Review: The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

David Grann’s The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon is an excellent true story about obsession and the Amazon, and the explorer’s who  braved its green depths seeking fame, adventure, wealth, knowledge and sometimes a mixture of all four.  The book mainly chronicles the life and adventures of Percy Harrison Fawcett, a Victorian age British explorerer who was one of the most colorful adventurers of that era, and plumbs the mystery surrounding his final deadly foray into the Amazon in search of the fabled city “Z”.

Even though the book is primarily about Fawcett, Grann does a great job covering the history of Amazonian exploration, the genesis of the Royal Geographic Society in London and the psyche of obsession.  I’m not usually one that pines for bygone eras–I’m a futurist at heart–but Grann captures the essence of the unknown and the thrill of discovery so well, that it almost makes me wish that I could have been around in the 1830s just so I could hob-knob with all the characters and explore a world that still had mysterious and exotic locales.  These days, we’re pretty much left with space and underwater, neither of which is very conducive to solo exploration.

Drawing from correspondence, the Society’s archives, newspaper accounts and diaries, Grann is able to piece together surprising detail about what Fawcett’s forays into the Amazon were like.  All I can say is, these weren’t pleasant trips by my standards.  Horrific heat, violent indigineous peoples, snakes, pirahnas, poisonous frogs, starvation, disease and the insects.  Dear god, the insects!  The book is full of first hand accounts of people getting devoured by ants, implanted with larvae that then eat through your flesh, maggoty wounds, fish that’ll swim up your uretha or anus and latch on with barbs so that the only way to remove them (in those days) was to cut off your bait and tackle.  And thats the relatively visible things.  The protozoans, bacteria and disease were everywhere as well, including one nasty bugger that would infect your brain and you won’t even know it until 20 years later when your head explodes (not really explodes, its much more slow, painful and oozy)!  I’ll be honest, as much as that stuff creeped me out, it was awesome, in a horror movie kind of way.

Fawcett it seems, was a black hole of obsession.  He was obsessed with the Amazon and the city, and he inflamed those around him with obsession as well, both during his life and after his disappearance on his last trek into the Amazon with his son Jack.  Countless people disappeared trying to find his whereabouts, and in some circles, his “Z” and the mystery of his fate has created cults, attributing otherworldly, spiritual elements to him and his quest.  One of the things that makes this book so interesting is that the author, Grann, also got sucked into the obsession, to the point where he risked it all for his own foray into the Amazon a few years ago.  It’s not as dangerous these days, of course, with our medicines and communication and gps and whatnot, but its still pretty frikken crazy–you can still get ambushed by tribes, the bugs and disease are still there, and these days, bandits and ranchers will abduct/rape/murder/kill most people that they can get a hold of.  The local governments aren’t so nice either.

Ultimately, a book like this isn’t going to have a nice  neat ending without loose strings, but there is closure, however unsatisfying (I wanted a first hand account of the discovery of Z, dammit! ).  Grann’s storytelling and research and obvious personal obsession drew me in and infected me with the Fawcett bug, luring me towards the end, wishing that it would continue.  Never fear, though!  There’s no way in hell I’m every going into the Amazon to invite flesh eating worms to burrow through my flesh until we develop personal force fields that’ll keep a secure barrier between me and all the little nasties that infest the jungle!