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Title: The Darkest Jungle : The True Story of the Darien Expedition and America's Ill-Fated Raceto Connect the Seas by TODD BALF ISBN: 0-609-60989-0 Publisher: Crown Pub. Date: 30 December, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (3 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Skinny Land
Comment: This catchy little history book shows us how deceptively brutal the Panamanian isthmus can really be. Of course, long before the actual Panama Canal was completed, the region had been obsessed over by all types of explorers and speculators wanting to create the ultimate shortcut for world travel. This book focuses on the 1854 exploratory mission of Isaac Strain and his men, in search of a possible route for a canal in the Darien region of the isthmus, which ultimately was not selected for the canal. While Panama may appear to be just a skinny little strip of land, it is actually up to 100 miles across with steep mountains, punishing weather, the worst tropical diseases and insects, rivers that go in all the wrong directions, and the most impenetrable jungles on Earth. Here Balf documents the harrowing ordeal of Strain and his men, as the team ultimately discovered that the Darien region was definitely not suitable for a canal, losing several men along the way under gruesome conditions of starvation and suffering. Some parts of this book are quite terrifying as guys start dropping dead in the worst possible ways.
This mostly fascinating vignette is held back a little by Balf's rather thin and wandering writing style, as the characters (particularly Strain) fail to really come to life. Meanwhile, there are two different stories about the rescue of the nearly-dead Strain and his associates after months of being lost in the festering jungle. In the sensationalistic introduction, meant to draw the reader in, Strain is near death when rescued but dramatically fights his way back to lucidity. But later, in the actual historical account, he was certainly in ill-health but still competently commanding his men. This is one of several examples of inconsistency in this otherwise solid, if intellectually skinny, account. An added bonus is the epilogue in which Balf tries to retrace the steps of the Strain party, and finds for himself (and us) how unexpectedly treacherous Panama is even today. [~doomsdayer520~]
Rating: 5
Summary: A place best visited on the pages of a book
Comment: An engrossing adventure story that describes the ultimate jungle trek gone bad. Authentic details starkly convey the expedition's desperate ordeal as they attempt to discover the shortest route between two oceans in Panama in the 1850's. I found the epilogue a satisfying wrap-up to the story as author Todd Balf details his own experiences 150 years later - almost as grueling without the tragedy. Another aspect of the book that I found fascinating was the first hand inforamtion on the Damien rain forest - one of the last unexplored regions on the planet.
Rating: 4
Summary: Ill-Fated Expedition
Comment: Author Todd Balf's "The Darkest Jungle" comes along as the latest in a glut of recent books about historical expeditions that came to grief because they were ill-equiped, poorly led, misguided, or some combination of the three. The United States' Darien Expedition of 1854, led by earnest Naval Lieutenant Issac Strain fell squarely into the last category. Misled by erroneous maps drawn by previous charlatan explorers, the Darien Expedition set off across the Panamanian ismuth in seach of a viable ship canal route and became hopelessly lost. Six men of the party starved to death, and most of the rest would have followed suit but for a heoric rescue effort led by Strain himself.
"The Darkest Jungle" is a well written book that tells the story of the Strain party with a minimum of hyperbole. Particularly gruesome are Balf's depictions of the ravaging effects that starvation and parasites had on the members of the party. As an added bonus, in the last chapter Balf briefly describes his own travels in the expedition's footsteps.
The story of the Darien party isn't an epic, like that of the Scott party in Anarctica for example, but it still makes for enjoyable reading for anybody who likes real-life adventure tales.
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Title: Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival by Dean King ISBN: 0316835145 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig : Travels Through Paraguay by John Gimlette ISBN: 1400041767 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Sufferings in Africa: The Astonishing Account of a New England Sea Captain Enslaved by North African Arabs by James Riley ISBN: 1585740802 Publisher: The Lyons Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe by Laurence Bergreen ISBN: 0066211735 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 14 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty by Caroline Alexander ISBN: 067003133X Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 15 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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