LATITUDE ZERO

A series of historical vignettes in exotic locales, skillfully woven together by Guadalupi (The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, not reviewed) and co-writer and translator Shugaar.

The Equator? Merely a metaphor for the vanishing world of the tropical frontier that civilization will eventually pave over. But a nose for motive worthy of a big-city detective enables the authors to wring fresh romance and pathos from this centuries-old process. Its lure draws the obscure along with the celebrated; dreamers, scholars, adventurers, and opportunists converge along with the dangerously obsessed, often stalked by the inevitable scoundrel who waits to pick their bones. Guadalupi, a gifted historian armed with a boundless supply of corroborating detail, insinuates himself—and his readers—into the most intimate antechambers and boudoirs, no matter how remote in time or distance. We see 16th-century conquistadors lashed by icy winds on an Andean plateau, trooping inexorably toward the Equatorial rainforest that will engulf, madden, and ultimately swallow them. This is hardly fresh material: Magellan is punctured by native spears; Krakatoa blows its top; Stanley exploits Livingston. Even the wacky nude Baroness with her free-love commune in the Galapagos Islands has been the subject of several other works. But the authors, aided by Shugaar’s stylishly accessible translation, add intrigue to this retelling by deftly setting the scene from both historical and geographical perspectives. (In a rare lapse, they introduce the Galapagos without mentioning the cold ocean current that makes possible the rich variety of unique flora and fauna there.) Triumph and tragedy seem equally weighted; lust for gold, power, or fame is sometimes derailed by lust for . . . well, the usual. Most satisfying are gems of defining moments, evenly paced to arrive on schedule: the jungle relents, opens its green maw and spits out the plucky if none-too-clever Victorian dilettante who proceeds to ask for a cold beer by brand name.

For the armchair adventurer: history rendered as a libretto to the planet’s grand opera.