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3.45 AVERAGE
3.45 AVERAGE
There were so many little stories in this book that did not necessarily tie together that I found myself lost quite a bit. It was interesting enough but it felt too disjointed to me.
Patagonia defies definition. It sits at the very end of a continent, nudges into the tumultuous Southern ocean, covers two countries and is a place of enigmas. It was a place that Brue Chatwin had longed to visit for years after seeing a piece of 'brontosaurus' in his grandparent's curiosity cabinet. It wasn't a piece of a dinosaur, but another part of an extinct animal that had been found in Patagonia.
The memory of it lived on in Chatwin's imagination and was the spark that made him give up his job and head out there in 1974. The six months that he spent there, become this book. It is not about the landscape or the countries, rather Chatwin spends his time there meeting people, finding out about them and then following the gossamer threads of their lives from place to place and backwards and forwards in time.
To be honest, this wasn't quite what I was expecting. It is often disjointed, it has some very short chapters, people only briefly appear in the narrative, before he heads off to the next location and snapshot of another life. And yet it is a wonderful piece of writing. Even though it is not about the place per se, Patagonia fully permeates the writing, you have a sense of the barrenness of the desert, the relentless wind off Tierra del Fuego, places that have attracted people from all over the world in search of the nomadic existence. He traces the characters backwards and forwards across this land but reveals as much about himself in his writing. Will try to get to Songlines a bit sooner than this now I have found a copy.
The memory of it lived on in Chatwin's imagination and was the spark that made him give up his job and head out there in 1974. The six months that he spent there, become this book. It is not about the landscape or the countries, rather Chatwin spends his time there meeting people, finding out about them and then following the gossamer threads of their lives from place to place and backwards and forwards in time.
To be honest, this wasn't quite what I was expecting. It is often disjointed, it has some very short chapters, people only briefly appear in the narrative, before he heads off to the next location and snapshot of another life. And yet it is a wonderful piece of writing. Even though it is not about the place per se, Patagonia fully permeates the writing, you have a sense of the barrenness of the desert, the relentless wind off Tierra del Fuego, places that have attracted people from all over the world in search of the nomadic existence. He traces the characters backwards and forwards across this land but reveals as much about himself in his writing. Will try to get to Songlines a bit sooner than this now I have found a copy.
Historiallista toikkarointia pitkin Patagoniaa, hieman hidastempoisesti etenevä.
Missionary position: Bruce Chatwin’s writing may have broken new ground for travelogue (I rarely care for this sort of sweeping assertion) but it’s the scope and humanity of it that’s so impressive. A multitude of vignettes building layer upon layer, like something archeological.
The English and imperialism don’t come out of it terribly well; neither does organised religion in combination with them. There’s Thomas Bridges who “had the ear and patience” to learn native people’s language and wrote a dictionary of it which at 30,000 words when he died hadn’t “begun to exhaust the reserves of their expression,” his efforts hampered by a desire to proselytise combined with that he was “intolerant of [their] superstition and never tried to understand it.” I wonder about certain politicians who claim a bland benignity for empire and colonisation and wonder if they’ve ever actually read anything, and if they have, whether they understood it.
On the plus side there’s the capable and energetic sea captain Charlie Milward, the sort of migrant even the right wing likes, as well as tales of the real Butch and Sundance, and the unfortunate Simón Radovitsky, a red haired boy from Kyiv who becomes almost accidentally the leader of Patagonia’s red rebels, ending up much fêted but something of a let down to his anarchist admirers, “a puzzled, mild-mannered man, with beetling brows…who didn’t know where to put his hands.” One is reminded of Mr Corbyn.
Chatwin, an ambiguous character whose life was cut way too short by bloody HIV, left a small but hugely influential body of work mostly around trying to answer the question of why people move around when they could stay still. In Patagonia gives some pretty open clues.
The English and imperialism don’t come out of it terribly well; neither does organised religion in combination with them. There’s Thomas Bridges who “had the ear and patience” to learn native people’s language and wrote a dictionary of it which at 30,000 words when he died hadn’t “begun to exhaust the reserves of their expression,” his efforts hampered by a desire to proselytise combined with that he was “intolerant of [their] superstition and never tried to understand it.” I wonder about certain politicians who claim a bland benignity for empire and colonisation and wonder if they’ve ever actually read anything, and if they have, whether they understood it.
On the plus side there’s the capable and energetic sea captain Charlie Milward, the sort of migrant even the right wing likes, as well as tales of the real Butch and Sundance, and the unfortunate Simón Radovitsky, a red haired boy from Kyiv who becomes almost accidentally the leader of Patagonia’s red rebels, ending up much fêted but something of a let down to his anarchist admirers, “a puzzled, mild-mannered man, with beetling brows…who didn’t know where to put his hands.” One is reminded of Mr Corbyn.
Chatwin, an ambiguous character whose life was cut way too short by bloody HIV, left a small but hugely influential body of work mostly around trying to answer the question of why people move around when they could stay still. In Patagonia gives some pretty open clues.
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Forced myself to finish this book. The book starts out with a rambling, skipping history of Argentina, dipping into popular lore to talk about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. From there, it dips into short anecdote after anecdote, divided up roughly by chapters, chronicling the narrator's trip through Argentina to find remains of a great giant sloth that made the papers around the turn of the 20th century.
You've got 3 interesting possible subjects:
1. The history of outlaws fleeing to Argentina, from bank robbers to Nazis fleeing at the end of WWII.
2. The story of the giant creatures that roamed South America before the last ice age, and the hunt for their remains.
3. The story of the indigenous people there, and their relation to the European settlers who came later.
While all 3 of these are mentioned in the book, none is told with any flair, none keep your interest. About a third of the way into the book, I pictured an elderly British gentleman in a dark-paneled shooting club somewhere in his home country, reading out to a crowd of Scotch-swilling cronies from his diary, paradoxically in the 1900s, which is the colonial voice this is written in. The book made a lot more sense then. The author brings up just about every stereotype a colonialist has ever come up with, and peppers his book with wonderful words like "peon" to refer to any native worker - which is actually the word they used for indentured, usually indigenous, laborers they used in South America. By the time this book was written, Britain and most western nations had given up their colonies, however the author doesn't seem to know it.
Even if one takes no exception with the author's politics, the writing itself is dry, formless, and - there's no other word for it - boring. I am frankly surprised it has gotten a positive review from anyone. At no point did the author's description bring images flashing to mind. It's Argentina, man! It's not hard!
You've got 3 interesting possible subjects:
1. The history of outlaws fleeing to Argentina, from bank robbers to Nazis fleeing at the end of WWII.
2. The story of the giant creatures that roamed South America before the last ice age, and the hunt for their remains.
3. The story of the indigenous people there, and their relation to the European settlers who came later.
While all 3 of these are mentioned in the book, none is told with any flair, none keep your interest. About a third of the way into the book, I pictured an elderly British gentleman in a dark-paneled shooting club somewhere in his home country, reading out to a crowd of Scotch-swilling cronies from his diary, paradoxically in the 1900s, which is the colonial voice this is written in. The book made a lot more sense then. The author brings up just about every stereotype a colonialist has ever come up with, and peppers his book with wonderful words like "peon" to refer to any native worker - which is actually the word they used for indentured, usually indigenous, laborers they used in South America. By the time this book was written, Britain and most western nations had given up their colonies, however the author doesn't seem to know it.
Even if one takes no exception with the author's politics, the writing itself is dry, formless, and - there's no other word for it - boring. I am frankly surprised it has gotten a positive review from anyone. At no point did the author's description bring images flashing to mind. It's Argentina, man! It's not hard!
I love the travel writing genre, and Chatwin is someone who has inspired a generation of travel writers (many of whom I love reading). Yet I have been avoiding him for some time because of the problematic nature of his writing. He's been credibly accused of fabulism and literary-colonialism. These, I agree, are problematic.
I am, however, more sympathetic than many of his critics when it comes to his secrecy surrounding his sexual proclivities and his silence about his HIV status.
Deciding to look at Chatwin as a product of his times I finally got down to reading him. I can now understand why he inspired a generation of writers. His erudition is awe inspiring.
I am, however, more sympathetic than many of his critics when it comes to his secrecy surrounding his sexual proclivities and his silence about his HIV status.
Deciding to look at Chatwin as a product of his times I finally got down to reading him. I can now understand why he inspired a generation of writers. His erudition is awe inspiring.
This was a fun, challenging read. Keep a dictionary handy! It’s written in short connected mini-chapters that come full circle but a wide circle of adventure and personalities and geography. I particularly enjoyed the short pieces about Lucas Bridges.
Suffering from emotional bumps and bruises I needed a holiday. My brother Tim sent me a voucher so that I could fly to San Francisco for free. I was grateful.
It was cold and gray but I was in San Francisco. One afternoon I found myself footsore and starving. I was heading towards a BART stop when I saw a Thai restaurant on the other side of the street. I trekked up a block, crossed the street and discovered a book shop. Ducking in, I was pleased with their selection. I bought In Patagonia and went down the block to the Thai restauant. Ordering a half liter of house red and pad thai with tofu I opened the book. My food was cold before I put the book down. I chugged the wine and gnoshed as best I could. I hurried to catch my train. Flushed from the wine and my sprint. I opened the book again, when a man seated across asked me if Chatwin was Australian. I told him I didn't think so but he wrote abook about the Outback titled Songlines. The man smiled. His name was Michel and that he was from France and was in California on holiday. His right hand was in a cast. We shook left hands and wished each other good travels.
It was cold and gray but I was in San Francisco. One afternoon I found myself footsore and starving. I was heading towards a BART stop when I saw a Thai restaurant on the other side of the street. I trekked up a block, crossed the street and discovered a book shop. Ducking in, I was pleased with their selection. I bought In Patagonia and went down the block to the Thai restauant. Ordering a half liter of house red and pad thai with tofu I opened the book. My food was cold before I put the book down. I chugged the wine and gnoshed as best I could. I hurried to catch my train. Flushed from the wine and my sprint. I opened the book again, when a man seated across asked me if Chatwin was Australian. I told him I didn't think so but he wrote abook about the Outback titled Songlines. The man smiled. His name was Michel and that he was from France and was in California on holiday. His right hand was in a cast. We shook left hands and wished each other good travels.