Here's a book review I wrote while kayaking in the Yukon, of Scott Wallace's must-read The Unconquered:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Unconquered-S ... L4AHS1Q7CB

I've been trying for two decades to craft a story worthy of Peter Matthiessen's endorsement; kudos to Scott Wallace for writing The Unconquered in which he achieves the mastery as well as the endorsement. Wallace's story is gripping, harrowing, entertaining, educational, fascinating, tough.

The Unconquered follows an improbable collection of men as they journey deep into the Amazon. Their mission is to observe indigenous groups, some of whom have had little or no contact with so-called modern civilization. Their mission, too, is to enforce Brazilian law so that the tribes--and the wildlife and habitat which surround and nurture them--are left alone. The heroic efforts seemed like a shot in the dark, in part because the project seemed grossly under-funded, because the mission was a staggeringly difficult one, because the physical environment was treacherous, and because the team at times seemed like the gang who couldn't shoot straight. Wallace brilliantly captures the quixotic flavor and frustrations of the effort.

I have a few frustrations with the book itself. It's not meant to be a picture book but one can't help but wish it had included more of Wallace's photos (he's not just a talented writer--check out his website). One wishes, too, that there was more about Wallace and his family, and the effect of the trip on the family, in the narrative. That thread mostly got dropped somewhere along the journey. And one wishes Wallace had taken us, by way of his journalistic savvy, more into the mindset of the charismatic expedition leader, Sydney Possuelo. We learn about Possuelo's philosophy, and we study him on a superficial level, but we don't take advantage of Wallace's skills as a journalist to get to the man behind the mask.

But these are minor issues and I've been telling people: read this book. I'm writing this review on a flight south from the Yukon where I spent eight days kayaking on the Teslin and Yukon Rivers with my wife and two young children. We shared the river with grizzlies, wolves, mosquitoes, black flies. It's a world away from the Amazon but paddling in a remote spot under challenging conditions took me back to a worthy mythological journey and I found myself thinking about Scott Wallace's The Unconquered.

Statistics: Posted by marklaxer — Sat Sep 01, 2012 11:39 pm — Replies 0 — Views 3