Date: 26 April 2015
Location: Bonnie
It was a nice day for a drive in the country and we enjoyed our drive across Madison County to the farmstead of Bonnie and Richard. This setting was a far cry from the setting of most of the action in the book, which vividly described the conditions in the Amazon, such as: “The sauba ants that could reduce the men’s clothes and rucksacks to threads in a single night. The ticks that attached like leeches (another scourge) and the red hairy chiggers that consumed human tissue. The cyanide-squirting millipedes. The parasitic worms that caused blindness. The berne flies that drove their ovipositors through clothing and deposited larval eggs that hatched and burrowed under the skin.”. Contrast that with a pleasant gathering in rooms with quilts hanging on the walls and appetizers enough for a meal.
When most of the group had gathered and we felt it time to begin our discussion, I played a recording of the announcement of the book on January 16, 2015, as a selection of the Science Friday Book Club with a little discussion about the book. [I needed some instruction from Bonnie about the operation of the connected speakers which had to be wiggled in just the right way – it reminded me of moving the “whisker” over the crystal in a radio trying to bring in the Grand Ole Opry when the night was clear and the conditions were right] Some of the comments we heard were echoed by the Bookers later in our discussion, such as “I had to keep reminding myself that this was not a novel but a true story”.
Most had read the book but a few were still reading it. The discussion was wide ranging, from the psychology, motivation, and techniques of explorers of that day, to the conditions in the jungle, and knowledge of the indigenous tribes, who knew how to live off the land and how to use the things in their environment for treating ailments and helping with their food collection.
When our discussion was finished, I played the Science Friday discussion of the book on February 6, 2015, and pointed out that the special call-in guest that had been referred to, who was in the book, was not recorded for some reason. [I sent an inquiry to Science Friday asking why his discussion was missing but got no response. I had delayed the writing of this meeting account, hoping to hear something from them]. Since I had listened to the discussion, I knew what discussion was missing and who the call-in guest was and I related this to the group: it was the University of Florida archaeologist who the author had called and talked with before his trip to the Amazon; what he said was that Faucett did, in fact, find the Lost City of Z but didn’t recognize it because he was looking up and not down; what has been found are a number of cities, which may have held ~ 5000 people each, surrounded by moats and connected by broad straight roads. The descendants of the people who built these cities still live in the area, as evidenced the pottery still being made there – it is difficult to tell the difference between that pottery and the pottery shards found at the ruins of the cities.
After listening to the Science Friday discussion of the book, we retired to the kitchen for supper. With the ham furnished by Bonnie, we had more dishes than could be accommodated on a plate, unless you had an extremely small portion of each. There were also ample desserts to accompany the meal. It was decided and announced that the discussion of Joe Berry’s book next month will be hosted by Joe and Linda at their home. As we were leaving, Bob pointed out the house across the field on the edge of the woods that Bonnie had built herself and where many of her quilts are stored.
— Reynolds