indiana jones with a little less magic

*MILD SPOILERS AHEAD!*




I detoured from my usual fantasy fiction for this romp through some archaeological nonfiction! Overall, I'm thoroughly impressed with the research that went into this book as well as the recounts of personal experience in some pretty perilous and exciting settings. The mix and match of pure fact and retold scenarios worked for me through pretty much the entire first half, but I started to wonder about some of the structural choices in the storytelling once I reached the second half.
Pretty much what I mean by this is that I think it could’ve been intriguing to get the legends about the curse of the White City way back in the book's beginning rather than after the city had already supposedly been found and exploited. Getting the nitty gritty facts of all the explorers and scientists and frauds that attempted to find the city in decades and centuries past made for a gripping first few chapters ("How will this particular group's experience differ from all these people who failed before?" I thought to myself). But I would’ve liked to know the stakes and mysticism of the ins and outs of the believed curses of this ancient site before the author and the team were relaying their accounts of living in the jungle and discovering parts of the buildings and the cache bit by bit. Some chapters lost a bit of their momentum for me because the stakes felt like they dropped a bit. Of course, there's always the looming threat of fer-de-lances. But the stakes were definitely upped when several voices in academia decided to speak their mind against the potentially harmful actions the expedition took in their attempts to find the lost city. I appreciated that the flak the trip received was incorporated in the author's comprehensive overview of this years-long experience, rather than just writing a highlight reel of a book.
On another note, the introspective tone in which this was written helped me be introspective in turn about the ethics and complications of archaeology and studying ancient cultures. I pondered the human tendency to explore and conquer and discover, and how that can have a mystical, exciting element, but also be harmful in in the spirit of savior-ship colonialism. Projecting our modern ideas of what an ancient culture may have been like without all the facts or solid evidence to be certain is, as far as I'm concerned, a necessary part of the job, and why dutiful study and gracious attitudes towards the people who currently live in once-ancient New World places is key.
The author’s bout of sickness after the expedition was unexpected to me but fascinating to read about. I understand why so much time was spent on leishmaniasis since it is sort of “the key” to possibly figuring out how long the archaeological site they found has actually been there. On pg. 247, the irony the author capitalizes concerning the city's “curse” in comparison to their actual parasitical diagnoses really made me think about how the mysticism of ancient places can be interpreted in different ways. Human history has seen confidence and hubris to step into uninhabited areas time and again when I think more healthy caution and fear for the dangerous and untamable parts of the natural world could be exercised. 


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Some of my favorite quotes from The Lost City of the Monkey God:

"People need history in order to know themselves, to build a sense of identity and pride, continuity, community, and hope for the future."

"We live in a world gone crazy for resources. Everybody on Google Earth can look at this place now. If you don’t move to protect it, it will disappear. Everything in the world is vulnerable."

"The ultimate offense was the idea that Europeans “discovered” the New World to begin with, as if the people living here didn’t exist before Europeans saw them."

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