Bruce Chatwin - the best travel writer of his generation

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Chatwin is the only travel writer I reread constantly and always get something new out of it. In Patagonia is (to me) the greatest book I've ever read. Fragements of history and imagination spliced together with endless descriptions of colour. The two collections of travel articles are also amazing.

Am I alone in thinking this?

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Friday, 7 November 2003 14:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Certainly one of the best or at least one of the only ones I can stomach. Too much travel writing is 'ooh aren't foreigners funny'.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 7 November 2003 14:33 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm a sucker for Robert Kaplan myself. 'The Ends of the Earth' is pretty classic

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Friday, 7 November 2003 14:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Am I alone in thinking this? you surely are not, though i couldn't reallly coment - Songlines kinda counts as a travel book and is wonderful. apart from that i have only read the Novels and "What am I Doing Here" I'll definately check out In Patagonia now though. I keep eyeing that biography thats been sitting on my shelf for a few years - i have only dipped into it so far but he definately seems an interesting character.

― jed (jed_e_3), Friday, 7 November 2003 14:36 (twenty-two years ago)

He's a great travel writer, I think he's less successful as a novelist. His hemingway-esque style is maybe too mannered. I didn't actually make it all the way through the Viceroy Of Ouidah and it's only about 100 pages long. A year or so ago I read his biography by Nicholas Shakespeare, definitely recommended.

― Jonathan Z., Friday, 7 November 2003 14:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I've still only read Songlines, which is a surprise considering how long you've been banging on about Mr Chatwin at me for. I may have to remedy that soon.

― chris (chris), Friday, 7 November 2003 14:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I liked the Songlines until 2/3 of the way through when he (Chatwin) stops the narrative and begins his theory of nomads. It doesn't belong there (for me).

I agree with Jonathan that his novels aren't as great as the travel books. Interestingly, Chatwin never considered himself as a travel writer due to the amount of fiction involved in these books (particularaly with Patagonia where he didn't let the facts get in the way of a good story). However, On the Black Hill contains some beautiful descriptions of the main characters and the landscape they live and die in.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Friday, 7 November 2003 14:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I've been reading through the various pieces in What Am I Doing Here?. Some would fall under the rubric of travel writing. I think travel writing is a very difficult style to do well. There is a delicate balancing act between maintaining an "oustider" perspective and trying to get inside the local culture that is being visited. It's very easy for a travel writer to come across as condescending or ignorant ("check out these weird foreigners"), but at the same time, if you write as a native, then it's not travel writing is it? So you have to establish a valid perspective as an outsider - one that maintains distance while at the same time acknowledging on some level it's limited understanding.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 7 November 2003 16:05 (twenty-two years ago)

it's actually called "what Am I Doing Here" without the ? - im not being a pedantic ass, i just think thats interesting and wonder why...

― jed (jed_e_3), Friday, 7 November 2003 16:15 (twenty-two years ago)

what is travel writing, exactly? does it depend on the form/method (luxury, no-frills, bipedal, backpack, ultralight, vehicle, animal), object (light amuseument, adventure, quest, amateur/journalistic/academic sociology/history/political science/anthropology), or destination (continent, urbann v. rural v. wild, street v. road v. off-road, know-where-when-we-get-there) of travel? the style of writing (non-fiction/essays/fiction/poetics)? does it mean different things to Brits and Americans? and am I to assume that you're unfamiliar with Barry Lopez?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 7 November 2003 16:23 (twenty-two years ago)

What Am I Doing Here is a quote from Rimbaud when he first set foot in Ethiopia (or Absynnia as then).

There's another collection of Chatwin's called Anatomy of Restlesness. Some beautiful short articles alongside interviews and notes.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Friday, 7 November 2003 16:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I loved In Patagonia, and I'm not so keen on travel writing in general. This book is just so different from every other "travel" book I've read. The passages themselves didn't make so much of an impression on me as did the collection of them as a whole, which left me tingly and haunted-feeling.

― quincie, Friday, 7 November 2003 16:31 (twenty-two years ago)

There are many people who were portrayed in that book who feel that Chatwin did them a disservice. The Welsh community were the most vociferous claiming Cahtwin charmed his way into their lives and then summed them up in a a paragraph or two.

Whatever the interpretation, the Welsh villages became tourist destinations in the years following the publication of In Patagonia. The proliferation of Welsh tea houses suggests most of the villagers welcome this income with open arms.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Friday, 7 November 2003 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

gabneb, is Barry Lopez the River notes guy?

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Friday, 7 November 2003 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

wow! (yes; River Notes is pretty good, Desert Notes even better)

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 7 November 2003 20:21 (twenty-two years ago)

five months pass...

I just found an old issue of Granta with an interesting essay Paul Theroux wrote about Chatwin a year or so after he died. Though he and Theroux were friends, the description isn't exactly positive (Theroux in unflattering biographical memoir shocker!), but colors some of Chatwin's writing in a different light (not that I've read much other than pieces of What Am I Doing Here?).

― C0L1N B3CK3TT (Colin Beckett), Sunday, 25 April 2004 14:27 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.rampantscotland.com/famous/graphics/smollet_tobias1b.jpg

far better

― Skottie, Monday, 26 April 2004 01:31 (twenty-one years ago)

fifteen years pass...

Excellent Werner Herzog written and directed documentary about Bruce Chatwin on the iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008rqv

― Life is a meaningless nightmare of suffering...save string (Chinaski), Monday, 23 September 2019 13:01 (six years ago)

This was on BBC on Saturday night.

― Let them eat Pfifferlinge an Schneckensauce (Tom D.), Monday, 23 September 2019 13:07 (six years ago)

What did you think? I guess it was a little hagiographic and oddly edited in places but ravishing all the same.

― Life is a meaningless nightmare of suffering...save string (Chinaski), Monday, 23 September 2019 13:19 (six years ago)

I'm more interested in Werner Herzog than Bruce Chatwin, I suppose, which is convenient as his documentaries are often about him, in reality.

― Let them eat Pfifferlinge an Schneckensauce (Tom D.), Monday, 23 September 2019 14:16 (six years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.