When one thinks of the Amazon there’s a sense and imagination of wildness, adventure, and thrill resonating with the beast of the jungle in the South Americas…It was to my great surprise then that when I bumped into Alex de Bryun, who happened to be at a recent book launch event I was attending, I heard with fascination and intrigue about his story of escaping from the French Foreign Legion while being based in the Amazon, an unusual story for modern times. It’s no surprise such an adventure has been told by de Bruyn in his book Escaping the Amazon.
When an author writes on their autobiography, memoir or life based event, there’s a tendency to not always be raw and honest in certain aspects for fear of some form of reprisal or rejection by certain sections of society connected with the author. Refreshingly, de Bruyn reflects on his time and journey with the French Foreign Legion with great honesty, and at times brutal depiction of the testing moments and tribulations he went through, especially in the rough terrains of the Amazon.
Having heard countless stories related to global armies and conflict, there’s always a sense of the discipline and pride of men such stories represent. De Bruyn reveals with detail how his own pride was significant, especially in times when he was tested and needed to persevere. There’s an emotional revealing of how this pride was well entrenched from his time growing up in an upper middle class South African white family, especially during the dark years of Apartheid.
While being part of an army can reveal a man’s toughness and grit, interestingly there are many passages where de Bruyn connects dangerous or fatal moments with reverence to his spirituality and divine path. These passages reveal his human connection to the Divine, even in moments of great adventure, mystery, fear, and rejection all happening in conjunction with each other; this revealing is an indication of de Bruyn’s own inquest to see the Divine plan in his journey, rather than getting entrenched in fear and dismay.
There are moments in the book when the pace of the story appears to slow down, but this is because de Bruyn goes into great detail, especially in carefully revealing the inner processes of the French Legion and how these are interconnected to different sub plots during his escape. Such detailed description helps normal civilians understand what the French Legion represented and why it would have been an arduous and dangerous task for de Bruyn to attempt such an escape; it reveals to an extent why coming out of it is a rare heroic success.
Stories like de Bryun’s can often lead into grandiose conclusions because of the heroic attributes but de Bruyn takes an alternative view, revealing how he felt his escape had a deeper meaning in the bigger scheme of his life and spiritual path, and so the ending of the book has a straightforward depiction of how de Bruyn saw the bigger scheme of his life after the escape.
In conclusion, Escaping the Amazon is written with a rare honesty and descriptive detail, revealing how spirituality and perseverance can take Man out of even the most fatal and life threatening situations, helping an individual grow for the betterment of society. A great read revealing one man’s desire to come out of even the most terrible and unpromising life situations.
Rating: 4 out of 5
All rights reserved – Copyright Siddharth Bawa 2019
A good review that makes you want to read the book especially since the Amazon & The French Foreign Legion are not topics that one reads much about.