Xanadu

[commonpeople1]

The Lost City of Z by David Grann

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I first heard about Colonel Percy Fawcett when I read a biography about his life written by brasilian author Hermes Leal. Fawcett was a celebrity explorer in his time, responsible for braving uncharted territory in the Amazon (he was, for example, responsible for defining the boundary between Brasil and Bolivia) and promoting the idea that a large and complex civilization - the City of Z; or El Dorado - had once existed somewhere under its tree tops. Fawcett, amongst other things, inspired Conan Doyle's Lost World and the character of Indiana Jones.

A few years ago, this new book on Fawcett by David Grann was released and secured a nomination for the Samuel Johnson's Best Non-fiction Award and praise in many newspapers. I'd been wanting to suggest to my bookclub a read to do with Brasil and I thought this would be the perfect choice (even though the author and the main subject were not brasilian.) Although it's a compelling story about Fawcett's disappearance in the Amazon alongside his son Jack and his son's best friend, as well as its effect on his family and the world's imagination, the book's strength in my opinion is in exposing the holocaust that occurred to the Amazon's native tribes. Through Fawcett's diaries, we discover the obstacles Fawcett encountered in the Amazon (killer bugs and snakes; famine) but also why this region fascinated him so much, and why he had respect for native tribes and horror for the ways other explorers were quick to kill them. The book throws into relief the history of the Amazon from its discovery in the 1500s to the present day and the importance of preserving and studying it despite its fast destruction.

The final pages finally reveal where the Lost City of Z was located and how, ironically, Fawcett found what he was looking for without realising it.

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