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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
adventurous
informative
reflective
slow-paced
First of all, I read this book in Spanish, which means that an horrible translation is possible, but I doubt so since the book was actually full with really specific and almost forgotten words.
Second, it was my first "travel novel", and I feel completely disappointed, I was expecting a more real characters, but found really flat and artificial conversations and thoughts. Too many moments were crearly artificially to amuse, and that's okay when you do it correctly. But in not a single moment this novel felt real. The descriptions of the places and the structure were quite poor too. The only thing I enjoyed was the information about the aborigins culture, and it seems probably that part of it was modified too.
To resume, I bought it looking for a real story, but the felling left was just of a bad book, too much lower than the average books I'm used to read, clearly unreal, with a narrative style that it's not good enough to compensate its fails. It's been a long time since I thought about leaving a book unfinished.
Second, it was my first "travel novel", and I feel completely disappointed, I was expecting a more real characters, but found really flat and artificial conversations and thoughts. Too many moments were crearly artificially to amuse, and that's okay when you do it correctly. But in not a single moment this novel felt real. The descriptions of the places and the structure were quite poor too. The only thing I enjoyed was the information about the aborigins culture, and it seems probably that part of it was modified too.
To resume, I bought it looking for a real story, but the felling left was just of a bad book, too much lower than the average books I'm used to read, clearly unreal, with a narrative style that it's not good enough to compensate its fails. It's been a long time since I thought about leaving a book unfinished.
https://cdnbookworm.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-songlines.html
This is my first Bruce Chatwin book and my first about aboriginal Australians. It is a travelogue written in first person. It is a collection of the author's experiences and reflections. I found it simple to read, each chapter is an incident. They are not necessarily chronological or follow any sequence, and because of this I found it easy to read. I liked the characters he describes and the concept of 'songlines' is fascinating. There are excerpts from his previous travel notebooks which are unconnected to the main narrative, I found them interesting even though they are sprinkled across the book in random fashion. I went into this with no expectations and enjoyed the reading experience, hence the 4 stars.
I'm not sure what I make of this. The travelogue is is interesting, and his short pen-portraits of some of the characters he meets are remarkably concise and revealing at the same time - like a good cartoon - but I got annoyed by the reams of material from the notebooks. They were like all the ideas and evidence for a thesis which he'd begun to put into order but never quite got round to articulating clearly - almost as if he wasn't quite prepared to stand up for it, wouldn't be willing to undergo a viva to defend it and risk being proved wrong or derivative. Even though this isn't academia and the random quotations and fragmented thoughts are collated into some sort of order, and that order is dictated by an intriguing train of thought, I wonder how many people would be able to get such work past a commissioning editor. Especially when, as he points out when reporting discussions he has had with those famous-in-their-field, not all of the ideas are original. I suppose, what I'm saying is that, much though I enjoyed large parts of the book, I felt cheated.
I had to smile when I reached the now famous lament for the notebook in which version one of this review was written. If, as the current manufacturers claim, his rushing round Paris only to be told 'le vrai moleskine n'est plus' inspired them to resurrect this particular variety of little black book, then I am forever in his debt and probably ought to show my thanks with a more generous review. If it's any consolation Bruce, it's a 7/10 sort of 3/5.
I had to smile when I reached the now famous lament for the notebook in which version one of this review was written. If, as the current manufacturers claim, his rushing round Paris only to be told 'le vrai moleskine n'est plus' inspired them to resurrect this particular variety of little black book, then I am forever in his debt and probably ought to show my thanks with a more generous review. If it's any consolation Bruce, it's a 7/10 sort of 3/5.
A compelling read, but it did feel a bit meandering in parts, particularly in regards to the notebook extracts. The ideas about the human compulsion to travel and nomadism were interesting, but the argument did feel a little contrived. The stuff about the Australian desert and people, also at times felt a little contrived, or at least, not quite trustworthy, but, nevertheless, a very good read. One of those books I meant to read years ago, but never quite got around too it.
Got to page 144 and moved on with my life. Enjoyable, but this was (as I find much ravel writing) neither thrilling nor life-affirming. Some bright descriptions and dialogue of characters, but these punctuated a slow drive across parts of Australia. The tension never reached a high or low. A pottering piece and dull.
I couldn't finish this book. It was so slow! Some okay descriptions of Australia but mostly made little sense (even though I'm sure the format was supposed to mimic Songlines in some meta way, etc) and in general, meh.
2.5 stars. Okay as a memoir. I didn't need to hear his 'scientific theories' though.
This kept reminding me of Jack Weatherford’s Savages and Civilization, which is my handbook on nomads and the city. Both books scattered, personal and flawed, but the testaments of inquiring minds. If you follow nomadology you won’t want to miss them.