Exploration Fawcett in Around the World in 80 Books

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Apr 01, 2008 Kay rated it liked it

Shelves: exploration-adventure, latin_america, credulity, travelogues, eccentrics, nonfiction

I've read a number of earnest reviews of this book elsewhere, touting it as a great "true adventure" story, which never fails to amuse me: Fawcett was a crack-pot par excellence! He traipsed off into the Brazilian wilderness, eventually never to be heard of again, in search of a mythic lost civilization that he firmly believed was similar to Atlantis. Furthermore, he believed this civilization consisted of an ancient race of white-skinned, blue-eyed Indians.

This idea, of course, had much in comm I've read a number of earnest reviews of this book elsewhere, touting it as a great "true adventure" story, which never fails to amuse me: Fawcett was a crack-pot par excellence! He traipsed off into the Brazilian wilderness, eventually never to be heard of again, in search of a mythic lost civilization that he firmly believed was similar to Atlantis. Furthermore, he believed this civilization consisted of an ancient race of white-skinned, blue-eyed Indians.

This idea, of course, had much in common with late Victorian and Edwardian sensational literature, such as Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World. Fawcett believed his lost civilization to have been protected from discovery throughout the centuries because of its surrounding almost insurmountable terrain.

I should also mention that Fawcett was a great believer in the occult in general (cf. Talbot Mundy and others), and that he was a close friend of H. Rider Haggard, whose adventure novels such as Ayesha and She also posit a "lost civilization." Of course, in Haggard's case he had the sense to present his fantasy as just that -- a fictional fantasy.

Fawcett, however, supported his far-fetched theories with a superficially erudite yet outlandish mix of "facts" drawn from mythology, geology, archeology, folklore, obscure religious writings, and minor historical chronicles. He added any plausible rumor, however vague and unsubstantiated, into the mix and then served it up a dollop of whatever psychic emanations he was personally feeling that day. In short, the man was a complete nutter.

Still, his repeated expeditions to Brazil in search of this lost civilization gained a public following, and he became a poster child for the fringe elements. Somebody (I can't recall who, exactly) threw flying saucers into the bubbling cauldron (the civilization was supposedly extraterrestrial in origin, you see), while others claimed to be in telepathic communication with denizens of the hidden world. This element of the public went absolutely gah-gah when Fawcett went missing on one of his extended expeditions in Brazil's Mato Grosso. Fawcett simply disappeared -- and no one seems to really know what had happened to him. The press had a field day, though, speculating about it.

A number of "rescue" missions were sent in his wake, including one that Peter Fleming joined in 1932, but nothing conclusive was ever found. Meantime, Fawcett's status as a cult figure grew, and up until this very day his lost civilization theories are enthusiastically debated on the web. (Check it out: just type "Percy Fawcett" into Google and see what comes up.)

Now, as for the book at hand, it was basically compiled from Fawcett's notebooks by his son Brian as an exercise in hagiography/biography, meant to present his father as the Great White Adventurer.

With Fawcett, however, it's hard to tell where fact ends and fantasy sets in. Any reasonably discerning reader will soon realize there is a great deal of exaggeration if not downright fabrication in accounts of bloodsucking vampire bats feasting on bare feet at night not to mention venomous tarantulas descending from their webs (????) onto unsuspecting sleepers. Certainly, much of the material is embroidered, and yet Fawcett undoubtedly visited the places he described and had many of the adventures he recounts. It's just hard to take him that seriously, especially when he starts in on the white-skinned blue-eyed Indians.

I've installed him in my pantheon of eccentrics, though, as there never was or will be anyone else quite like him.

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