The Lost City of Z blog #1

In the novel The Lost City of Z (2010), David Grann argues the affect of obsession in man, and moreso of the cliche 'curiosity killed the cat'. Grann depicts through the main character 'Fawcett' that man's fixation blinds them of obvious signs of risk or hazardous situations. He uses imagery to describe the various creatures in the amazon and to create a visual for the reader. Grann's tone is obsessive and curious; his audience is anyone that takes a liking for mystery novels

Vocabulary:

infanticide (n) : the act of killing an infant

inveterate (adj) : fixed in a habit or practice, especially a bad one

embolism (n) : medicine a condition in which an artery is blocked by an embolus, usually a blood clot formed at one place in the circulation and then lodging in another

chafe (v) : transitive and intransitive verb to become sore or worn by rubbing, or make something sore or worn in this way

Tone: curious, obsessive

Rhetorical Strategies:

imagery: "On a cold January day in 1925, a tall, distinguished gentleman hurried across..." (pg 7)

"Although his hair was thinning and his mustache was flecked with white..." (pg 7)