Jim’s Reviews > Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo > Status Update

Yellow birds laid siege to me. Last night I had to combat a fresh invasion of army ants in my cabin; they overran me with their larvae, but they were easier to fight because they were so unusually large.... Our work is not compatible with nature Amazon style.

Lucki had worked out a pitiless document in which all the eventualities were calculated down to the penny; even the unthinkable was expressed in numbers. But the question that everyone wanted answered was whether I would have the nerve and the strength to start the whole process from scratch. I said yes; otherwise I would be someone who had no dream left, and without dreams I would not want to live.

Fragments. Two weeks on the Rio Camisea. Upon returning to Iquitos, I found the little bookshelf in my cabin encased in a termite mound; I had to peel the few books, the radio, letters, and journals out of the hard coating, and the most recent journal, which was on top, has been devoured, except for the cover, which is covered in plastic. One passage is left: "...broods a storm. Hate is seething over the rain forest.