Brazilian Adventure – Peter Fleming/Eland Publishing (2023) but first published by Jonathan Cape (1933)

Two months ago I had never heard of this book originally published in 1933 and I would like to acknowledge James Owen’s fine review of it in The Times after its recent publication in a new paperback edition at the end of September, upon which much of the following is based.

In April 1932 Fleming replied to an advertisement in the personal columns of The Times, ‘Exploring and sporting expedition, under experienced guidance, leaving England June to explore rivers central Brazil, if possible to ascertain fate Colonel Percy Fawcett…..room two more……’ Within weeks he joined the expedition, organised by Robert Churchward, to Sao Paulo, then overland to the rivers Araguaia and Tapirape, heading towards the last-known position of the Fawcett expedition(Percy Fawcett was a noted explorer who had disappeared with his party in 1925 while searching for a fabled lost city in the remote interior of Brazil). Fleming was accompanied by Roger Pettiward, his friend from school and university(Eton and Oxford, where Peter gained a First in English Literature); at the time he was literary editor of The Spectator and he had agreed to send dispatches to The Times during the journey.

The expedition descended into fiasco when the leader-under the fictitious name of ‘Major Pingle’ in the book – admitted that he had not realised that Fleming was serious about trying to find Fawcett. Pingle refused to go any further and the party split up and Fleming, Pettiward, Neville Priestley and one of the hired Brazilians set out to find evidence of Fawcett’s fate on their own; but this time on foot- most of the journey so far had been by canoe. After acquiring 2 Tapirape guides guides the party began a march to the area where Fawcett was reported to have last been seen. Soon they lost the 2 guides and then Neville to a foot infection-leaving two of them to continue. Neither of them spoke the local languages and they had no accurate maps as none existed. Instead they had to remain close to the river so each day had to go from river to the plain(ie away from the jungle) and vica versa which made any significant progress impossible.

So, instead, they decided to wade up the river itself:

‘All day we waded up the river. If we had felt top heavy on dry land, we felt ever more top heavy in the water. In the sandy, swift-running shallows you could see what your feet were doing: but in the deeper, nearly stagnant stretches the water was dark, and in the tracks of whoever passed ahead of you clouds of grey mud rose and spread slowly, billowing. Balanced unsteadily on one bare foot, we groped for snags with the other; and usually found them. Thorns which had not yet rotted in the slime made us lurch sharply, clutching for support at the overhanging vegetation: this, as often as not, had thorns in it too. Sometimes a dense tangle, reaching out from the bank into midstream, drove us ashore, and we picked our way with oaths through thickets which would have seemed formidable even if we had not been naked from the waist down. But this happened comparatively seldom and our unorthodox choice of route was surprisingly successful’

Inevitably they had to give up, or as Fleming puts it: ‘But I felt very sorry to be giving up this ridiculous scramble; it had been great fun.’

In fact, Fleming and his friend, Roger Pettiward were short on food and more than 1000 miles from safety. They were also very weak. They were both in genuine peril.

Despite all of this they turned back and ultimately overhauled Pingle in a race downriver to be the first to catch a ship home.

The book published in 1933 laid down a gently sceptical new template for travel writing. As Owen says, it is among the funniest books in the genre, the irony steeped in bathos. Brazilian Adventure created a new path in travel writing , followed by Eric Newby and Redmond O’Hanlon, in which the English spirit of amateurism led to opportunities for self-ridicule, rather than to display manly heroics.

After the book became a best-seller, Peter Fleming went on to make several more long trips overseas and wrote books about them. He also married - Celia Johnson, the actress, and they had 3 children.

The publication of this book in a new paperback edition in September this year was in fact only due to the publication of another book at the same time, a 800 page biography of his younger brother. However Peter was not only was not only a more accomplished writer but both cleverer and better looking than Ian, who had always worshipped him. In 1953, twenty years after the publication of Brazilian Adventure, Casino Royale was published, and Ian Fleming became, as Max Hastings says in his review of the recent biography by Nicholas Shakespeare, the most influential writer of the 20th century; but certainly not the best! There can be little doubt as to who was the fundamental inspiration for Bond, although 007 was given little of his humour.