls of leafy opulence were not a sanctuary, but rather the greatest natural battlefield anywhere on the planet, hosting an unremitting and remorseless fight for survival that occupied every single one of its inhabitants, every minute of every day. 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. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions.
In other circumstances, I always thought it was somewhat absurd to think that reading about a thing was as fun as doing it. For centuries Europeans believed the world’s largest jungle concealed the glittering kingdom of El Dorado. There was one description that made me shiver: ”Espundia, an illness with even more frightening symptoms. That perpetual urge to find/experience/accomplish/see/do/have the next unattainable thing, to catch the carrot that's always dangling just out of reach? The Incan empire had at one time consisted of nearly two million square kilometers and was peopled by more than ten million.However, after disappearing into the jungle one last time, with his son and a friend in-tow on this occasion, Fawcett disappeared forever. is at once a biography, a detective story and a wonderfully vivid piece of travel writing that combines Bruce Chatwinesque powers of observation with a Waugh-like sense of the absurd.
Fawcett would probably be appalled by any comparisons with Roosevelt, but they did both take their sons into the unforgiving tropical environs and raise the hackles of the culturally-competent Marechal Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon (below yucking it up with an indigenous peoples). I am not really a reader of adventure strories but every now and again one comes along that catches my interest and when a trusted Goodread's friend recommend this I just had to give it a try and see exactly what the Lost City of Z was all about. Everything from the most microscopic insect to infections to pumas are trying to kill you, not to mention the local tribesmen who may think you are interesting enough to let live or even more interesting to roast on a spit. By interweaving the great story of Fawcett with his own investigative escapades in South America and Britain, Grann provides an in-depth, captivating character study that has the relentless energy of a classic adventure tale.Lucky for them, or rather, “us”, Fawcett wasn’t one of those, but actually one of those who took his job way more seriously than, probably for his own good.
On the ugly side, he had little empathy for anyone in his party who could not keep up with his pace, and he neglected his family.
Black Indian earth showed evidence that humans had added supplements to the soil to increase its fertility to support agriculture. Read it, shiver with delight and thank your lucky stars you're never going to get as close to a candirú as Fawcett and Grann did. As a companion volume, I would recommend reading Candace Millard’s equally fascinating book The River of Doubt.
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