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

Mar 31, 2010 Christine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history-english, history-brazil, history-south-america-caribbean

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Shortly after I finished this book, the BBC World Service reported that a Brazilian man who advocated for small farmers, natives, and the rain forest was murdered. He was shot five times in the head while biking with his wife. The same report made reference to the 2005 killing of an American nun, a murder that Grann mentions in his book. What the news report drove home was the idea that the Amazon is still a dangerous place, just not exactly in the same way it was during Fawcett’s time. Instead Shortly after I finished this book, the BBC World Service reported that a Brazilian man who advocated for small farmers, natives, and the rain forest was murdered. He was shot five times in the head while biking with his wife. The same report made reference to the 2005 killing of an American nun, a murder that Grann mentions in his book. What the news report drove home was the idea that the Amazon is still a dangerous place, just not exactly in the same way it was during Fawcett’s time. Instead of worrying about how a misunderstanding with a native tribe could end in the death of tribal members or of the group of explorers, the battle is now between business and various types of conversation. In many ways, a more violent battle, not just because everyone has guns.

This idea is not wholly examined in The Lost City of Z, though David Grann does touch on it in the closing chapters of his book, and the idea of the destruction of the natural world does run though a good portion of the book.

Much of the book is about Fawcett and his various trips to the Amazon; culminating in what was undoubtedly a fatal trip to find a “lost” city that he had named Z.

In fact, if you are going to learn anything from this book (and you are), the most important is the simple fact that if the natives tell you not to do something or go somewhere, LISTEN TO THEM! THEY KNOW FROM WHENCE THEY SPEAK!

(I’m using the slightly political incorrect term of natives because I am a good American who has been taught that Indian refers to a person from India. South American Native Americans is way too wordy, there too many tribes to list all the tribe names, and the term Native American or First People [nations:] would make me sound like the news anchor on CNN who referred to the African immigrants protesting/rioting in Paris a few years back as African-Americans.)

Fawcett was a man who spent more time in the Amazon then with his family. As an aside, Grann does a wonderful job of showing the strength of character of both Nina Fawcett and Grann’s own wife, making both women sound just as, if not more, heroic than their husbands. In fact, Mr. Grann, your wife sounds far more intelligent than you. (Sorry, don’t mean to offend, but she knew you needed more than sneakers before heading into the Amazon). The men who explored the Amazon seemed to have married very understand and supportive women (and, if possible, very rich women). While her husband was dealing with nasty bugs and a fish that could swim up his wee-wee, Nina Fawcett was giving birth to their second child, raising their first (eventually raising all three children), keeping house, and protecting her husband’s reputation, all of this on a rather limited budget.

To be far, Fawcett seemed to know that he was unworthy of her. This is what makes the book charming. It’s warts and all, and the people who have warts, know they have them. It’s very human.

Fawcett became convinced that there was lost civilization in the Amazon, basically a version of the city of gold myth. It was during an attempt to find this city that Fawcett, his eldest son Jack, and his son’s closest friend disappeared in the Amazon. The disappearance set off searches, rescue missions, and theories (such as this book), possibly resulting in another 100 deaths/disappearances.

Grann seems aware of his obsession and the risks it brings to both himself and his family. In fact, it seems like this is going to be his only big adventure. It seems he learned a lesson that Fawcett didn’t or couldn’t learn.

In some ways, the most interesting part of the book is the closing chapter which describes what a lost civilization in the Amazon is truly. Think the Incas, the Mayans, the Aztecs but in a different country. If the rain forest is turned wholly over to big business, if its defenders and supporters are murdered then not only do the flora and fauna of the Amazon disappear, not only do tribal cultures (if not whole tribes) die, but the Lost City of Z will still forever be lost.
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