Customer Reviews

In Patagonia

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a wonderful collection of tall tales, fiction, fact and bizarre anecdotes, loosely connected by their association with a sparsely populated part of South America. Unfortunately critics and publishers in their obsessive need to categorise books, called it a Travel Book. This was misleading, as are the claims that he reinvented travel writing or had some sort of unique insight into Patagonia, its people, history and landscape. Chatwin was primarily a storyteller, not a travel writer or an expert on Southern Argentina. His talent for the 5-6 page yarn is unparalleled in modern literature and this is as good as anything he wrote.

Reviews of Bruce Chatwin's "In Patagonia" tend to gush emotionally about Chatwin's spare verse and quirky sketches of colorful characters. Others have claimed to have used his book as a guide while living in Patagonia. As much as Chatwin's now-famous travelogue offers pleasant reading, it still pales in comparison to other Patagonian travel books, including "Edward Chace, A Yankee in Patagonia." Chatwin also liberally hijacked ideas straight from previous authors, who made his journey and investigated the same people and subjects a full four or five decades before the publication of "In Patagonia." What's more, the locals down there (and a Ph.D candidate in Patagonia history I met on my journeys) hate Chatwin, claiming he was sloppy with his facts about their relatives. Chatwin's name in Patagonia is as popular as General Sherman's in Atlanta. So don't get overwhelmed by the Chatwin hype. Browse the Patagonian classics you'll find on most library shelves first, then reread this so-called masterpiece. Comparative shopping is worth the effort here.

How many children become adults fulfilling a childhood dream by visiting remote places?
Bruce Chatwin, driven by memories of his grandfather's strange artifact, takes us with him to
the farthest reaches of South America. His travels in that mysterious realm result in this
masterfully done account of journeys in Patagonia - southern Argentina and Chile. It's not an
exaggeration to praise this work as the first to supplement Darwin's. Both sought fossils,
although Chatwin's pursuit is rather more specific. Both described the land, the people and
events in the most captivating and readable manner. A rare treasure in travel literature, this
book is a timeless treasure.

Patagonia has been a haven for many European nationalities besides the Spanish. British,
Welsh, Scots and the Germans have found refuge and opportunities here. Chatwin
encounters a wide spectrum of the inhabitants. By touring on foot, bus and horse, as well as
obtaining the occasional lift, he is able to garner intense impressions. Lacing the account of
what he observes with numerous piquant historical side notes, he imparts the place along
with the spirit of the residents. The history varies as the land itself. Rising from the Atlantic
across a vast plain until reaching the rising slopes of the "back" of the Andes, Patagonia offers
incredible vistas and diversity. Decades of building immense rancheros and farms have been
punctuated by social and political upheavals. Chatwin recounts the lives of many of the
rebels and how they impacted the pampas scene. His literary capacity seems as vast as the
territory. We even encounter The Ancient Mariner. There are no dull moments in this book.

Chatwin's presents a more knowledgeable view in discussing aboriginal people than that of
most travel writers. There's nothing patronizing in his tone as he tries to address their plight.
"Tries to" because European intrusion has left so little for researchers of indigenous cultures to
address. He cites the expressive terms in the Yamana language to point out how culturally
inept the colonizing powers have been. We learn to use the term "primitive" with caution.
Millennia of residence gained the original peoples skills the Europeans disparaged, often to
their regret. It's becoming a familiar story, made sadder at the realization the loss of cultures
swept away by colonization.

At the end, his original quest brings him to a cave visited by Charley Milward, wrecked ship's
captain. He cannot replace the artifact Milward left in Chatwin's grandmother's house, but
there is other compensation. That the quest isn't a failure adds further lustre to an incredible
journey. But what Chatwin has gained is as nothing compared to what he's given us. This
book will remain a classic for years to come.

Often deemed 'a classic' of travel literature, Bruce Chatwin's claim to fame, 'In Patagonia,' defies classification. Anyone looking for a straightforward account of Southern Argentina and Chile would best be advised to check elsewhere. But those who hunger for literary experiences that enchant, engage and fascinate without end, pick up this book ASAP!

As an ardent Chatwinophile, I expected to be bowled over with rich prose and endless mountains of the most esoteric information, the standard Chatwin fare. I wasn't disappointed. 'In Patagonia' is a brilliant hodge-podge of history, anthropology, ethnography and good old-fashioned yarn-spinning. And if anybody can tell a story, Chatwin is the one. Each page overflows with gripping descriptions of the strange mixture of peoples who make up this forgotten land. You're led through communities of Welsh Methodists, Lithuanian eccentrics and Spanish anarchists, all exiles to this bleak land of sagebrush and glaciers. Chatwin's clean and sparing style 'paints' each character, each anecdote with sharp, jarring colors. Your imagination is thrown into overdrive as each story jumps off the page and buries itself in your mind. Glacial winds chafe the face, the din of a thousand penguins deafens and the bitter smile of the Patagonian exile tugs at the heart.

Chatwin's style was his genius and his downfall. As was said of Emerson, Chatwin 'doesn't give the reader enough to chew on.' Sparse, clear and always adorned with odd facts and exotic images, Chatwin's sentences are those of the journalist turned artist. The sheer volume of fact and anecdote threatens to swallow the reader up...detailed diary accounts of Darwin's voyage...eyewitness renderings of Butch Cassidy's exile days...an intricate explanation of the local Yamana tribe's linguistic world...How to make sense of it all and complete the picture of Patagonia and its people? Difficult work at best. You are thrown so much and from so many angles, it's best to just sit back and simply be overwhelmed. So, arm-chair travellers and connoisseurs of fine prose, follow this nomad of nomads into an amazing world of stark beauty and even starker lives.

IN PATAGONIA is, simply put, two hundred pages of crisp, elegant, and enjoyable prose. This is a rare thing. This book is not a travel guide a la Fodor's nor is it a piece of journalism. Some of the reviewers below hold this against Mr. Chatwin. I suspect most potential readers will not.

I was browsing the shelves of the travel section of a large bookshop recently. 'In Patagonia' appealed to me for three reasons. Firstly, I am planning a long trip to South America and am keen to read any writing covering that area. Secondly, I was captivated by Paul Theroux's comment on the back cover of the Vintage edition that Bruce Chatwin has found a remote place 'like the Land where the Jubmlies live'. I love eccentric people and places. Thirdly, I was intrigued by the pictures in the centre of the book - a corrugated iron hut on wheels, a run down station in the middle of nowhere, a set of hand prints on a cave wall and other peculiar and whimsical images relating to the places Chatwin visited on his travels and the stories he collected on the way. For these reasons, I had to read it.
What emerges is an extraordinary chronicle of the nomadic wanderings of Chatwin during his six month trip to Patagonia (he quit his job at the Sunday Times in order to go there). He begins by describing how he was curious to find out more about a curious beast, of which his grandmother had a fragment of skin, but soon becomes waylaid by a bizzarre succession of people and stories that build upon each other as the book progresses like a ramshackle house of cards.

It is the stories that form the essence of the book. There is description of the geography and physical characteristics of the region but only in brief passages as a setting to another piece of Patagonian folklore. Chatwin clearly has an ear for a good story and an almost dilletante, enquiring mind. Also, in the manner of a skilled raconteur, he is frequently economical with the truth in order to include his own even better facts. Thus the book is a fascinating conglomerate of part travel writing, part sociology, part history, part anthropology and part fiction.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reaing quirky, original and imaginative travel writing.

I have read and re-read this book many times and find Chatwin's writing both lyrical and staccato in style. His short sharp chapters are rather like dots on a giant dot-to-dot canvas that he never joins up....he's deliberately teasing us by leaving out detail and prompting your own imagination to fill in the blanks on his Patagonian canvas. But the real heart of the book is Chatwin's encounters with both ordinary and extraordinary people who have made the "Southern Most" part of the world their home. I particularly enjoy his use of colors in his description of people and his boyish passion for adventures and heroes. This is not a travel book in the true sense of the genre, however, through each encounter with a new person you can begin to feel for yourself through their own stories the isolation,the landscapes and the adventures waiting for you in this remote part of the world. If you want to understand Chatwin as an artist get hold of a copy of his book of photographs and notebooks and you begin to understand that "In Patogonia" is really a series of 'portraits" hanging in a gallery rather then a travel book.

Depending on what you look for in a "travel" book you may or may not like this. If you're looking for history, natural history, or political developments, this is not the book for you. It is not comprehensive in any way.

If you're looking for entertaining reading set in an interesting location with snippets of odd information this book would be entertaining. Of travel authors I have read, this author most closely resembles Theroux, but without the curmudgeonly judging. Like Theroux, his facts may or may not be correct but he doesn't claim to be writing a textbook, just some stuff that happened to him in this place.

Mercifully, Chatwin spares us deep philosphical introspections so prevalent in much modern "travel" writing.

I read it and enjoyed it and recommend it.

Being Patagonia a huge extension of land, everyone expects that it's a vast and complex subject to write about. Reading this book made me feel that, in a certain moment, there'd be a shocking experience or kind of "revelation" for the author. But, as the chapters ran, I got somewhat frustrated and felt that, despiting his skills as a writer, Bruce didn't really try to deepen himself on the mysteries of the region, remaining in the surface of some sparses topics, like go in search of Butch Cassidy & Sundance Kid's steps there, sheep raisers, etc... Anyway, it still had a story good enough to encourage me to take my car and drive some 7.500 Km from home and know Patagonia. I expect to write a further review after completing this trip (mid-March).

When a book lacks tension and features extensive quoting, it's bound to be boring. This book is boring, and the main reason is that it lacks a narrative thread, other than "been there, saw somebody, told me a long and winding story about somebody who was here some day". All trips are inner trips, but in this case I would say Chatwin looked inside himself, found not a lot, and decided instead to cut and paste from old stories from down south.