Leonard Clark (1) (1908–1957)

This is a ripping yarn, purportedly a factual account of exploration in the Amazon rain forest, beset by savage tribes and all manner of dangerous fauna. The writing is engagingly descriptive and very detailed, the narrative well paced, the settings and characters clearly delineated. However, as some things are clearly not factually correct, one is left with the awful feeling - how much of this is actually true and how much is fiction? I do not dispute that Leonard Clark was a fearless, resourceful individual, but some of his story does not ring true. Inez Pokorny who shared some of his travels was a 'escritora', a writer according to a Brazil visa application, a photographer by other accounts but left no discernible writings, despite living a full life. The notion (according to Clark) that she represented The Gold Bearing Society of El Dorado, with offices in London and Lima, capitalised at $175,000 is an absurd invention. Thus, still an enjoyable book but, due to these doubts, downgraded by one star by this reviewer!… (mehr)

The world was rumbling with discontent in 1934. Fascism was on the march and Japan was making a military land grab against a weakened Chinese empire. Nobody with any common sense went wandering around South East Asia alone unless they were looking for trouble. Which is exactly what young Leonard Clark (1908 - 1957), one of the greatest adventure travel writers of the early 20th century, thrived on. Clark's later life included leading a mounted group of guerrillas into Tibet and organizing a spy ring against the Japanese Imperial army, before he eventually died in a Venezuelan jungle looking for diamonds. But this some-time aviator, full-time risk-taker, got his start in the jungles and battle fields of 1930s Asia. And while his later travel accounts are better known, "A Wanderer Till I Die" is the book that sets the pace for Clark's event-filled life. Though only twenty-six when the story opens, he's already armed with a keen eye, a sense of humour, no regrets and his trusty Colt 45 pistol. Clark delights in telling his readers how he outsmarts warlords, avoids executioners, gambles with renegades and hangs out with an up and coming Communist leader named Mao Tse Tung. In a world with lax passport control, no airlines, and few rules, the young man from San Francisco floats effortlessly from one adventure to the next. When he's not drinking whiskey at the Raffles Hotel or listening to the "St. Louis Blues" on the phonograph in the jungle, he's searching for Malaysian treasure, being captured by Toradja head-hunters, interrogated by Japanese intelligence officers and lured into shady deals by European gun-runners. But he always comes out smiling, if still broke. For that's the charm of A Wanderer Till I Die. Clark takes you on a tour of Asia, the "land of sweet sadness," and doesn't apologise for his views or actions. His lifestyle, like the world he inhabited, is a thing of the past. But if you crave the vicarious thrill of hunting tigers with a faulty rifle, or if you've ever fantasised about offering your services as a mercenary pilot to a warlord, only to discover that the man interviewing you is the wrong general, then this is the book for you. Amply illustrated, "A Wanderer Till I Die" leads you down the road to adventure with a man for whom no danger was too great to entice him to risk his life again and again.… (mehr)

Leonard Clark decides to gamble. He takes the small amount of money he has and goes to South America, to find away down the eastern side of the Andes to the Amazon river where he has a questionable old map he hopes will lead him to the forgotten seven cities of gold and El Dorado. His cover story is research on native people's medicines. With two companions, Jorge and Inez, intermittently at his side, he talks his way out of one scrape after another, escaping from angry headhunting natives, meeting with isolated missionaries, and slavers. He manages not to be killed by crocodiles, snakes, jaguars, or any of the million stinging and biting insects. He doesn't drown or starve or get malaria. By the end of the book, whether he finds the gold or not, one hardly cares.… (mehr)