City News
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
Reviewed by Lauren
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, a nonfiction novel by David Grann, tells a story of modern adventure and exploration. Taking place in the Amazon rainforest of South America, Grann writes about the late 19th and early 20th century explorer, Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett. It focuses on his obsession with finding a lost city in the unexplored Xingu region of the Amazon, a city he dubbed “Z”. It recounts the final missions before his, along with his son Brian Fawcett and Raleigh Rimmel’s eventual disappearance in 1925.
The novel alternates between Fawcett’s exploits in the Amazon and Grann’s own on the trail of Fawcett and Z. Both their journeys’ into the Amazon were dangerous, although Fawcett’s much more than Grann’s, but both were intriguing.
The Amazon is a much more dangerous place than I had imagined. Described in the book as a “counterfeit paradise” or a “green Hell”, The Lost City of Z goes into detail about the hardships explorers of the time faced, from debilitating disease and blood-sucking bats to mutinies and swarms of parasitic insects. Even in the most lush and life-rich areas of the planet, finding anything to eat was difficult. Dead animals were quickly consumed by the forest. The death toll in this book is high, both from Fawcett’s companions while exploring the Amazon and the nearly 100 people who died searching for Fawcett’s lost party.
The descriptions of the animals, plants, and especially the insects of the Amazon are almost unbelievable. The Amazon landscape contains creatures such as poison ants that cause vomiting and fever, anacondas up to 27 feet long, stampeding wild pigs, swarms of mosquitoes, ticks, leeches, worms that could cause blindness, and frogs whose poison could kill 100 men. Explorers faced danger with every footstep, not knowing if the very soil they walked on contained flesh-eating chiggers or cyanide-squirting millipedes.
Although categorically in nonfiction, the book is just as exciting as a fiction. It was fast paced, and even though from the beginning you know Fawcett’s ultimate fate, there is still an element of suspense. It is a real-life Indiana Jones-like story.
As characters, Fawcett and Grann couldn’t have been more different: Fawcett was a strong, tall, distinguished gentleman, explorer, cartographer, soldier, and explorer with an almost superhuman resistance to diseases. Grann described himself as an out of shape man who likes elevators and air conditioning. At the time, he worked as a writer in the New Yorker. However, the allure of the Amazon gripped them both, luring them both out into the counterfeit paradise. Both became obsessed, although Grann was able to get out and share his story, whereas Fawcett was not.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes history, adventure, or an exciting story. It is well-written, with informative facts seamlessly woven into the narrative of the story. It’s a book that allows you to experience the life of a 19th century explorer without having to deal with the yellow fever and maggots that came along with that title. Overall, it’s a must-read adventure novel chock-full of adventure and danger.
Check out The Lost City of Z at the Newport Beach Public Library.