Sunday, August 5, 2018

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

Book:The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
Basic Information : Synopsis : Characters : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : New Words : Book References : Good Quotes : Table of Contents : References

Basic Information:
Author: David Grann
Edition: eBook from the Mountain View Public Library
Publisher: Vintage Books
ISBN: 0385513534 (ISBN13: 9780385513531)
Start Date: July 30, 2018
Read Date: August 5, 2018
352 pages
Genre: History, Biography, Archeology,Amazon
Language Warning: Low
Rated Overall: 4 out of 5
History: 4 out of 5-there is some question about Fawcett's role in the exploration of the Amazon. For a different perspective than David Grann's, see John Hemmings article in The Spectator
Religion: Spiritualism


Synopsis (Caution: Spoiler Alert-Jump to Thoughts):
In 1925, Percy Harrison Fawcett set out to find a lost city in the Amazon jungle. He never came back. David Grann sets out to gather background and maybe a little light on the city called “Z” by Fawcett and Fawcett’s disappearance. Z also was referenced by the Spanish conquistadors as El Dorado.

Grann traces both Fawcett’s quest for this city through many explorations, starting with the beginnings of his thirst for adventure in Ceylon. It ends with his disappearance in 1925. Many expeditions have sought the mystery of what happened to Fawcett.

Grann does not go into the jungle looking for Fawcett, but more to understand what he faced and to gather background. If possible to find people who have had contact with Fawcett. But throughout the book, he interweaves Fawcett’s story with his own.




Cast of Characters:
Percy Harrison Fawcett-Main person, explorer
Jack Fawcett-Percy Harrison Fawcett’s son. Explorer
Brian Fawcett-Percy Harrison Fawcett’s son who did not go on final expedition. Railroad executive in Peru
Raleigh Rimell-Jack Fawcett’s best friend. Member of the last expedition.
Nina Fawcett-Percy Harrison Fawcett ‘s wife
David Grann-Author of book, but also tries to understand clues left behind by Percy Harrison Fawcett
Dr. Alexander Hamilton Rice-Fawcett’s main rival in trying to find Z. A rich American which used modern methods of archeology and technology to try to accomplish the goals of his expeditions.
James Lynch-Brazilian Banker. Searched for Fawcett in 1996
Keltie-high official in the British Royal Geographical Society. Supporter of Fawcett



Thoughts:
Like any good treasure, a map is needed, one marked with an X, or on this case, a Z.

Purpose of book was to record how generations of scientists and adventures became fatally obsessed with solving the whereabouts of the lost City of Z.


We shall return
Z was Fawcett’s code letter for the Spanish’s El Dorado

Fawcett felt that the only way to accomplish finding Z was through the use of a small group, instead of large numbers which needed more logistics and supplies. On his last expedition, he only took three people: himself, his son, and his son’s best friend.


The vanishing
More people have disappeared looking for Fawcett than have disappeared looking for El Dorado

James Lynch became part of the people who would look for Fawcett.

There is an estimate that there are 60 tribes in the Amazon who have never been contacted by outside civilization.


The search begins
The term “counterfeit paradise” is used throughout the book. Basically what is being saying is the Amazon looks lush like it has a lot which could sustain a population. But under the canopy, the soil is nutrient deficient, so not much edible grows. Also game is not in abundance. So there is not much to keep explorers going. The term “counterfeit paradise” was coined by Betty Meggers of the Smithsonian.

Grann is single minded when working on a story, letting go of much of his life in the pursuit of it.


Blank spots on the map
Today, we take for granted that every place on earth has a spot on a map. But as late as World War II, much of the Amazon region was unknown. People like Fawcett and Rice were instrumental in getting down on a piece of paper where rivers and the like were.

Explorers are not, perhaps, the most promising people with whom to build a society. Indeed, some might say that explorers become explorers precisely because they have a streak of unsociability and a need to remove themselves at regular intervals as far as possible from their fellow men. From Galton’s Art of Travel. Some may also say that about outdoors people as well.


Into the Amazon
So sad that people enslave and treat so barbaric others. I think that if you do not believe someone is human or I should say fully human, then it is easy to descend into that kind of mentality. Isn’t that what happens with genocide? Be careful what we say about others. Also understand that fundamentally they have the image of God in them. What we do to a person we are doing to God. CS Lewis points out that even with animals, if we do not honor them as part of creation, then we will start that descent into mistreating humans.

The Amazon is against people more than anywhere else. Reading about the various fish, snakes, frogs, insects makes you wonder how anybody survives. Sort of like Jumanji in real life.

Fawcett’s approach to the Indians was non-violent. He had ordered his men not to fire their rifles at them. At times he approached the Indians and was at their mercy, bringing gifts. That seemed to work. But it required strong courage as it would have been very much in the nature of things for an Indian to blow a poison dart into him without notice.


The secret papers
Grann meets Fawcett’s granddaughter who is 51 years old. Fawcett disappeared in 1926\5. This was written in 2005/6. So that would mean the granddaughter would have been born about 25 years after Fawcett disappeared. Yet the granddaughter talks as if she knew Fawcett/

Also why does the granddaughter trust Grann enough to let him look at Fawcett’s papers which she kept under lock and key? Something seems to be missing from this telling. Also she told him that Fawcett purposely mislead people about the starting point of his search for Z. But she was willing to tell Grann. Why?


In the hands of the gods
To Fawcett, inactivity was a prison. Pity the person who cannot sit still as well as the person who cannot move. It draws to my mind what the Bible says: Be still and know that I am Lord. But there are also places where God sends people out to do His work. To know when to move and when to stay.

He would not let his wife go on expeditions. But Nina encouraged their daughter to become strong and aggressive so that she could be prepared to go on expedition.

A biologist who traveled with Fawcett noted that I thought that I would get many valuable natural history noted but my experience is that when undergoing severe physical labor the mind is not all active. … one has no time to miss anything save food or sleep or rest. In short one becomes little more than a rational animal. When backpacking, I experience a little bit of this-not to this extent. I think I should be able to write the great thoughts when we take a break or stop at night. But in the end, I just want to do nothing.

Is it better that one might die so that the rest be saved? This is the issue with Murray. He was so far gone, could he recover? He was slowing everybody else down so that it was possible none would get out alive. Fawcett takes the course of trying to find an outpost where he could lay Murray down there and let him recover.


The case for Z
The Guarayo’s knew how to live in the jungle. They had mastered how to obtain food and how to maintain the equilibrium with its environment. They understood that poison could kill you, but a small amount may dull the pain of a toothache.

Fawcett when meeting a new group of Indians would disarm rather than take up a defensive position. He would drop is belt to show he was unarmed or put his hands above his head. The response was to drop the hostility and act much more like negotiating partners.

He was able to show that the Indians could sustain a large population, and thus have had a critical mass enough to build an empire.

Mental maze of race-the problem where you observe on thing, but believe another thing about race. Such as the Indians are savages, but observe that they can be pretty sophisticated in how they approach a problem, such as food gathering. In Fawcett’s day it was believed that the lighter the pigment of skin, the more intelligence a race could be. But that did not seem to hold true.


ElDorado
El Dorado means the golden man

It seems like the Amazon re-pays people for their own barbarity. Soldiers turn to cannibalism but do not return from the jungle. The Spanish enslave 4000 Inca’s and force them into the Amazon, none of these return. But the Spanish almost none return either.


The whole world is mad
Fawcett became convinced there was remnants of an ancient civilization in the Amazon based upon interviews, documents, and pottery fragments. He was narrowing down locations of where El Dorado was based upon this information. He was also pretty secretive about where he thought it was and even referred to the location/city as Z.


A scientific obsession
An unexpected clue
Have no fear
The last eyewitness
Dead or alive
The colonel's bones
The other world
Z.


Have no fear

In several places, Grann uses the term priestly when one of the Fawcett’s are in training. I wonder what part of priestly functions Grann is referring to? Abstention from sexual relations? Saying mass? Self flagellation? Then the question is why does Grann use that term?

Success is the breeding grounds for failure. When you are highly successful, there tends to be a sense that you cannot fail. Is this the root of Fawcett’s demise? Grann wrote that Fawcett was confident-after all, he had always succeeded where others failed. This is punctuated with Fawcett’s final note to his wife, Upi need have no fear of any failure.


The last eyewitness
Grann talks about coming across a series of stone pillars. The illusion he soon discovers is that even though they look like remnants of a lost civilization, in reality they are weathered stone. It is easy to be deceive ourselves about what we are seeing.

When a resource is plentiful, it is easy to think it is inexhaustible. The rain forests which Fawcett saw along the Manso River looks more like the lands of Nebraska. In man’s drive to exploit, we also exploit our fellow man. Grann talks about the Amazon being one of the biggest concentration of slave labor. On the other hand, the jungle consumed Rio Novo, one of the last places Fawcett was seen and a very large ranch. Only the brick work remained as ruins on the ground.

Several spin off’s have been made of the disappearance of Fawcett. Bob Hope and Bing Cosby did Road to Zanzibar. Also one of the Indiana Jones spin off novels has Fawcett in it.

Grann meets an old woman who lives at an outpost, the last which Fawcett visits. She would have been about 12 years old and had seen the party. She asks a perceptive question: What is it that these white people did? Why is it so important for their tribe to find them?


Dead or alive and The colonel's bones
In these two chapters Grann explores thoughts about why and how Fawcett died. They ranged from starvation to being killed by Indians to being held hostage or as slaves to Ending his life as a chief among the Indians. Most of the theories and the explorers who put out the theories have been discredited.

Grann goes upstream to the Xingu Indian Reservation with the Kalapalo Indians. These Indians at one time were the deadliest, bloodthirsty Indians in the area. Now they are more wise to the ways of capitalism. A chief says that he will show Grann Fawcett’s bones. Instead, he said that the bones people took were his grandfathers. Then he told a story which had been passed down how three white men came through their village. When they left, they saw his fire/smoke for four days. Then no more. They were heading east.

Z
Grann visits an archaeologist named Michael Heckenberger at the Kuikuro village. This village showed a great deal of cultural sophistication with moats and symmetrical villages and farming. The question is, is this Z? Unknown, but it was the complex culture which Fawcett was looking for, but not the El Dorado of the Spanish desire. Fawcett came close to here, but Heckenberger understands why he did not find this city. Unless you are right on it and can see the whole area, it is hard it discern that there was a city here.


Evaluation:
 David Grann is not outdoors material, but he still gave an effort to understand the conditions which Percy Harrison Fawcett did his expeditions under. Consequently, he can describe some of the conditions which Fawcett faced upon his expeditions in the Amazon jungle.

The Lost City of Z provides the reader background on Fawcett. His strengths and weaknesses are exposed, along with his desires. It also provided me with the understanding that as much as I enjoy the outdoors, the Amazon is not the place for me.

This book is a worthwhile read. Quick and easy, but compelling, even though you already know the answer of what happened to Fawcett on his final expedition.

 
Notes from my book group:

From LitLovers
1. What inspired Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett's obsessive search for Z...what evidence led him to believe the city was more than legend?
2. How does Grann portray Fawcett? What kind of a man was he? Would you describe him as a victim of his own obsession...as a romantic...a fool bent on his own destruction...a rational man of science...?
3. What are some of the legends that have surrounded Fawcett himself? To what do you attribute his place in popular culture over the years—and what does it say, both about Fawcett and ourselves, that he has maintained a hold on our collective imagination?
4. How did Fawcett differ from his rival, Alexander Hamilton Rice—especially in the approach to exploration? Were the two men evenly matched in skill and technology...or not? In what way did Rice, perhaps, represent the future of modern exploration?
5. What draws David Grann into the search for Fawcett—what initially sparks the author's fascination? Consider Grann's own difficulty in the Amazon, especially for a man who delights in air conditioning and fast food. Finally, what new information does Grann contribute to solving the mystery surrounding Fawcett's disappearance?
6. Where does Grann stand with regard to the existence of Z? What conclusions does he reach? Where do you stand?
7. What are some of the more surprising, even shocking, accounts of jungle exploration you found in this work?
8. Does this book remind you of other stories of those obsessed with adventure or other cultures: The Man Who Loved China...or Bill Bryson's misguided but humorous adventure on the Appalachian Trail? Any resemblance to fictional works ... say, Conrad's Heart of Darkness...or Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude?
9. Brad Pitt has brought production rights to the book. So, will he play Grann...or Fawcett?


1. Books about explorers, adventurers, and extreme risk-takers like Jon Krakauer’s Eiger Dreams and Into the Wild, Caroline Alexander’s The Endurance, Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void, Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea, Sebastian Junger’s A Perfect Storm, and many others, have become extremely popular in recent years. What are the appeals of such books? What qualities does The Lost City of Z share with books of this kind? In what ways does it differ from them?
2. After time away from the jungle, Fawcett wrote: “Inexplicably—amazingly—I knew I loved that hell. Its fiendish grasp had captured me, and I wanted to see it again” [p. 116]. What drove Fawcett to plunge himself again and again into the dangers of the Amazon? What is the main force that drives him—obsession with finding the lost city, desire to prove himself against his competitors, a need to escape the confines of civilization, a spiritual quest?
3. In what ways is Fawcett a symbolic figure? What values does he embody? In what ways does he represent many of both the best and worst qualities of the British Empire?
4. Grann notes that some anthropologists and historians consider Fawcett’s view of the Indians enlightened for his era while others saw him as unable to transcend the prevailing racism of his own culture. How does he regard the Indians he encounters? How does he treat them?
5. How do Fawcett’s expeditions affect his wife Nina? How does she see her role in relation to him? In what ways does she succumb to his obsessions?
6. In what ways does The Lost City of Z challenge conventional views of the Amazon? What does it suggest about the current state of archeological research in the region?
7. What are some of the most fascinating and/or dreadful features of the Amazon jungle revealed in The Lost City of Z? How has the jungle been changed since Europeans first made contact with it?
8. What does The Lost City of Z reveal about the power of obsession? In what ways does Fawcett’s obsession draw others into its deadly gravitational pull?
9. By what means does Grann maintain such a high level of suspense throughout the book? What does the interweaving of his own story—the story of his search for the truth about what happened to Fawcett and the story of his writing of the book itself—add to the total effect of The Lost City of Z?
10. After witnessing the mass carnage of World War I, Fawcett exclaims: “Civilization! Ye gods! To see what one has seen the word is an absurdity. It has been an insane explosion of the lowest human emotions” [p. 189]. In what ways does The Lost City of Z call into question conventional notions of civilization? What does it suggest about the supposed differences between advanced and primitive cultures?
11. What are Percy Harrison’s Fawcett’s most admirable qualities? What aspects of his character prove most troubling? Was James Murray right in accusing Fawcett of all but murdering him? [p. 139].
12. Near the end of the book, Grann writes about how biographers are often driven mad by the inability to fully comprehend their subjects. Of his own quest he says: “The finished story of Fawcett seemed to reside eternally beyond the horizon: a hidden metropolis of words and paragraphs, my own Z” [p. 303]. How well does Grann succeed in discovering and revealing the truth of Percy Fawcett?
13. Does Grann’s meeting with the anthropologist Michael Heckenberger in Kurikulo village confirm Fawcett’s belief in a lost ancient civilization? Is Fawcett’s search vindicated at last?



New Words:

  • Camdiru (7): also known as cañero, toothpick fish, or vampire fish, is a species of parasitic freshwater catfish in the family Trichomycteridae native to the Amazon Basin where it is found in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
  • Craniometer (14): a device for measuring the external dimensions of the skull.
  • Jezail (17): a simple, cost-efficient and often handmade muzzle-loading long arm commonly used in British India, Central Asia and parts of the Middle East in the past.
  • Autopsis (20): Greek “seeing with one’s own eyes,”
  • Denouement (21):the final part of a play, movie, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved.


Book References:
  • The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
  • Othello by William Shakespeare
  • A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
  • Exploration Fawcett letters of Percy Fawcett, edited by Brian Fawcett
  • 1491 by Charles Mann
  • The Secret Doctrine by H.P. Blavatsky
  • The Victorians by A.N. Wilson
  • King Solomon Mines by Henry Rider Haggard
  • Swallowed by an Earthquake by Edward Fawcett
  • The Secret of the Desert by Edward Fawcett
  • 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
  • Hints to Travelers by
  • The Amazon by Robin Furneaux
  • Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox-as found in one of Fawcett’s diaries
  • The River of Doubt by Candice Millard
  • Hartman the Anarchist by Edward Fawcett
  • The Doom of the Great City by Edward Fawcett
  • Antarctica Days by James Murray and ___
  • On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
  • Notes and Queries of Anthropology from the RGS
  • The Land of Mist by Arthur Conan Doyle
  • Man Hunting in the Jungle by Dyott
  • The Ecology of Power by Michael Heckenberger

Good Quotes:
  • First Line: I pulled the map from my back pocket.
  • Last Line: For a moment, I could see this vanished world as if it were right in front of me. Z.
  • A God forsaken hole … best seen with the eyes closed. Chp Have no fear

Table of Contents:
  • We shall return
  • The vanishing
  • The search begins
  • Buried treasure
  • Blank spots on the map
  • The disciple
  • Freeze-dried icecream and adrenaline socks
  • Into the Amazon
  • The secret papers
  • The green hell
  • Dead Horse Camp
  • In the hands of the gods
  • Ransom
  • The case for Z
  • El Dorado
  • The locked box
  • The whole world is mad
  • A scientific obsession
  • An unexpected clue
  • Have no fear
  • The last eyewitness
  • Dead or alive
  • The colonel's bones
  • The other world
  • Z.


References:


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