Grann does not glamorize Fawcett’s life, rather detailing the obsessive, stubborn, and strong personality that was required to conduct almost super-human treks through the Amazon. The author makes you feel the heat, humidity, the staunch of death, and feel the attacks of flies, mosquitoes, and makes you a little concerned about maggots attacking your extremities. Far from the glamor depicted in the numerous incarnations of The Lost World, the Amazon David Grann depicts is a brutal, unforgiving landscape with death lurking with every foot-step.
If Grann’s version of Fawcett is correct, he was a man ahead of his time in many ways, loath to fire a gun, take a life, or do anything that might inhibit his relationship with the native peoples of the Amazon. Indeed, Fawcett was highly critical of anyone who took the life of a native, even in self defense. His opinions were based, not particularly on any determination to preserve native cultures, though he felt it was necessary to do so, but out of self preservation. Evidently, even in the impenetrable Amazon jungle, a man’s reputation proceeded him.
Donald Grann does not give us the pure, politically correct ‘Rainforest” the environmental movement is determined to protect and wax poetic about. Instead, he depicts a terrible, deadly landscape, no different today that it was when Fawcett was exploring it a century ago. Only with the advent of modern technology has it been ‘easier’ to explore this unforgiving terrain, but one must always remain vigilant. Grann does touch upon the fact that the Amazon is being destroyed on a day by day basis, but he is careful not to glamorize the deadly jungle.
I am discovering it is rather difficult to write a review for a book read exclusively on the Kindle. It is more difficult to “thumb” through the Kindle, looking for salient passages. Also, the Kindle does not do justice for the interesting photos in Grann’s book. I will admit I’ve gone ahead and purchased a hard copy of Grann’s books. It is a keeper.
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