Summary and Analysis of The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon: Based on the Book by David Grann
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Summary and Analysis of The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon: Based on the Book by David Grann
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This short summary and analysis of The Lost City of Z includes:
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Nearly a century after Colonel Percy Fawcett disappeared while on a quest to discover the mythical “Lost City of Z” in South America, New York Times–bestselling author David Grann set out to explore—first-hand—the terrain and history that have fascinated generations of explorers and scientists.
Fawcett’s wild tales of flora, fauna, and indigeous peoples captivated the West, and his disappearance sent shockwaves around the world that continue to resonate today.
David Grann’s book weaves the exciting stories of Colonel Percy Fawcett and his mysterious demise with an account of his own exploration of the Amazon.
The Lost City of Z is now a major motion picture starring Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, Charlie Hunnam, and Sienna Miller.
The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504020428 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Worth Books |
| Publication date: | 04/18/2017 |
| Series: | Smart Summaries |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 30 |
| Sales rank: | 591,063 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
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Summary and Analysis of The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
Based on the Book by David Grann
By Worth Books
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 2017 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2042-8
CHAPTER 1
Summary
Preface
David Grann is alone in the Amazon jungle, seeking a lost civilization named Z. This moment is the result of years of obsession, research, and planning. He thinks of his wife and baby back at home. He reflects on what this civilization will stand for if he finds that it exists — a rethinking of man's relationship with nature and the Amazon in particular. Without food, water, or his guide, the reality of Grann's situation weighs on him. Through the trees, a figure approaches.
Need to Know: David Grann, an obsessive who writes about obsessives — particularly the kind who gravitate toward risk and danger — is woefully ill suited for the trek ahead of him. His predecessor and research subject was remarkably fit and seemingly invincible, and even he succumbed to the to the punishing conditions of the Amazon. Grann, on the other hand, is a city boy, accustomed to all the creature comforts available in the twenty-first century, whose idea of preparation is taking out an extra life-insurance policy.
1. We Shall Return
It is 1925, and Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, world-famous English explorer of South America, is boarding the SS Vauban en route to the Amazon. At the time, people from the West were convinced that anything might exist in the Amazon — enormous, oversized animals, creatures never observed, or those thought to be extinct, and completely unknown human or humanoid cultures. Fawcett is part-anthropologist, part-archaeologist, part-ethnographer, and seemingly invincible and without fear. To the millions who know his name, he represents the pinnacle of masculinity and rugged, adventuresome spirit. For this expedition, he embarks with his 21-year-old son Jack and Jack's friend, Raleigh Rimell, on a quest for the fabled lost civilization of Z.
Need to Know: Fawcett felt that he was about to make "the great discovery of the century." Most of the world had already been explored and there wasn't much left in the way of uncharted territory. He had full confidence that he would return home with exactly what he'd been looking for.
2. The Vanishing
At the time it occurred, the story of Fawcett's expedition and disappearance captivated the world. In 1996, seventy years after Fawcett's disappearance, Brazilian banker James Lynch, a thrill seeker with an interest in uncovering the unknown, enters the jungle in the rainy season on an expedition in search of answers to the mystery surrounding Fawcett's disappearance. As if he has some subconscious desire to repeat the past, Lynch brings along his 16-year-old son James Jr. The group is attacked by a hostile Indian tribe and taken hostage.
Need to Know: Even seventy years after Fawcett's disappearance, people like Brazilian banker James Lynch are still captivated by his story, risking life and limb to find answers.
3. The Search Begins
Grann is hardly built for endurance in the jungle. He has a poor sense of direction, night blindness and a "blossoming waistline." But as a reporter, he's drawn to adventure and danger. His grandfather, a National Geographic cameraman, was also such an adventurer: a seeker of the unknown and perhaps unknowable. Grann discovers Fawcett by way of The Lost World, Arthur Conan Doyle's story inspired by Fawcett's adventures. He is intrigued by the possibility of Z and its anthropological implications — that man and culture are capable of overcoming even the most unforgiving of conditions.
Grann plans a trip to the Xingu region of the Amazon, where Fawcett disappeared, to meet Michael Heckenberger, an acclaimed anthropologist. But before he can do that, he must head to England to gather more information on Fawcett's ill-fated expedition.
Need to Know: Journalism is a family business for David Grann. His grandfather, Monya, was a daredevil and a bit of a mystery, leading some family members to think he might have been a spy as well. Grann's wife was also in the news business: a producer for 60 Minutes.
4. Buried Treasure
Fawcett is 21, it's 1888, and he is on leave from the military on the isle of Ceylon (today Sri Lanka). He has received information about a possible cache of treasure in a cave. We learn that his father, Captain Edward Boyd Fawcett, is an alcoholic nicknamed "Bulb" for his bulbous nose. His mother, Myra Elizabeth, is, according to Fawcett, "hateful." Fawcett attended the finest schools, where he was groomed to be a gentleman, and at 17, he joined the Royal Military Academy. There, he trained to be an agent for the British colonial empire.
Although Fawcett fails to find any treasure, he gets a taste of a world beyond his drab, stuffy, and sometimes unpleasant upbringing. Back in Fort Frederick on Ceylon, Fawcett meets Nina Agnes Paterson. She, too, is brash, independent, and curious. He nicknames her "Cheeky," she calls him "Puggy." It's a match made in heaven. After two years, he proposes. (The couple would go on to have three children: Jack, Brian, and Joan.)
Consumed by his desire for excitement and boredom with the status quo, Fawcett joins the Royal Geographical Society, which has launched many famous adventurers.
Need to Know: Fawcett encounters Madame Blavatsky, whose eccentricity and psychic abilities make her popular among Victorians who, like Fawcett himself, are searching for an antidote to their conservative lifestyle. Fawcett's fascination with mysticism is a recurring theme throughout his life.
5. Blank Spots on the Map
David Grann is dropped off at the Royal Geographic Society in London.
In 1830, as the English empire expanded and ships were often lost at sea, the Royal Geographic Society formed to map the world. The society mainly attracted the middle and upper classes, and among its members counted scientists, philosophers, military officers, and royalty. The Society, or RGS, became the cornerstone of debates not only over geography but also over philosophy, morality, anthropology, and ethnography.
While there, Grann finds what he came looking for: correspondence between Percy Fawcett and the RGS.
Need to Know: The Royal Geographic Society was not only Fawcett's gateway to exploration, but it was England's gateway to exploring, discovering, mapping, and understanding the mysteries of the world beyond Europe.
6. The Disciple
On February 4, 1900, Fawcett goes to the Royal Geographic Society to study under Edward Ayearst Reeves. At this time, the Society was certifying people who were interested in becoming explorers, and that's what Fawcett was after. Reeves teaches Fawcett all the necessary skills, including how to use a sextant and an artificial horizon to fix his position on a map, how to take thorough notes, the fledgling science of anthropology (then called the "Science of the Savages"), and basic survival skills such as how to avoid mutiny, how to recover from a poisonous wound, how to withstand hunger and thirst, and to how to take a hostile savage captive.
Need to Know: In his memoir, Reeves makes a point of mentioning what a quick study Fawcett was at the science and art of exploration.
7. Freeze-Dried Ice Cream and Adrenaline Socks
David Grann goes to an outdoors store to prepare for his trip to the Amazon. The supplies there range from the practical to the extravagant, and everything is overwhelmingly specific in function. Grann is amused at the idea that, while the opportunity for true adventure had waned in the years since Fawcett disappeared, the gadgets with which to prepare for it had multiplied.
Back at home, Grann reviews his Fawcett documents, which reveal that on his first ever mission for the RGS, Fawcett went to Morocco as a spy, further underscoring the disparity between Fawcett's level of preparedness and Grann's.
Need to Know: Among the many Amazonian perils catalogued by Fawcett in his papers is a deadly catfish called the candiru. A nearly translucent, pencil-shaped catfish whose only form of sustenance is blood, the fish has a tendency to burrow inside human orifices, including the genitals.
8. Into the Amazon
Explorers are often tapped to be spies, as their work already involves gathering information, taking notes, and making maps. It's the perfect cover. In Morocco, Fawcett dons disguises and infiltrates the highest levels of the sultanate.
In 1906, Fawcett is called back to the RGS by its new president, George Taubman Goldie. Goldie invites Fawcett to participate in a boundary commission to map the borders between Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru. The area at that time was particularly contested due to the growing demand for rubber trees, which grew only in the Amazon. Fawcett's son Jack is nearly 3 and his wife Nina is pregnant with their second child, but that doesn't stop Fawcett from accepting the mission.
He acquires a crew and embarks via canoe up the Amazon. The river is not to be trifled with — piranhas, candirus, and electric eels are everywhere. At one point the crew kills an anaconda, which Fawcett claims is more than sixty feet long. While travelling through the forest, the expedition encounters stampeding pigs, poisonous frogs and snakes, fabric-eating sauba ants, ticks, chiggers, poison-squirting millipedes, blindness-causing parasitic worms, and a whole host of other menacing forces. Worst of all were the disease-carrying mosquitoes.
Sick, bug-bitten, and constantly in fear of attack by savages, Fawcett's crew unsurprisingly begin to lose their nerve. He relieves them of duty and sends them home. In May 1907, despite all odds, Fawcett completes his route and defines borders in South America nearly a year ahead of schedule.
Need to Know: Trekking through the Amazon is a desperately uncomfortable, maddening, and often deadly experience, largely owing to the insect population. The situation is worsened by the demand for rubber and the practices of "rubber barons," which incite local indigenous tribes to violence.
9. The Secret Papers
David Grann seeks out Fawcett's family and meets Rolette de Montet-Guerin, Fawcett's granddaughter. She reveals that much of the publicly available information on Fawcett's route is incorrect — Fawcett himself had put out erroneous coordinates in order to keep competitors off his trail. Rolette shows Grann her grandfather's personal diaries and logbooks. It turns out that the true location of Dead Horse Camp, one of Fawcett's key camps, is different than what most people believe. This discovery casts a new light on Grann's mission: All of the previous explorers were operating in accordance with misinformation. Armed with the correct location, Grann might actually have a chance.
Need to Know: Rolette shows Grann a photograph of Fawcett's signet ring. It had turned up in a pawnshop and, desperate to make sense of things, Rolette took it to a psychic, who revealed that the ring had once been covered in blood. The insignia on the ring was the Fawcett family motto — Nec Aspera Terrent: difficulties be damned.
10. The Green Hell
Not much later, Fawcett is back in the jungle with his new second-in-command, Frank Fisher, trying to convince him to explore the Rio Verde, which runs between Brazil and Bolivia. Charting this river is not included in their contract with the boundary commission, but Fawcett won't be deterred. At first he and his crew explore the river by raft, then, when the river becomes impassable, they follow it on foot.
They quickly run out of food, as neither Fawcett nor his men are successful in hunting or fishing due to the hostile conditions of "The Green Hell," as the Amazon is sometimes called. Animals are well adapted for camouflage or avoid the forest floor altogether, and the river is virtually an underwater desert thanks to pollutants produced by the trees. Near death, the crew discovers the source of the river and begins their return trip. After more than a month without food, Fawcett spots and kills a deer. Regardless, upon return to a settlement, five of his men die.
Need to Know: To conquer the "green hell" of the Amazon, one needs almost superhuman resilience. Fawcett's got it, but most others don't.
11. Dead Horse Camp
Grann uses Google Earth to show his wife the true location of Fawcett's Dead Horse Camp, gleaned from Fawcett's private journals. He also shows her a confidential document acquired from the RGS in which Fawcett mapped out the possible location of the Lost City of Z.
Need to Know: Grann is the only person out of many Fawcett fanatics in history who has the key information which may allow him to successfully retrace Fawcett's steps.
12. In the Hands of the Gods
In 1911, Fawcett is joined on another Amazonian expedition by the famed polar scientist James Murray. Murray seems the perfect match for Fawcett, but it quickly becomes apparent that each believes his own field of exploration to be the most important. Tensions rise. Murray begins to falter under the weight of his pack, eventually falling behind and getting lost. Fawcett finds him the next day, but Murray continues to slow the expedition. Fawcett, who has become more zealous as he spends time in the jungle, openly despises such laziness and fear. It is discovered that Murray has been stealing food from reserves for later in the trip, a grave crime. Plus, he dumps most of his pack in order to lighten the load. Eventually, the crew sends Murray back to civilization with a frontiersman they encounter. Murray survives and attempts to sue Fawcett, but the matter is eventually put to rest at the urging of the RGS.
Need to Know: In an era when the conception of English masculinity is in crisis, Fawcett comes to be a guiding light for the confidence of the nation. Not only does he explore previously uncharted and dangerous regions, but he does so at a seemingly impossible rate. Fawcett begins to be seen and to see himself as a sort of mythic hero — immune to disease, and possess animal reflexes — his destiny, ordained by the gods.
13. Ransom
Grann seeks out James Lynch, the last explorer to follow Fawcett's trail, who had been abducted along with his son. Lynch managed to negotiate with their captors by offering the tribesmen all their equipment in exchange for freedom. He and his son then returned to São Paulo. Undaunted, Lynch is planning another expedition, this time into the Andes in search of a lost plane. He even expresses an interest in joining Grann's journey to the Amazon. He recommends Grann find a guide with connections to local tribes and a small, quiet party.
Need to Know: The expedition bug is hard to kill, even after the most traumatizing experiences.
14. The Case for Z
Fawcett begins to suspect that a hidden civilization might exist in the Amazon in 1910, when he encounters an Indian tribe while exploring the Heath River in Bolivia. He befriends the Guarayos and discovers that they are masters of tropical pharmacology. In 1911 he resigns from the boundary commission in order to pursue anthropology. He develops a reputation for his ability to ingratiate himself with these "savages" through sheer bravery and confidence.
While staying with the Echojas, he discovers that they cultivate the Amazonian floodplains for crops, are efficient hunters, and are skilled at herbal medicine.
Then, in 1914, while exploring a region far from any rivers, Fawcett and his team find the Maxubis Indian village, with a population numbering in the thousands. These people make pottery and have names for the planets, and tell stories of their forebears. On his journeys, Fawcett would often find shards of fine pottery and paintings of human and animal figures on rocks, which convinced him that a larger and more developed civilization existed in the forest, away from the more explored river regions.
As competition grows among Amazonian explorers, Fawcett feels compelled to keep his ideas and plans a secret.
Need to Know: While Fawcett is strongly influenced by notions of the Indian as a "noble savage" and, alternatively, an "evolutionary subspecies," he often considers the Indians to be in some ways more civilized than their Western counterparts. He fiercely opposes the corrupting force of colonization, while simultaneously holding onto preconceived notions of race, saying that the more "civilized" Indians he runs into are "fairer" and must have Western origins.
15. El Dorado
Fawcett becomes occupied with piecing together any evidence he can find of the fabled El Dorado. The name El Dorado means "the Gilded Man" and refers to the ruler of a civilization who was constantly covered in gold. Previously conquered New World cities like Tenochtitlan and Cuzco lend credence to these fanciful stories. The first expedition for El Dorado, led by conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro, ended in failure and disaster. The second expedition was led by Francisco de Orellana, a surviving member of Pizarro's original party. This too was a disaster, ending with the deaths of hundreds of Orellana's crew, as well as Orellana himself. Every subsequent trip ended in folly, disaster, and ruin.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Summary and Analysis of The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by Worth Books. Copyright © 2017 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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