Brazilian Adventure

by Peter Fleming

Brazilian Adventure <> Paperback <> PeterFleming <> MarlboroPress

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Adventure, History, Brazil, Memoir, Biography

376 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1933

About the author

Adventurer and travel writer. A brother of James Bond author Ian Fleming, he married actress Celia Johnson in 1935 and worked on military deception operations in World War II. He was a grandson of the Scottish financier Robert Fleming, who founded the Scottish American Investment Trust and the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co.

Reviews

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook version of this book, but couldn’t find that edition listed on GR.

The book tells of Peter Fleming’s participation in a rather chaotic 1932 expedition to Brazil’s Mato Grosso region in search of the explorer Percy Fawcett, who had disappeared seven years previously whilst on a quixotic search for the ruins of a lost city. Fleming read an advertisement in The Times offering the chance to join the expedition. He applied by simply stating his age (24 when he first applied) and the fact he had gone to Eton, then relied on the “old boy” network to do the rest, which it did.

From the descriptions Fleming provides in the book, in 1932 the Araguia river seems to have formed a sort of frontier in central Brazil. West of it the indigenous peoples still lived according to their traditional ways, with only very occasional contact with people from the “civilized” world. It was into this area that the expedition ventured.

It’s noticeable throughout the book that Fleming tends to play down the dangers faced, an attitude typical of Englishmen of his time and upbringing. He goes out of his way to emphasise that the expedition encountered no hostile Indians, (they did meet friendly ones) and that the dangers posed by snakes, jaguars, caimans, piranhas etc had been grossly exaggerated in the popular press. He even downplays the mosquitos. He was young, energetic, exceedingly fit and healthy, and it was all an absolutely spiffing adventure.

The only downside to the tale is that Fleming does what every Englishman of the time did, which was to shoot every animal he encountered. Mostly this was done for the purposes of obtaining food, which of course is fair enough, but there are times when it is done for sheer enjoyment.

On the expedition’s return trip, the plan was for them to travel downstream along the Araguia and the Tocantins to reach a city Fleming calls Pará. I think this is the city generally referred to today as Belém. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say that on the way back there was a split in the expedition, and Fleming was part of a splinter group left to make their own way back with very limited resources. The last third or so of the book describes a “race” to make it to Pará, where they were due to catch a boat to Europe. It’s a race in two ways, one between Fleming’s group and the main party, and the other to make the boat to Europe in time. This part is actually quite exciting!

I really enjoyed this one. Aside from anything else there’s some excellent humour in the book, that had me laughing throughout. A great read!

[Daren · Rating 4 out of 5]

The amusing tale of a poorly organised, and poorly carried out adventure into the interior of Brazil, ostensibly to search for Percy Fawcett, who was at the time missing for seven years.

Fleming is very straight up at the beginning of the book - it is his story of his adventure, not a botany lesson, a geography lesson or a lesson in Brazilian native culture. It is his musings of his unsuccessful (except for surviving, or course) adventure in the Sertão, or Brazilian Interior. It does however touch on all these topics and many more.

Considering the age of the book (1933, it was published) it dates very well. It reads well, and like News From Tartary: A Journey from Peking to Kashmir, is written in a self-deprecating way, in which Fleming is unafraid to make himself look foolish.

Although I have a copy, I have not read Exploration Fawcett, I have read The Lost City of Z, by David Grann, but I gave it only 3 stars... and didn't review it. I will probably read that again, after I get to Exploration Fawcett.

This one, regardless of the Fawcett background is a highly amusing read.

P217, where a bit of a stocktake and status update it staking place.
Weapons:
1 repeating rifle [0.22]. We were greatly attached to this weapon, which sometimes gave remarkable results. Its position as the most formidable item in our armoury was, however, open to criticism on the following grounds. It was all but useless for the purposes of defence, since the wounds it was capable of inflicting were calculated to incapacitate the Oncoming Savages. For similar reasons it was a doubtful quantity where game was concerned; to kill a veado with it you would have to get a heart or neck shot at close range. It was not in good repair. You could rely on one misfire in every four. The stock has come apart in Roger's hands the night before we started, and had been spliced by Neville with sticking plaster and string. The sling was also tied on with string, and an important part of the mechanism in the breech fell out at intervals, for no good reason. We had 200 rounds of ammunition for it, but no cleaning rod.
1 service revolver and 30 rounds [0.45]. It was in many ways an admirable weapon; but its value to us was lessened by our inability to hit anything with it.
1 rifle and 10 rounds [0.44]. This rifle not infrequently fired when you pulled the trigger; but it was possible to conjecture only approximately to course which would be taken by the bullet. The inside of the barrel was a shocking site; rich mineral deposits entirely obscured the rifling. We had brought it with us only
for its potential as a present.
2 facões. Nothing could be said against these indispensable implements.

[Bob Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

By the Rivers of Amazon

When you're in your twenties, you're up for almost any crazy deal, especially accompanied by a few other totally unprepared but willing companions. Eton and Oxford may not have produced large numbers of accountants, engineers, or dentists, but they excelled in getting young Englishmen from the upper classes to do things that involved "Sticking One's Neck Out". If you fancy reading a tale of how six such young chaps sailed off to Brazil in 1932 to search the central plateau forests and rivers for any clue as to what happened to Col. Fawcett (who had disappeared seven years before), then this is definitely your book. Told in tones of true understatement, denying from the first that the usual Amazon jungle dangers (piranhas, jaguars, fevers, arrows, lack of maps) posed much difficulty, this is a story of some incredibly lucky fellows who thought themselves unlucky most of the time. I'm not writing a spoiler here---Fleming tells you so at the start. You read this book because you want to know how it all went, how they met friendly Indians, saw piranhas, heard jaguars, hacked through the undergrowth, and got messed around by various scurvy chaps of different nationalities, but returned to England to tell their tales. And then, there is a fantastic rowing race of a thousand miles down a couple of the enormous Amazon tributaries through rapids and Everything. Peter, Neville, Roger, and Bob's Excellent Adventure! (With a lot of wit and humor).

[Feliks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hugely rewarding. Comparable to the famous epic of journalist Henry Stanley to discover Dr. Livingston in the depths of 'darkest Africa'. After enjoying it immensely myself, I suggest this book by Peter Fleming--relating a similar but comically unsuccessful expedition to Brazil--has influenced many more subsequent works of fiction and cinema than one might realize.

For example--the first that immediately leaps to mind--'A Handful of Dust' by Evelyn Waugh. One can see a clear facsimile of parts of this tale, represented in Evelyn Waugh's tragi-comedy. Waugh and every other Englander was certainly aware of this expedition in the 1930s. There's only two years gap between the two works; with Waugh's novel coming afterward. The whole thing was a world-wide sensation, news-as-entertainment; one of the highlights of the aimless/distracted 1930s interwar period; and the narration of which contained both high drama and high comedy.

But really, you might say that any twentieth-century yarn about men penetrating a remote wilderness in search of one of their fellows; echoes this fascinating tale. It may have even influenced some of the James Bond stories written by Peter's younger brother; (whatever his name was).

Without stretching too far I believe one can also discern elements of this real-life saga in the 'Indiana Jones' franchise; and, if Joe Conrad hadn't penned 'Heart of Darkness' in 1899 (twenty-six years prior) I'd also suspect a relationship there as well. It is fully that stirring; it is just that powerful and multi-faceted.

Wry, self-effacing, affable, and frequently chuckle-worthy prose; invoking of grins and smirks throughout the reading. Some genuinely touching, as well as very thrilling moments --and also some of the best-ever 'Amazon-jungle' descriptions I've ever enjoyed. 'Up-close and personal' writing.

Very different in style even from the great WH Hudson or HM Tomlinson, whom you would have been pardoned to imagine had pretty nigh-well cornered the market in rainforest-depictions. But neither of those men trekked --as this party did--a few maddening, sweaty, paltry feet at a time, hacking their way through thorny scrub; ill-equipped and unprepared; pathetically alone and remote from all known map-points; searching for fresh water to keep their foolhardy quest continuing. It's a superb narrative and deserving of every bit of its reputation.

Hurrah! One of the most fun true-life adventures I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying.

[Melissa McShane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third book I've read by Fleming and probably the most amusing. In 1932, Fleming sets off on a whim to join an expedition going to Brazil to search for a missing explorer. Many other groups have tried to find him (or, more accurately, his remains, as almost everyone agrees he's probably dead), but the group Fleming joins has new information and is confident of their chances.

What follows is a comedy of errors that ends with nothing having been discovered and very little achieved short of a lot of amusing anecdotes I'm sure Fleming dined out on for weeks. Fleming is witty as always, and there are so many funny characters, not the least of which is Fleming's nemesis Major Pingle (not his real name) who is the nominal head of their expedition, but ends up an enemy. The final section, in which Fleming's tiny group tries to outrace Pingle's to the ship that will carry them back to England, is tense and exciting as well as very funny.

Fleming's casual racism--totally a product of his time--is again on display, but once again he turns out to be more of a classist than a racist, respectful of certain native tribes and scathing in his condemnation of many white Brazilians. Queiroz, their permanent guide, comes in for criticism only once, and it has nothing to do with his race. And I felt Fleming's frustration with the men he encountered who simply would not give him a straight answer about when they would depart a particular place. He never comes out and says that he feels British honor and honesty are superior, but he doesn't need to, because it's implied everywhere. It was interesting to note how often those obstructions only worked on Fleming because of his sense of British honor. I wondered what the story would have been like if the explorers had been native Brazilians dealing with native Brazilians.

The best part was definitely the last: Fleming and his friends had broken with Major Pingle, who was a total jerk, interfered with their mail, refused to return their money to them...the list goes on. In the end, they realize if they can beat Pingle to the city where the ship is leaving from, they can bypass some of his interference. But it turns into a race to spite the man as much as to get their stuff back, and it was very exciting to watch them making progress, then being held up, then making progress--it made up for some of the slow pacing of the earlier parts. Fleming tells a good story, and that's enough to make up for the book's flaws.

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 5 out of 5]

During the height of the Great Depression, 25 year-old Peter Fleming joined an expedition to the most remote parts of Brazil. The journey was officially meant to track down whatever had become of the British geographer and adventurer, Percy Fawcett, who disappeared into history while looking for a fabled "Lost City" in Brazil's wilderness. Fleming's party never got anywhere near their goal. And over the subsequent decades neither have a number of other expeditions and explorations that have searched out Fawcett's fate. His disappearance seems to be destined as a mystery unsolvable and lost to time and the ruggedness of Brazil's Matto Grosso.

For Peter Fleming, the older brother of James Bond author, Ian Fleming, it was another matter altogether (by the way, Lucy Fleming is Peter Fleming's daughter, for those who might remember the 1970s science fiction series Survivors, in which she starred). This trip, along with the publication one year later, in 1933, of Brazilian Adventure made his reputation and launched his career as a travel writer and author of historical pieces for the journal, The Spectator.

Fleming's adventures made his career burn brightly. Alas, it also burned away relatively quickly. For all his travels and adventures, he died at what seems to us today to be the young age of 64. And he is buried in a quiet churchyard in Oxfordshire. In between he travelled and wrote books about Asia, including Tibet, China, Manchuria, Russia, and what was broadly considered in the past as Tatary. But all that lay in the future for the young man of 25 whose wry, self-deprecatory retelling of his fantastic adventure into the heartland of Brazil and his encounters with Indian peoples and Brazilians of all social strata still makes for breathtaking reading.

Ultimately, Fleming's journey is not just of one to Brazil but of one through time as well. We are plunged back into the early 1930s and the era of travel by steamship and trips down tropical rivers that are only possible by canoe or steam powered launches. It was a different day, a different place, and a different time. And it all comes alive in Fleming's book.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was an inauspicious start, an advert in the Agony column of The Times. It read:

Exploring and sporting expedition, under experienced guidance, leaving England June, to explore rivers Central Brazil, if possible ascertain fate Captain Fawcett; abundance game, big and small; exceptional fishing; ROOM TWO MORE GUNS; highest references expected and given. – Write Box X, The Times, EC4.

He wrote for particulars and after a little consideration, applied and was selected. His main qualifications were his age, 24 and his school, Eton.

They departed and undertook a fairly uneventful trip on a liner to Brazil. They had a telegram asking them not to undertake the search for Fawcett, with the threat of legislation being passed to hinder them. They stopped at Lisbon, Madeira and Tenerife and not having the strongest sea legs, he found the trip to be full of tedium. Nine days later they arrived at Rio as the sun was setting. Officials boards the ship to examine passports where they encounter the mind numbing pedantry of the minor official. They were eventually allowed to depart and readied themselves to depart to San Paulo in the morning.

Reader, they didn’t…

They finally departed after several false starts and lots of procrastination. The guy who was their main contact was Major Pringle. One morning there were two cars there to take them and a lorry had been provided for their baggage. The description of the journey sounded terrifying. Though I am not sure what was worse, the local driver heading towards them at full speed or the bridges they were crossing. It was an alien place, though he noted that the birds seemed familiar and yet utterly different at the same time. They would take lunch at different places on the trip, but invariably it was the same, rice and beans with roast meats.

Their first main stop is in Goyaz. It is a strange place where not much happens and even that happens very slowly. They end up becalmed there for a while and Fleming begins to suspect that their fixer, Major Pringle isn’t as committed to their quest as they had been led to believe. Fleming sets about trying to prove this with a false despatch that he had written for the papers back in the UK and getting Major Pringle to approve it. After another wait, they were finally allowed to proceed into the jungle.

There is a short journey by road again and they finally get to board the boats that will take them into the jungle. The batloa were 30′ clinker boats that leaked lots. They learned to settle into a routine, mostly to relieve the monotony of spending three weeks in a small boat. Fleming is amazed by the birds and wildlife that she sees from the gunwale.

They come across some of the Carajas Indians. Fleming admires certain parts of their features and describes a little of their life, but does note that they are staying with them and he isn’t seeing them in their camp, so his perception of them is skewed a little. He is entranced by the giant otters of the Amazon two of which they capture. They see alligators frequently on the river and in the spirit of the time, shoot a few…

The expedition is left in the lurch when Major Pringle has a change of heart over his commitments to the expedition and quits it to head back downstream in the smallest canoe. They were going to have to go it alone in the jungle searching for traces of Fawcett.

Since the dawn of time (whenever that was) this patch of the earth’s crust had been green and empty; it was green and empty still. Aeons had passed there unregarded. And now here were we, stealing minutes under the nose of eternity, counting our pretty swag in a place where a century was hardly legal tender. In all this there was a comforting sense of the ridiculous.

They decided to split the expedition into two; one half was going to continue on the rive and Flaming would join the land party. They come across another tribe called the Tapirapes. They are as curious about their Western visitors as Fleming’s party is about them. It was as Fleming was trying to get to sleep one night that he realised how futile the drive to find these three men who had disappeared seven years before, was. It wasn’t going to stop him though.

Progressing through the jungle was hard work though. Most of the time it was impenetrable and they could only move after a lot of frenzied macheting. They come across another river and camp and eat well. Another of the party is not well enough to carry on, so he heads back with the Indians who have accompanied them on their journey so far. In the end the jungle won, so they decided that the easiest way to progress was to wade up the river. (As can be seen on the cover of this edition).

They reach a point where they can’t really proceed any further because of the river. An enormous storm is a reminder of the power of nature and they make the sensible decision to turn back. It is a decision that Fleming knows saved their lives.

They return to the mission base and catch up with Major Pringle. He was still angry for various reasons, but not as angry as Fleming was when he found out that Pringle had not forwarded on the missives that he had written for the Times. Pringle hadn’t opened them, but he didn’t trust the contents so he heads off to the British consul, where he hope that his reputation can be kept. Fleming’s part ends up chasing him along the river in another boat with the intent of getting there before him. The race is on…

I thought that this was a really enjoyable travel book. You can tell that Fleming is a child of the British Empire with some of his prejudices, but generally he is sympathetic to the Brazilians, in particularly the Amazon natives. It is a great example of how not to plan an expedition. They took lots of unnecessary risks and were stitched up by their local fixer. All of these things contributed to it nearly becoming as big a disaster as Fawcett’s expedition.

Fleming is a good writer too and this is an engaging travel book with quite a lot of jeopardy! Though how he compares to his brother Ian, I have no idea as I have not read any of his. Another fine addition to the Eland catalogue

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Fleming, brother of Ian, was quite an accomplished a writer himself -- though here he writes for mostly comic effect chronicling an ill-fated 1932 expedition to South America in search of a missing explorer, one Colonel Percy Fawcett (who, I might add, is worth pursuing in and of himself purely for reasons of improbability and absurdity... see my review of Exploration Fawcett for details).

Fleming answers an advertisement in The Times and soon finds himself among a rag-tag group of adventurers, some more up to the challenges of the Brazilian wilderness than others. They have no real notion of what they're up against. It also soon becomes apparent that the leader is incompetent. One mishap after another occurs, some almost life threatening, but Fleming takes it all in stride with an unflappable and self-deprecating sense of humor.

One thing that becomes obvious early on is that the taste for adventure ran deep in the Fleming family. Peter was no slouch in terms of getting out of tight situations. While this book may not be as fast-paced as the 007 tales of his brother, it has a certain deadpan British wit that I find irresistible. (Do you ever do an author's voices in your head as you read? I gave Peter the sexy drawl of Jeremy Irons.)

I suspect that those who are looking for a straight-up adventure story might be disappointed with Fleming's sometimes circuitous and leisurely observations. Happily, straight-up adventure bores me: send in the clowns! Peter Fleming obliges.

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

No "News From Tartary," but every Fleming travel book gets an automatic 5 stars by default, (and only because there aren't 6!). The most annoying thing about this erudite, ironic adventure classic? He wrote it when he was only 26 years old!!

[Elisabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

An adventurous story but I just could not get on board the attitude of shooting animals for the sake of taking a photo, despite it being a very normal thing to do at the time of writing.

[Martha · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Handling them[the crew] was a delicate and instructive business. Brazil is a democratic country in more than name, and all these men thought that they were as good as we were, if not better ....This theory did not command very general acceptance. [Good grief.]"


Members of the Brazilian crew get smashed. When one of the Empire hits one of them, Flemings argues, "You don't hit your butler, do you?" Spot on! Things settle.


I suppose in 1933, Fleming was going for something different, perhaps modern by taking an ironic tack to his Brazilian adventure. However, as the above quotations show, I see him in this book as an old fashioned, racist, class conscious Brit. There is a world to see in books, and I prefer someone other than Fleming to be my guide.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fascinating adventure this was, very much in the style of an adventure I would take on, little planning, relying on the wrong people, going off script big time and winging it every step of the way. As you can tell this isn’t your classic English adventure, Fleming admits at the beginning that we are running out of new places on this planet to be the first person to step there, so after spotting an advert looking for persons to go and explore one of the last unknown areas, the Amazon Rainforest, he applies and gets himself selected.

The book is split into 3 parts, each one more exciting than the last, as the adventure picks up pace so does the writing. We start off with the planning, the start of the journey and then the tedium of delay after delay once Brazil is reached. It is here that you realise what you are about to get into, a traditional British sense of humour finding the humourous side of everything, that overwhelming politeness that Brits of the past had and the villain of the piece. Next up is the journey into the interior, observations of wildlife, usually that has just been shot and much hardship as Fleming and his team show just how much stamina they had. Finally the most exciting part, the race home to catch a boat, whilst trying to stay ahead of the villain mentioned in the first section.

So what was the point of the adventure? To look for a missing explorer and his son, I had to google this explorer as I hadn’t heard of him before, amazingly this is a mystery that is still alive and well today, recent documentaries show that this is a story that people still aren’t ready to let go of yet, it was interesting to see all the attempts to find the missing explorer over the years. I was well over 200 pages in when I had a thought, Peter Fleming…is he related to that James Bond author? Turns out he is Ian Flemings big brother, the world really is small.

The writing is top notch, even when talking about the planning and the lying around being inactive Fleming pulls in the reader by sharing observations blended his sense of fun, he makes the most of any downtime to keep the reader entertained. I really enjoyed the race in part 3, the pace was intense, the stamina great and the delays soooooooo frustrating. Some of the language is a bit awkward, I know it is a case of those were normal opinions in those days, you can tell that Fleming cared for those he met and worked with and I’m sure if he wrote it today the language used would be far different. This was an epic journey up an epic river and made for a fantastic read. Highly recommended.

Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2024...

[Claudia Vannucci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Questo libro andrebbe letto perché:
- racconta una Amazonia e relative tribù che ormai non esistono più.
- racconta un'avventura davvero straordinaria.
- l'autore è un narratore onesto, ironico e autoironico, che sa rendere l'avventura personale e coinvolgente, spesso divertente.
- Peter Fleming era il fratello di Ian Fleming, autore dei romanzi di James Bond, che si sarebbe ispirato proprio all'avventuroso fratello per creare il suo personaggio.
Uno dei miei reportage di viaggio preferiti di sempre.
Ne parlo più in dettaglio nel podcast Il Milione

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is pretty excellent.
Fleming's personal character permeates this particular view of early-20th-century Brazil. He's got a cleverly critical opinion of just about every one and every thing to cross his path, and his talent for comical-- and unintentional-- understatement is not to be laughed at. He makes the trip sound like a jolly sort of hop through the woods, and by the end I was wondering to what extent he was being 'more truthful' than other writers, as he claimed, or if he was simply using his powerful gift of understatement.
Fascinating, anyway. Read it.

[Jonas]

Whilst browsing my local used-books store a few weeks ago, I happened to come upon an old paperback from the Penguin Travel Library series. I remembered reading somewhere that the selection of books in that series is quite good, so I picked it up. Fast forward to a few days ago - after starting to read the book my first thought was how much better of a reading experience my Kindle would provide. Nevertheless, after a few pages I began to appreciate the yellowish pages, maps and especially the writing itself.
Brazilian Adventure is the account of Peter Fleming's voyage through the interior of Brazil in the early 1930s. The journey started out as an expedition in search of a Colonel who went missing a few years ago - however, it's clear to all of the participants (reader included) early on that the search is likely to be futile. But despite the expeditions failure it turns out to be an enjoyable adventure for (almost) all participants.

Let me start by telling you that Fleming's company on the page is really enjoyable. Give the first few chapters a read and you'll know what I mean - he's funny, clever and not above making fun of himself. Of course he's not above making fun of racial stereotypes (and at times worse) either, but if you're able to look past these short-comings he's really amusing to read. This is helped by the fact that the characters that appear throughout the book, not least of all the expedition leader (an "adventurer" that turns out to be quite impotent and not so adventurous after all...), are great in themselves. Add to that language and cultural barriers and you got yourself, not a successful expedition, but an enjoyable book.
Another thing that made the book interesting to read, was the world where to story takes place itself. I'm probably never going to explore a Brazilian river system the way Fleming did. But even if I did, the landscapes I'd come across and the fauna and flora I'd encounter would probably look vastly different than the one he experienced - not least because of people like him, who like to shoot every living thing in sight just for the fun of it. That part, whilst interesting, made the reading experience a bit bitter-sweet.

If you ever encounter this book in the wild, like I did, don't hesitate to pick it up if you in any way enjoy travel writing.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

E' stato interessante leggere della prima avventura dell'eroe di Fleming nelle vesti del fratello maggiore. Interessanti le descrizioni dei luoghi e delle persone incontrate che non tradiscono lo spirito "snob" del gentiluomo inglese. Il racconto e' un po' lento, a tratti noioso nella prima parte del libro. Piu' avvincente nella parte finale dove l'avventura diventa sfida e si intravede il rientro in patria.

[R · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though it's quite old it's aged really well and made me laugh

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite non-fiction genre is travel memoir, especially if things don’t go according to plan. In Brazilian Adventure, literary editor Peter Fleming (older brother of 007’s creator Ian Fleming) answers an advertisement in the London Times:

"Exploring and sporting expedition, under experienced guidance, leaving England June, to explore rivers Central Brazil, if possible ascertain fate Colonel Fawcett; abundance game, big and small; exceptional fishing; ROOM TWO MORE GUNS; highest references expected and given."

The Colonel Fawcett mentioned in the ad was an explorer who famously disappeared in Brazil along with two other men in 1925. Fleming doubts that the advertised expedition, undertaken seven years after Fawcett’s vanishing, will unearth any new information, but is compelled to apply all the same in the role of a correspondent to The Times.

The resulting trip is beset by Brazil’s political instability, weather, and logistical challenges, all of which Fleming describes in a cheery, self-deprecating style. From the first page, he punctures any romantic imaginings the reader may have about such travel.

Indeed, the most significant obstacle turns out to be the expedition leader himself, Major Pingle (not his real name), who – after a falling-out with Fleming’s party – proceeds to try and sabotage Fleming’s passage out of interior Brazil.

Not only was Fleming’s tale the type of book I generally enjoy, but I absolutely loved his witty writing style. Fleming is sharp but not mean with his wit; he plays quite fair in his descriptions of all the people he encounters, including the nefarious Major Pingle. This light tone is paired with an impressive verbosity. With a lesser writer, Fleming’s prolonged asides and anecdotes would have dragged, but I happily pressed on through his more complicated passages because he was so unfailingly clever and funny. One of my early favorites – a description of approaching Rio by sea:

"The water front, still some way ahead of us, flaunted a solitary skyscraper. All sky-scrapers look foolish and unnatural when isolated from their kind. It is only in the mass, huddled and strenuously craning, that they achieve a sort of quaint crude dignity. Alone, cut off from their native background of competition and emergency, they appear gauche and rather forlorn. With this one it was particularly so. Ridiculously at variance with all that we could see, hopelessly irrelevant to all that we imagined, it had the pathos of a boor. It domineered without conviction, the totem of another tribe. It knew itself for a mistake, an oversight, an intrusion. It was like a bag of tools left behind, when the curtain rises, on a stage set for romance.

Later I was told that during the last revolution they threw a full-sized billiard table out of a window on its fourteenth floor. Then I forgave it. Where that sort of thing can happen to them, there is a place for sky-scrapers."

The book was published in 1933, so there were a few cringe-worthy “of its time” moments; I was particularly appalled by the huge amount of animals killed for sport during the trip. The expedition literally left a trail of dead alligators in its wake. Fleming’s descriptions of Brazilians and the interior tribes are not entirely free of ignorance, but these passages are not in “white man’s burden” territory either. The amusement he derives from his adventures in a foreign land is, more often than not, at his own expense.

At times, Fleming’s cultural allusions were too British or too early 20th century for me to grasp, but the feeling of immersion in that time and place was well worth any minor confusion. The book has the dry and humorous sensibility of the great comedy films of its era. I’ve already added some of Fleming’s other books to my to-read list.

[Deborah Siddoway · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok, I have to confess that I have not actually finished this book but am now abandoning it. I know that it has been rated as one of the finest travel novels of the last century but I am afraid that I struggled with both the style of the narration and the unreliability of the narrator. His reference to emus in Brazil, and the unnecessary shooting of an iguana made me actively dislike the narrator, who seemed to be just one of a pack of spoilt public school boys off on a jolly adventure. I am not sure what I was expecting from this book, but whatever it was, it singularly failed to deliver and there are far too many books out there to waste any more of my time on one that I do not enjoy.

[Lorelei · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this entire book. There may have been a slow part, but if so I don't remember it. Insane hijinx travelling into one of the deeply unexplored regions of Brazil (in the 1930's). He makes light of both the mundane and the ridiculous, and returns home hardly changed (apparently) by the adventure of a lifetime.

[Jrobertus · Rating 3 out of 5]

wonderful narrative of a haphazard expedition in 1934 to find a major fawcette, lost and presumed dead. the party feuds and splits into competing expeditions. the lingo, attitudes, and gun usage are really archaic.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A treasury of throw-away observations that reveal the core of the country. e.g. (from memory) "Rockets are to Brazil what exclamation marks are to the prose of a debutante". (!)

[Bob]

This book hovers on the edge of first rate because it has so many fine qualities that are somehow never completely developed: verbal British humor of the Three Men in a Boat sort (one chapter is even called ´Eleven Men in a Boat´); character sketches of inhabitants of the remote that rival Conrad; an acute view of the focus and freedom that comes with peril and hardship; keen observation of animal (but sadly not plant) life in an exotic region. Problematically, none of these are ever long enough to give the story a solid grounding, and the ¨plot¨ which is supposed to hold it all together hardly exists. This is the book of a talented man whose journalistic duties and seeking afer sensation prevent that real talent from emerging.
My strategy for this book was to read for its admittedly stunning moments of humor: reading the personal ad for the expedition: ¨It had the right improbable ring to it. As I gazed, with all possible detachment, at a map of South America, I seemed to hear the glib and rapid voice of Munchhausen, the clink of gold bricks.¨ Sentiment: ¨The little spotted fawn accepted with philosophy its position as a stage property in this misbegotten drama. It played its part with the easy natural dignity of a beast in a medieval legend. Poor little thing,I knew from the first it was doomed.¨ And the peace that comes with acceptance -- their boat is out of control in a rapid: ¨How comforting is the knowledge that you must trust to luck -- that it is not in our power to lessen the margin of risk! There was so much to enjoy in this blind and desparate career...¨ and the Brazilians themselves: ¨You cannot disillusion a Brazilian -- just BECAUSE they are always disappointed.¨

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has been a brutal year for me in terms of reading. I've just been slogging through them at the pace of a barely literate snail. No excuses, really, other than some pretty monumental life changes. But, regardless, none of those life changes compare to the slog Ian Fleming's little brother Peter took in 1933 across the inland jungles of Brazil. Fleming made no brave proclamations of discovery or adventure- his was a half-hearted quest to find a missing explorer, but mostly carried out in the quest of curiosity and filling the pages of monthly magazines. Its ripe with imperialistic attitudes and not so thinly veiled racism, but it was the 1930s, for the love of God.

My goal now is to read something that's not mired in post-colonial superiority complexes.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing after a very promising start. Fleming’s recounting of his trip to Brazil in 1933 to search for missing adventurer Fawcett (whom I was familiar with from The Lost City of Z) had such a droll, ironic tone that I loved it at first. But as the book continued, Fleming’s racism towards the Brazilians, massacre of wildlife for no purpose (they just shot and left the animals, not even bothering to eat them), and focus on a petty race back to civilization (against other members of his expedition with which he had a falling out), the initial charm of his language and tone wore off, and I was left reading the book of a man whom I realized I didn’t like all that much.

[Cristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think if I hadn’t lived on the edge of Brazil, in an area which has still managed to escape development, I wouldn’t have liked this book as much as I had. But it was relatable in ways, knowing European expats and city-dwellers takes on the wild of it. The language is of the time, and so may be off putting to some readers. But it also gives you a sense of what has and has not changed in 90 years. It was an amazing race.

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three and a half stars. Slow-paced but humorous memoir about an ill-fated 19392 expedition to the interior of Brazil. The style is much wordier than anything you find nowadays but entertaining in small doses, and Fleming's good humor about the extreme physical challenges is appealing. He is casually racist but open-minded for his day (I suspect) and it's a useful reminded of how much has changed. I'm glad I persevered.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by Peter Fleming, the brother of Ian Fleming (James Bond), Brazilian Adventure is a document of classic Amazonian exploration narrated in a distinctly unheroic, hilarious old-Etonian tone, making it rather unique for the 1930s, and setting a new style for Travel and Adventure. The main purpose of the expedition was to find out more about Percy Fawcett's disappearance seven years before, but things go drastically wrong against a landscape Joseph Conrad could have designed.

[Laurie Siblock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Fleming is a fantastic writer who takes you vividly right there along with him on his travels. This book was fascinating, self-deprecating and humorous. Of course, Fleming is a man of his times, full of the spirit of colonial adventure with a horrifying penchant for sport hunting. It's a peak into a wrinkle in time from someone who lived an extraordinary life.

[Christoph Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite authors - I think it was Neal Stephenson - recommended this book. And it was fantastic. The adventure is not much of an adventure, but Peter Fleming is very aware of that and handles it perfectly: with a lot of humour and quite a bit of self-deprecation.

If you come across this book, pick it up and read it. You'll be delighted.