Synopses & Reviews
Although he is best known for his luminous reports from the farthest-flung corners of the earth, Bruce Chatwin possessed a literary sensibility that reached beyond the travel narrative to span a world of topics—from art and antiques to archaeology and architecture. This spirited collection of previously neglected or unpublished essays, articles, short stories, travel sketches, and criticism represents every aspect and period of Chatwin’s career as it reveals an abiding theme in his work: his fascination with, and hunger for, the peripatetic existence. While Chatwin’s poignant search for a suitable place to “hang his hat,” his compelling arguments for the nomadic “alternative,” his revealing fictional accounts of exile and the exotic, and his wickedly en pointe social history of Capri prove him to be an excellent observer of social and cultural mores, Chatwin’s own restlessness, his yearning to be on the move, glimmers beneath every surface of this dazzling body of work.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 193-204).
About the Author
Bruce Chatwin (1940-1989) was the author of In Patagonia, The Viceroy of Ouidah, On the Black Hill, The Songlines, and Utz. His other books are What Am I Doing Here and Anatomy of Restlessness, posthumous anthologies of shorter works, and Far Journeys, a collection of his photographs that also includes selections from his travel notebooks.
Table of Contents
Horreur du domicile: I always wanted to go to Patagonia -- A place to hang your hat -- A tower in Tuscany -- Gone to Timbuctoo -- Stories: Milk -- The attractions of France -- The estate of Maximilian Tod -- Bedouins -- The nomadic alternative: Letter to Tom Maschler -- The nomadic alternative -- It's a nomad nomad world -- Reviews: Abel the nomad -- The anarchists of Patagonia -- The road to the Isles -- Variations on an idâee fixe -- Art and the image-breaker: Among the ruins -- The morality of things.