Bruce Chatwin—author of In Patagonia—ventures into the desolate land of Outback Australia to learn the meaning of the Aborginals' ancient "Dreaming-tracks." Along these timeless paths, amongst the fortune hunters and redneck Australians, racist policemen and mysterious Aboriginal holy men, he discovers a wondrous vision of man's place in the world.
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The late Bruce Chatwin carved out a literary career as unique as any writer's in this century: his books included In Patagonia, a fabulist travel narrative, The Viceroy of Ouidah, a mock-historical tale of a Brazilian slave-trader in 19th century Africa, and The Songlines, his beautiful, elegiac, comic account of following the invisible pathways traced by the Australian aborigines. Chatwin was nothing if not erudite, and the vast, eclectic body of literature that underlies this tale of trekking across the outback gives it a resonance found in few other recent travel books. A poignancy, as well, since Chatwin's untimely death made The Songlines one of his last books.
From Publishers Weekly
PW praised Chatwin's "entertaining" and "resonant" reflections on the distinctions between settled people and wanderers, and between human aggression and pacifism, as he searches central Australia for the pathways along which aborigines travel to perform their cultural activities.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
Bruce Chatwin reinvented British travel writing with his first book, In Patagonia, and followed it with many travel books and novels, each unique and extraordinary. He died in 1989.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
96 of 99 people found the following review helpful
By Greg Flynn
Format:Paperback
Dying of AIDS and with Salman Rushdie, Bruce Chatwin made a lightning visit to Australia. The Songlines is the fascinating result of this terminal search for meaning.
The good points are that Chatwin's considerable intellect and narrative capacities weave a story based on year's travel experience. The bad point is that he knew almost nothing about his subject and as such has written an Englishman's compassionate contemporary account of the colonies.
I live and work on a remote aboriginal community near the areas Chatwin visited. Traditional Aborignal law is an amazingly complex oral culture so rich in history and symbolism that I have profound doubts about any whitefella ever properly understanding it, let alone a visiting foreigner desperately looking for something.
This is a great book, but don't think by reading it you will get a terrifically accurate profile of what being an aborigine is, whatever that means. They are not, as Chatwin seems to deduce, another group of nomadic noble savages more fulfilled than the more sedentary post-agriculture communitites.
68 of 71 people found the following review helpful
By Carper
Format:Paperback
This is a difficult book to describe: it masquerades as a Theroux style travelogue, but is anything but. I love Paul Theroux, but this totally transcends his travel writing. Chatwin starts out describing a trip to the Australian Outback. It starts out pretty conventional, in beautiful descriptive prose...but before too long you realize you are actually reading Chatwin's brilliant ruminations about the human race as a species, where we came from, and where we are going. The book is NOT really about the Aborigines, though they provide a number of terrific characters, and I suspect someone who really wanted to know more about the actual Songlines could be disappointed by this book. He very clearly sets up his own views against those of many important and popular thinkers. To sum it up, he makes a case that humans are not really an aggressive species at heart, and that evolution has not really programmed the human to fight for power but to defend the tribe. Not every will agree with this, but he makes a wonderful case and the book is beautiful and crystalline and should be read by everyone.
36 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
William James said that to "learn the secrets of any science, we go to expert specialists, even though they may be eccentric persons, and not to commonplace pupils." It seems, Bruce Chatwin used the same method to shed light on what for him was the question of questions: the nature of human restlessness.
The Songlines consists of the stories of the eccentric experts in the science of restlessness Chatwin met in Western Australia, and notebook entries ranging from Blaise Pascal's philosophical reflections to a meeting with Konrad Lorenz in Austria. Chatwin had originally intended to use these notebook entries for a book on nomads. He gave up the project but the entries reveal the man and his quest.
In a way, The Songlines is Chatwin's own songline: a track which tells of what he found on his wanderings, and what he considered worth singing.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
a wizard in Oz
You can never tell with Bruce Chatwin what actually happened, what he made up, or why he did so. But in every case, you're going to wind up with an eminently readable book full of... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Robert S. Newman
5.0 out of 5 stars
MY KIND OF BOOK
I REALLY ENJOYED THE SONGLINES THEY SANG ME INTO THE BOOK AND JUST TOOK ME AWAY. IT MADE ME SMELL AND TASTE THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE AND THE LIVES THAT THEY LED.
Published 2 months ago by LEE
4.0 out of 5 stars
Recommended by Jimmy Buffett
I picked this book up because it's on Jimmy Buffett's list of ten books that he'd like to be stranded with. So far, so good. Excellent choice, Jimmy.
Published 2 months ago by BGum
2.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting travel through Australia
One learns a lot about the history of the Songlines and what they mean to the natives. This was a book in a book group to which I belong. I would not have read it otherwise.
Published 2 months ago by stephen
5.0 out of 5 stars
I could hardly put this book down!
Well written, interesting subject. What more can you ask. I could hardly put it down.
Anyone interested in Australin Aborigine culture should read it.
Anyone interested in Australin Aborigine culture should read it.
Published 3 months ago by Nancy Anderson
1.0 out of 5 stars
Dissapointment
I was expecting some real description of how the Aborigines communicate. This book is just a jumbled collection of unrelated happenings. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Patricia E. Marckwardt
5.0 out of 5 stars
Life is a Long Song
Part travelogue,part anthropology,part history,linguistics and philosophy, Chatwin tells of his time spent in Austrailia with Arkady-a Russian Austrailian-and the nomadic Aborigine... Read more
Published on April 1, 2011 by An admirer of Saul
4.0 out of 5 stars
A poem for those with itchy feet
Part memoir, part philosophical musings, part travel writing. Chatwin gives us his impressions and interpretations of time spent along the boundary between Westen and Australian... Read more
Published on February 25, 2011 by Sergio
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Songlines
This interesting and knowledgeable travel book left me wanting to know more about the subject of Aboriginal culture and customs. Read more
Published on January 26, 2011 by Maria Staal
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not What I Was Looking For
If you're interested in a travelog, this is fine. But if you are looking for the essence of the aboriginal people, it falls far short. Read more
Published on December 1, 2010 by Mary Lee
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