Total Number of Ratings: 9
Book Club Discussion for The Lost City of Z
Wednesday, April 7, 2010 7:51 AM
You all did your homework and read the book, right?
Now that we have discussions for both Bazell's Beat the Reaper and Grossman's The Magicians under our belts, we have a solid format we can use to discuss The Lost City of Z by David Grann. I hope everyone has been enjoying the way these discussions have grown, because it looks like this'll be the format for the foreseeable future.
To recap; the discussion of The Lost City of Z. will be built around the comment system and "write a response" feature of the site. Most of the discussion of the book will happen in the comments on this article. Everyone that read the book can post their SPOILER-filled comments, reviews, and questions for discussion. I'll also post a few book club questions in the comments, and everyone who wants to can reply to the questions. If you have a lot to say about the book - or if you want to post a collaborative article or video - you can click on the "write a response" button and dedicate a whole article to the book. More discussion will happen on these articles, though most will probably be taking place here.
Happily, I've been asked to again be a guest on an upcoming official Murmur podcast to discuss the book. I'll sit in with Paul (and hopefully a couple more Murmur staffers) to discuss Grann and Fawcett. Since Murmur is such a community-driven site, we would all love to be able to talk on the podcast about the thoughts and reviews from you, the readers. So, of course, the more people can put in their responses to the book the better.
Per usual, if you have any suggestions for a change in format, shoot me an email
or let me know in the comments.
Also, if you have a suggestion for a future book pick, feel free to shoot me an e-mail or send me a message on Twitter. Next in line for the club is Horns by Joe Hill, and I've got a few ideas for further books, but suggestions are always welcome.
Without further ado - let's discuss David Grann's The Lost City of Z!
This article has responses:
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: â??The finished story of Fawcett seemed to reside eternally beyond the horizon: a hidden metropolis of words and paragraphs, my own Zâ?? [p. 303]. How well does Grann succeed in discovering and revealing the truth of Percy Fawcett?
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?
After witnessing the mass carnage of World War I, Fawcett exclaims: â??Civilization! Ye gods! To see what one has seen the word is an absurdity. It has been an insane explosion of the lowest human emotionsâ?? [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?
By what means does Grann maintain such a high level of suspense throughout the book? What does the interweaving of his own storyâ??the story of his search for the truth about what happened to Fawcett and the story of his writing of the book itselfâ??add to the total effect of The Lost City of Z?
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?
Grann notes that some anthropologists and historians consider Fawcettâ??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?
After time away from the jungle, Fawcett wrote: â??Inexplicablyâ??amazinglyâ??I knew I loved that hell. Its fiendish grasp had captured me, and I wanted to see it againâ?? [p. 116]. What drove Fawcett to plunge himself again and again into the dangers of the Amazon? What is the main force that drives himâ??obsession with finding the lost city, desire to prove himself against his competitors, a need to escape the confines of civilization, a spiritual quest?
I have to say, I really enjoyed this book. It played to my interests and a bit of my background. One of the main things that stuck with me was the idea that "Z" was an organic metropolis that thrived on manoic-based pottery and meticulously planned moats and roads. Grann makes a passing remark that they found no evidence of gold/riches in any of the ruins, but it was obviously well off. Reading that, I instantly thought of one of my favorite (and frequently referenced) articles. It's called "The Original Affluent Society" by Marshall Sahlins. The central thesis is that hunter-gatherer and horticultural societies were thought to be affluent/well off/rich if they had a considerable amount of "leisure time" and if they could meet the basic needs of every member of their polity. It's a great article, and I urge you to check it out as a sort of coda to the book as I think it will give you a little perspective into how many of these cultures operated. The article is available off of Wikipedia here: http://www.eco-action.org/dt/affluent.html
What are Percy Harrison?s Fawcett?s most admirable qualities? What aspects of his character prove most troubling?
The man had three things going for him:
1. a strong and supportive wife
2. an amazing immune system
3. moxie
yeah man... the dude's stubborn as all get out, and has a family that is 100% behind him (and family friends, too).
I think any of Fawcett's admirable qualities where equally his undoing. He was determined, singleminded and bought into his own propaganda that he was invincible. He was prone to a vivid imagination but that drove him to excel where other's failed. He's certainly an interesting character and I can see where people were influenced and created stories around/about/based off him.
What does the interweaving of Grann's 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?
I didn't necessarily think the modern parts (especially Grann's personal narrative) were interesting enough to justify the space devoted to them. I kept wanting to get back to Fawcett! I think the style Grann was going for was something in the vein of Tony Horwitz (who writes some of my favorite nonfiction) but Horwitz is a more engaging narrator than Grann is here. Grann seemed to be in the story both too much and not enough if that makes sense. I kept wanting to get back to Fawcett.
I think the interweaving stories worked but Grann could have maybe spread his story out a little better, it seemed his went on for too long and maybe would have benifited from being strung more in between Fawcett's tale.
I actually thought that Grann's story is what made the book so interesting. His travels to England, for instance, where he met Fawcett's grandaughter and she showed him the secret trunk with Fawcett's notebooks. Or when he actually deciphered some of Fawcett's coded writings. Or at the end when he discovered that an ancient metropolis did exist in the Amazon, but that it was mostly built with organic materials (explaining why it was never "discovered"). Plus I feel like it added an extra historical layer to the overall story!
Brad, I did like the parts with the Fawcett descendants a lot. I loved reading about his wife and sons in the "main" story as well. Nina sounds like an amazing woman.
I agree with Brad in that the ending where Grann is shown the 'lost city' is awesome. That was the most page turning part of the Grann story. The Fawcett stuff was completely gripping though. I wanted to know more.
I liked them in the sense of how different things are now vs. how they were then - I'm thinking specifically of the parts where it takes him a few hours to get to a place it took Fawcett days to get too because of the cleared roads and a car - but I liked Fawcett's story (and Grann's research into Fawcett's story with his family) much better than Gran's trek through the jungle. There was too much of a pretty small book devoted to it, when there really wasn't all that much that happened
I rather enjoyed Grann's sections for the juxtaposition they offer to the main narrative. Where once the RGS allowed people to go willy nilly in the wild, they now keep books in locked archives and keep the obsessives out. I'm also surprised to see a few mention they felt that Grann's section took up a lot of room, as they account for less than half the chapters and after the first, and save the last two, they're usually only 4-10 pages long. I have to praise Grann for making the book move though. While I loved the Fawcett in the Wild sections, there would be a tendency to over play them, delineating each and every line of Fawcett's journals. In the end, I think we got a very tight package that makes for good reading.
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?
The fact that they had to keep Fawcett's books under lock and key because too many people were fanatical about him was astonishing to me.
It's a really fascinating story and to hear that hundreds of people have gone looking for him (many not coming back) was a bit frightening.
I got reminded of Michael Caine in "The Prestige" a lot saying "Obsession is a young man's game," especially given how tightly something like this can latch onto a person's psyche. I do think, however, that it's partially derived from a person's general desire to find something that not only hasn't been seen before, but also that is in some way's "perfect" (although that could be me, a modern reader, thinking too much about today and projecting it onto Fawcett)
I have to admit to a certain degree of wanting to break out a pith helmet and jumping on a plane and going. There's great romance in the obsessive story. The idea that you'll be the one to break the mystery, to find the missing, etc. And I think was Grann's best achievement. I understood exactly why he was obsessed with it, without him ever explicitly stating. He simply fell in love with the mystery and romance of the story and it grew from there.
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?
I had mixed feelings about this aspect of the book. I liked how Grann took us from the old idea of the 'counterfeit paradise', through Fawcett -- who used his observations to conclude that a lot of the conventional wisdom was false -- to the modern researchers who have learned that Amazon civilization was a lot more developed than we give it credit for.
This was set up a little artificially though -- I think it's obvious he found out by talking to scholars what the current state of Amazon research is and then made it seem like something he 'discovered' in the field. Admittedly it did make a more dramatic book!
It's always interesting (in a disturbing sort of way) how the Western world treated people from regions like the Amazon. The idea that they wouldn't class them as human and use that as an excuse for such brutality is really quite shaming.
While the change did occur, I had a small issue in that Grann seemed to be saying-without-claiming that the change occurred later rather than sooner, which doesn't exactly match with some of the accounts that he uses as evidence of Fawcett's progressive mindset. Certainly the views were held (and are probably still held by some) of the "counterfeit paradise." Grann paints a bleak picture where archaeologists, geologists and anthropologists seemingly gave up on studying the indigenous people of the Amazon, which really isn't the truth. A significant portion of the anthropologists currently working are in South America (I'd venture to say at least 50% of them, most likely more), and as the Amazon becomes further deforested, they're going into the Amazon to preserve what cultures they can.
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?
I was so amazed at the idea that you could just go to explorer school for a year to become an explorer. That there was a society dedicated to encouraging this! I think Fawcett seems to embody a dying/gone breed of Englishman to us now, but it's worth noting that he was relatively progressive compared to a lot of the explorers who had gone before him. I think the 'bad' part of British colonialism is associated with trying to impose their culture on other people, and for the most part Fawcett didn't really do this.
Totally agree with you, Caroline. Explorer school sounds so much like something out of a young adult adventure book.
Percy Harrison is that sort of man's man that the Victorian/Edwardian Era pumped out in the late 1800s/early 1900s. He's symbolic in that he was a larger than life figure that the media turned into something even bigger. He's really one of the big "media heroes" of the time period and I'm a little surprised we didn't get a little more discussion about that, since Grann was a newspaper man himself! What I think is really interesting is that Fawcett, or the Fawcett type, inspired so much popular culture. From inspiring Conan Doyle's work, and the personage of Allan Quartermain (Alan Moore than combining the character of Quartermain with the mystical-background/invisible world aspects of Fawcett in League of Extradorinaiy Gentlemen.), heck Fawcett even has a fictional team-up with Indiana Jones, who he's style off of. Indeed, the original concept of Doctor Who was styled on the concept of the "Edwardian Explorer" going into unknown places and instructing the audience about them. There's a certain appeal to ascetic gentlemen explorer, even if at its worst it's an analogue for Imperialism.
Fawcett represents a progressive mindset that was still couched in some "European" misconceptions of how the world worked. And think the reason we can almost excuse Fawcett's misconceptions is that he tried to make the world aware that the Indians were people too. People with unique cultures that needed cultivation not conversion.
Did you try Stone's Arrogant Bastard Ale, the beer I paired with Lost City of Z? What did you think? Did it match well with the story and the arrogant bastards Fawcett was sometimes surrounded by?
I did try it! On St. Patty's day. (Which Josh knows because I DM'ed him from the bar.) I'm not a beer expert but it was a really tasty drink, and I can definitely see how the arrogant bastard theme goes with Fawcett and his ilk (though I have to say he seemed less arrogant than some of the other players in the story).
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?
I posted a review in response to this book, but I'll also tackle some of these questions. I haven't really read any other books in this genre, honestly -- I read a little bit of 'Endurance' but it didn't stick with me. I've read about explorers, but I usually consumed the stories in article-length. This book definitely helped me realize how much I enjoy this kind of story, and I can understand the popularity. It's the chance to take a journey into a different world without the risk and the investment and the, you know, flesh-eating parasites.
A Perfect Storm and Into the Wild are both on my to read. With A Perfect Storm in my actual stack but other than that I haven't read much of the genre.
Yes, I definitely saw some parallels as well. In most of these books, we see how a person's obsession ultimately leads them to their death. We particularly see this a lot in Krakauer's books. His latest one, for instance, is about college football star, Pat Tilman, who--because of his firm beliefs--decided to become a U.S. Army soldier despite multimillion dollar offers to play for the NFL. It's a decision that ultimately cost him his life. Likewise, Fawcett's stubborb belief system is what ultimately sealed his fate.
In both books, I wanted to yell out "don't do it, you fools!" But alas...
I think the appeal of these types of books is the thrill of the chase that one gets by living vicariously through the author and/or the subjects being written about. There's a certain amount of lust for adventure in each of this that these books speak to since we can't get out and explore ourselves, either through lack of want/ability or there being nothing else to find! ("Alexander wept for there were no more worlds to conquer." An imperfect quote, but I like it!)
I read Touching the Void, which I honestly didn't like (and there was a bit of controversy over at the time it came out that we discussed when I read it in school, but is not mentioned at all on Wikipedia) - and I wish I had better reason for that, but it's been a decade! However, I did read Philibricks In the Heart of the Sea and gladly suggest it to those who liked LOST CITY OF Z. It definitely feels the same and evokes similar feelings, in describing the obsession of 18th Century Nantucket whalers.
In a sense the books share the common theme of obsession. For Joe Simpson the obsession saved him, to a degree, but ultimately drove him back to the mountains. The same is true of Percy Fawcett who succeeded so many times. Z is perhaps a little different in the way that Grann couches the journey in well documented research sections.
Respond
Does Grannâ??s meeting with the anthropologist Michael Heckenberger in Kurikulo village confirm Fawcettâ??s belief in a lost ancient civilization? Is Fawcettâ??s search vindicated at last?