Reviews

• Few books have swept me so completely into a foreign and difficult world. A beautiful world, at the same time: the Amazonian jungles of eastern Ecuador. The struggles of the native tribes there have been in the headlines since the Seventies and before —but here is a story behind the headlines, showing us how painful it has been for the Shuar and Achuar people, and how governments and oil companies have run hard over indigenous rights. Some of the conflict unfolds on a political level, but most of Green Fires is an emotional exploration by the narrator, Annie, a woman who served in the early years of the Peace Corps, but who left Guayaquil bruised and disillusioned. Now, a few years later, she and her new husband have dropped into the jungle side of Ecuador, where they stumble on a raging, half-hidden conflict, and cope with their own personal struggles. Annie has much to work out with her new husband—and with an idealistic ex-Nazi who lives in the heart of the forest, in retreat from his home country and most of the modern world. Surrounding them all, ever-present, are the land’s native peoples, who face what looks like an impossible future. Race, religion and culture are all explored in Green Fires. Mingo, a native who fights for the rights of the nomadic jungle dwellers, has a sharp eye on the modern world. He travels at times to Quito and Guayaquil, but when he does, “I feel less. You—white people—have too many things. You travel too fast. You have many inventions to make life easier. It is impossible for me to see you as inferior to me, to my earlier life in the forest. You are too many, too loud, too powerful.” Mingo is a help to Annie, though it’s hard to say if she is any help to him. Mingo has the broader struggle, but Annie’s trials are close and personal. In the end, the book’s great triumph is how skillfully the author interweaves these two threads.

• I'd call this book "self indulgent". It seems more like therapy for the author than entertainment for the reader. I really wanted to like it and read the first 90 pages. I just moved too slow and didn't seem to be going anywhere. Read Wizard of the Upper Amazon by Bruce Lamb, The World is as You Dream It by John Perkins or Diary of an Amazon Guide by Paul Beaver if you want to experience the Amazon. This book is boring.

• This is such an important book and written by an amazingly courageous committed and articulate author. It is a story about people you will care about and admire while addressing issues that we all should be more committed to addressing.

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