Review by New York Times Review
"ADVENTURE" these days is merely an experience that allows for a modestly elevated number of variables - renting a car without a GPS unit, for instance, or visiting a friend in East Flatbush. Not that the world is denuded of excitement. It's just that true adventure requires something that defies an itinerary: failure. Failure is the engine of adventure. Mitchell Zuckoff's "Lost in Shangri-La" delivers a feast of failures - of planning, of technology, of communication - that are resolved in a truly incredible adventure. Truly incredible? A cliché, yes, but Zuckoff's tale is something a drunk stitches together from forgotten B movies and daydreams while clutching the bar. Zuckoff is no fabulist, though, and in this brisk book he narrates the tense yet peaceful five weeks during 1945 that three plane crash survivors spent immersed "in a world that time didn't forget. Time never knew it existed." Even at the level of exposition, the book is breathless. In the final days of World War II, 24 bored soldiers and members of the Women's Army Corps embark on an aeronautic joy ride over a newly "discovered" landscape - known today as the Baliem Valley - in the dangerously isolated mountains of New Guinea, mountains populated by thousands of combative "cannibals," where "a lifetime of war was an inheritance every child could count on." Perhaps owing to a lethal combination of foolishness and inexperience, the plane crashes, eventually killing all aboard but a beautiful Wac and two all-American G.I.'s. They are unreachable except by parachute - or plane crash - and surrounded by startled warrior tribes; a contingent of Filipino-American paratroopers joins the survivors to aid in their rescue. With no place to land an airplane, the mountain air too thin for helicopters, and the threat of thousands of hostile Japanese soldiers hiding between the injured group and the sea, Army commanders decide on the most reasonable extraction: a cargo plane with a big hook. At this point, you should know if Zuckoff's book appeals to you. The pleasures - and values - of this story reside in admiration of fortitude in a vortex of treacherous circumstances. It is the 1940s, though, so primitive sexual politics - Margaret Hastings, the surviving Wac, is repeatedly praised for her unexpected "gumption," and the Army's first airdrop includes food, blankets and lipstick - abounds, as does the lazy racism of "cockpit anthropologists," even after the New Guineans prove indispensable. Zuckoff (whose books include "Robert Altman" and "Ponzi's Scheme") doesn't editorialize, probably because this is an adventure tale; insofar as nobody can confront ingrained gender bias or cultural chauvinism while looking across a clearing at a war-painted, spear-wielding expeditionary force, the book's vitality derives from a contagious sympathy with its subjects' circumstances. But it's a fine line. Technicolor chivalry and cultural atavism aside, "Lost in Shangri-La" tells of the first contact between disoriented, combative cultures, one of the final first-contacts in human history. It's a tale of bravery, loyalty, trust and silly, often frightening miscommunication. For example, white sky gods figure prominently in the local eschatology, and unbeknown to the Americans, tribal leaders greet their arrival as a prophecy fulfilled. While the Americans run swap meets, debates rage over whether to kill the whites to stall the apocalypse. Ultimately, Zuckoff's story is heartbreaking. From the moment the New Guineans choose to aid the stranded Americans, their culture is jerked forward into a callous, evangelizing modernity. Each day, the American forces receive an airdrop, often containing weapons and cowrie shells - used as currency - inadvertently introducing two hallmarks of the modern West: firearms and inflation. Today, Zuckoff writes, "elderly native men in penis gourds . . . charge a small fee to pose for photos, inserting boar tusks through passages in their nasal septums to look fierce. More often, they look lost." By the end of Zuckoff's narrative, it's clear that the Americans, however painful and anguishing the ordeal, were hardly victims. After all, they experienced the thrills of adventure. The New Guineans, by contrast, inherited a tragedy. The first contact between disoriented, combative cultures - theirs and ours. Michael Washburn is a research associate at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the City University of New York.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 5, 2011]
Review by Booklist Review
A survivors' story from WWII, the tale Zuckoff relays contains a story line seemingly lifted from Hollywood. In a land of cannibals who wear nothing but penis gourds, a damsel in distress hopes for salvation from intrepid heroes. This scenario of an American plane crash in New Guinea in 1945 provoked prodigious publicity at the time, but the entire, true drama has never before been as comprehensively presented as it is here. Using military files, the damsel's diary, interviews, and a visit to the region, Zuckoff integrates all the elements into a mesmerizing narrative. It begins at a backwater air base, where apparent discovery of a New Guinea tribe inspired excitement to see the Stone Age from the air. The flight, carrying 24 passengers, hit a mountain, and only 3 survived. Switching to the tribe's reception of these spirits from the sky, Zuckoff explains how the survivors fit into the tribe's legends, establishing a cultural-contact theme for Zuckoff's ensuing recounting of a remarkably unorthodox rescue operation. Energetic and empathetic, Zuckoff delivers a page-turner for WWII readers.--Taylor, Gilber. Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Zuckoff (Ponzi's Scheme) skillfully narrates the story of a plane crash and rescue mission in an uncharted region of New Guinea near the end of WWII. Of the 24 American soldiers who flew from their base on a sightseeing tour to a remote valley, only three survived the disaster, including one WAC. As the three waited for help, they faced death from untreated injuries and warlike local tribesmen who had never seen white people before and believed them to be dangerous spirits. Even after a company of paratroopers arrived, the survivors still faced a dangerous escape from the valley via "glider snatch." Zuckoff transforms impressive research into a deft narrative that brings the saga of the survivors to life. His access to journal accounts, letters, photos, military records, and interviews with the eyewitnesses allows for an almost hour-by-hour account of the crash and rescue, along with vivid portraits of his main subjects. Zuckoff also delves into the Stone Age culture of the New Guinea tribesmen and the often humorous misapprehensions the Americans and natives have about each other. In our contemporary world of eco-tourism and rain-forest destruction, Zuckoff's book gives a window on a more romantic, and naive, era. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Zuckoff (journalism, Boston Univ.; Robert Altman: The Oral Biography) presents an engaging story about the survival and ultimate rescue of three American service people who crashed in the dense jungles of New Guinea toward the end of World War II. While that is exciting enough in its own right, what makes Zuckoff's story an essential read is the interaction between these survivors and the indigenous tribe they encountered after crashing. Humorous and at times dangerous misunderstandings arose between the Americans and the indigenous people during the 46-day ordeal in the jungle. The tribe had never encountered white people before and assumed their "guests," including a young female WAC corporal, were spirits whose arrival fulfilled a prophecy of the end of the world. In a sense, this prophecy was true as after the rescue and the war, the Americans, Europeans, and Indonesians returned and changed the way of life that these tribes had followed for centuries. VERDICT This excellent book will be enjoyed by anyone who loves true adventure stories of disaster and rescue such as Alfred Lansing's Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage.-Michael Farrell, Reformed Theological Seminary Lib., Oviedo, FL (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
