You Should Read THE LOST CITY OF Z
“Yet the very things that made Fawcett a great explorer–demonic fury, single-mindedness, and an almost divine sense of immortality–also made him terrifying to be with. ”
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I recently received my first-ever jury summons, which means I’m now a full-grown adult. I couldn’t figure out why people groan about showing up for jury duty. Here’s what I texted my friend: “Still sitting here and no one has been excused yet. I’ve read half a book. It’s fantastic.” The experience became less fantastic that afternoon when over 100 potential jurors were stuck in a courtroom for a drawn-out jury selection process. By then, I was deep into David Grann’s The Lost City of Z, and I needed to know if Grann would uncover the fate of Percy Fawcett or, even better, Fawcett’s fabled city of Z.
Legends of a jungle city filled with riches spread during the 16th century, but despite early accounts of conquistadores, no one found El Dorado. Fawcett, whom Grann describes as “the last of the great Victorian explorers who ventured into uncharted realms with little more than a machete, a compass, and an almost divine sense of purpose,” was obsessed. He hacked his way through the jungle, studied old explorers’ maps, and dreamed of discovering “a lost civilization concealed in the Amazon” (147). Grann details not only Fawcett’s quest but also the many attempts made over the next century to follow Fawcett’s path. Grann himself is no explorer, but Fawcett’s case hooked him. “Ever since I was young,” Grann writes, “I’ve been drawn to mystery and adventure tales” (30). For him, journalism is akin to exploration. Like hunting treasure, “[r]eporting involves an endless quest to ferret out details, in the hopes of discovering some hidden truth” (32).
The Lost City of Z alternates between Fawcett’s history and Grann’s trek to retrace Fawcett’s steps. Grann also recounts tales of Fawcett-hunters before him, not all of whom survived. Fawcett’s letters and journals provide rich details about his life as a man trapped between generations. He empathized with the indigenous people of the Amazon but ultimately couldn’t transcend Victorian sensibilities and British imperialism. While Fawcett failed to see Amazon Indians as fully human, Grann succeeds. I won’t spoil Grann’s ultimate discovery for you, but I sincerely hope you don’t have to sit through twelve hours of jury duty before you find out.
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Pub Date: 2009
Timeline: the bulk of the book spans Fawcett’s life up to his disappearance in 1925
Length: 352 pages; audiobook runs around 10 hours
Narrator: 1st POV in Grann chapters; 3rd POV in Fawcett chapters
Fun Facts: The movie came out in 2016.
Pairs Well With: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (nonfiction account of a young man who ventured into Alaska wilderness alone); King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard (Victorian novel about exploration); Black Ghost of Empire by Kris Manjapra (study of colonialism’s lasting legacy)
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James Murray, an Arctic explorer, joins Fawcett for an Amazon expedition. As Grann writes, “It seemed like the perfect math: James Murray, the great polar scientist, and Fawcett, the great Amazon explorer” (124). But tensions rise immediately when Murray is underprepared for the jungle Fawcett spares no patience for anyone, not even the famed Murray. What traits do you think Fawcett brings that Murray doesn’t? What could have resolved these tensions?
Think of a situation that went sideways after you thought it was perfectly set up. What happened? What caused the disconnect between expectation and reality?
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Grann’s descriptive language transports readers into the jungle. Consider this passage about his journey:
“Finally, as we neared the river, the forest began to reveal itself. Trees gradually closed around us, their branches forming a net that covered the windshield. There was a constant clattering as the wood drummed against the sides of the truck . . . Mosquitoes pricked my skin, and macaws and cicadas chanted” (283).
Imagery refers to details that appeal to the five senses. In just a few sentences, Grann hits on three: sight (trees and branches), touch (mosquitoes), and sound (wood, macaws, and cicadas). The cumulative effect immerses you in the environment. Find another passage with strong imagery. What details does Grann use to bring you to this particular placeyou to the setting?
Fawcett comes across a as nuanced, well-rounded (if deeply eccentric) character. Consider this sentence that captures his contradictory qualities:
“Yet the very things that made Fawcett a great explorer–demonic fury, single-mindedness, and an almost divine sense of immortality–also made him terrifying to be with” (123).
In this sentence, Grann tells us what Fawcett is like (direct characterization). Reread a passage where Grann quotes Fawcett’s letters or journals. How do Fawcett’s own words reveal his personality, values, or beliefs (indirect characterization)?
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Grann describes spending the early part of his career reporting on “con men, mobsters, and spies.” He identifies the link among all his stories as “obsession.” The most interesting subjects, in his view, are “ordinary people driven to do extraordinary things–things that most of us would never dare–who get some germ of an idea in their heads that metastasizes until it consumes them” (32).
Fiction: What is something you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t tried (or succeeded in) yet? Grant a character your wish. Not only does this character excel at your desired skill, but they also can’t stop. What happened in their younger years to drive this obsession? Where will this obsession take them?
Creative Nonfiction: Describe a superficial obsession of yours, like a favorite food or hobby. This should be something concrete, something you constantly want to do or acquire. What is it? What do you get out of it? Now dig a little deeper. What emotions might be influencing this habit? What abstract feelings are causing your concrete obsession?
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I promised no spoilers, so I won’t tell you what happens in Grann’s final chapter. But I will share my favorite passage from the conclusion:
“I began to picture the flutists and dancers in one of the old plazas. I pictured them living in mound-shaped two-story houses, the houses not scattered but in endless rows, where women wove hammocks and baked with manioc flour and where teenage boys and girls were held in seclusion as they learned the rites of their ancestors. I pictured the dancers and singers crossing moats and passing through tall palisade fences, moving from one village to the next along wide boulevards and bridges and causeways” (318-9).
Grann eases us into his daydream with this: “I began to picture.” The next two sentences begin with “I pictured,” a rhetorical device known as anaphora. The transition from “I began to picture” to “I pictured” inserts readers fully into Grann’s imagination. In the second sentence, Grann uses two adjective clauses to build out the scene. An adjective clause is a dependent clause that usually begins with who, whom, whose, where, or when and modifies another noun. In this case, the clauses “where women wove hammocks…” and “where teenage boys and girls were held…” modify the “endless rows” Grann envisions. Including images of women as well as teenagers conveys a healthy, balanced society. Grann also uses action verbs–wove and baked–to enliven the scene. In the final sentence, he adds movement through participial phrases. A participle is a verb that acts like an adjective rather than a verb; a participial phrase is a participle plus all its modifiers. The participles in this sentence, “crossing,” “passing,” and “moving,” give agency to the imagined people. It’s like a flipbook: static images come to life. Just like Grann, we can see these ancient people, fully alive and human. Try one of these style devices in your work-in-progress.
Access a printable PDF here.
