Congo Book Report Essay, Research Paper
The book Congo is about a group of people who go to the
African Congo to return a gorilla to her homeland and to find
type IIb blue diamonds. On their journey they discover the
lost city of Zinj and a new species of killer gorillas, which
they must overcome to survive. The story takes place in
June of 1979. The three main characters are: Dr. Karen
Ross, supervisor of Earth Resources Technology Services
(ERTS), Dr. Peter Elliot, a primatologist who trained a
gorilla named Amy to speak by the use of sign language, and
Charles Munro, the guide who leads the expedition through
the Congo. ERTS has already sent an expedition of eight
into the Congo to retrieve type IIb blue diamonds. They are
contacting them back at the base in Houston. The camera in
the expedition?s camp turns on revealing a destroyed campsite: torn tents, supplies and clothing scattered everywhere,
and dead bodies. As the camera moves around scanning the
area, a big gray object runs by the camera and destroys it.
Every at ERTS is in shock. They replay the footage and
freeze it on the big gray object. It looks like a gray gorilla,
but gorillas don?t kill people. Karen Ross decides to take
another expedition into the Congo to get the blue diamonds.
Because of the bewilderment over this incident she contacts
Dr. Elliot to find out what this gorilla is. She tells him that
they?re going to the Congo and he wants to come and bring
Amy, his gorilla. Amy has been experiencing bad dreams
because of her past which is unknown to Dr. Ross. She
begins finger painting, which helps her sleep at ease because
tries to banish the dreams onto paper. Elliot realizes she
wants to go to the jungle because all her paintings are of
it. The expedition leaves quickly because there is a
competing company that is also making its way to the Congo
to get the blue diamonds, which are an amazing source of
energy. The expedition is set to meet Charles Munro; the
best guide there is, to guide them through the Congo. They
discussed business matters and quickly headed to Nairobi.
From Nairobi they took their final plane to go to the Congo.
At that time, a civil war had started in Africa and both sides
were shooting everything, including the expedition?s plane.
Everyone had to take a parachute and jump out of the
plane. This was a major delay in the time the expedition had
to beat the competition to the diamond site. The expedition:
Ross, Elliot, Munro, Amy, and some African men have to
walk the rest of the way to the diamond site. On their way
they encounter many dangers like cannibalistic tribes, angry
hippos, crocodiles, and a volcano ready to burst. As they
are walking through the jungle Ross is informed on her
computer that the competition has already reached the site
and there is no point to continue. Later on they find the
competitions campsite destroyed and all the people are
dead. During their journey they have an encounter with
mountain gorillas. Amy runs of with them because she thinks
the group is mad at her. After all the troubles and danger
they finally arrive at a place to make camp, which turns out
to be the lost city of Zinj which contains the blue diamonds.
They are very excited to have made such a great
archeological discovery and go exploring the city for the rest
of the day. At night they set up and electric fence, sensor
guns, and sensor lasers. This is their first encounter with the
gray killer gorillas. The gorillas showed signs of intelligence
by attacking different parts of the electric fence to get in,
they also wheezed to one another and used hand signals,
which served as a language. The next day while studying
paintings in one of the houses of the city they discovered the
story behind the city. The city has diamond mines under it
and they trained gorillas to be like watchdogs to guard the
mines. These "watchdogs" turned on their masters and now these
killer apes rule the city. The team dug a moat around the
camp because it is known that no gorilla will cross even the
smallest body of water. That night the gorillas came and the
same wheezing noises where heard used a tree trunk as a
bridge over the moat and some of them made a distraction
while others used a stick to lift open the fence and kill some
of the African people. Later the team studied the body of
one of the dead animals. It was a little smaller than a gorilla
and weighed less and its fur color was gray. The next night
the same thing happened: more gorillas slipped in unnoticed,
killed some of the African people, and made a clean exit.
The next day Amy returned to the campsite and told Elliot
that these gray gorillas are bad creatures and that she could
understand them a little. Elliot thought of a plan, he and Amy
went to the lair of these gorillas and focused on one. Amy
would explain to Elliot what each noise meant. By the end of
the day they had down the meaning of a few words. Elliot
made a tape with the words: GO AWAY, NO COME, and
BAD HERE. As the gorillas attacked that night he played
the message and they all left. The plan had worked. The next
day the volcano was ready to blow which meant they had to
leave quickly. On their way a cannibal tribe attacked them.
They managed to escape in a hot air balloon and Amy was
set free and lived with a gorilla troop. Ross got her blue
diamonds and went home happy. I liked the book because
of all the adventure. All the danger they had to go through
was very exciting and suspenseful. I was always waiting to
see what would happen next. It was also fun reading about
how surprisingly intelligent the gray gorillas are. In each
attack they do something smarter and waiting to find out
how the team would overcome them was very exciting. I
recommend this book to adventure loving people who also
want to learn a lot while reading. The book has a lot of "on
the edge of your seat" adventure and suspense and a lot of
educational material about primates, the history of training
animals to talk, and computers among many other things. In
conclusion Congo is a great book that doesn?t let you
become bored and teaches you a lot of interesting facts.