Review: The Lost City of Z
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4 stars. I'm on a real nonfiction kick lately - nonfiction focused on adventures, specifically - and this delivered. I'm a huge fan of David Grann and despite a bit of an abrupt ending, I really enjoyed this book. As many others have pointed out, it's an adventure story, with a few unexpected answers and revelations packed within its pages.
As a child, I was obsessed with unsolved mysteries. One Christmas morning, I opened a book about them and spent the rest of the day reading it over and over again. Favorites included Amelia Earhart, the Bermuda Triangle, and UFO's. This tickled that fancy, for sure - it's about a journalist's quest to determine what happened to a particular Amazonian explorer decades ago. I can understand his desire for answers; it absolutely baffles the modern mind to encounter a question with no answers. How can someone, with all the tools and technology and resources we have at our feet, simply disappear?
Sir Percy Fawcett, following several semi-successful exploratory ventures into the Amazon Jungle, did just that: he disappeared with his son and his son's friend on a quest to find the mythical City of Z. An El Dorado-type destination, the City of Z has fascinated explorers and scientists and historians for years; many have lost their lives hoping to catch a glimpse of gold through the jungle trees. Grann traces the origin of the myth, traces Fawcett's own developing obsession, and eventually treks to the Amazon himself. It's a fascinating read.
I, for one, learned so much. There are a few really good, really interesting anthropological components to this story, and the sociology minor in me was thrilled. Grann writes about the isolated Amazon tribes with respect and awe. There's history here, and adventure, there's romance, and heroes, and delightfully disgusting jungle gore. MAGGOTS. IN. YOUR. LEG.
I particularly appreciate Grann's portrait of Fawcett himself - energetic, brave, determined, and flawed. Like the men of The Terror, and perhaps Into Thin Air, and perhaps even A Walk in the Woods, many of us feel the need to conquer nature and get our butts kicked. But Fawcett in particular was able to articulate the itch:
"'Deep down inside me a tiny voice was calling ... at first scarcely audible, it persisted until I could no longer ignore it. It was voice of the wild places, and I knew that it was now part of me forever.'"
He basically Joseph Conrads all over the place:
"'Civilization has a relatively precarious hold upon us and there is an undoubted attraction in a life of absolute freedom once it has been tasted. The 'call o' the wild' is in the blood of many of us and finds its safety valve in adventure.’"
This book, all at once, is relatable, captivating, thrilling, frustrating, and well-written. It is a love letter to mysteries, and to those obsessed with solving them. It is a testament to finding unexpected answers and looking within before judging what's out there.
And also: we should really respect nature. Humans ruin everything.