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Chatwin’s output, but which has already been raised to
near classic status. Chatwin weaves together curious
observations with nuggets of historical information
which manages to make this more than an account of
a physical journey, and that, to me, is the essence of
good travel writing. I don’t just want to know what a
cracking guy the author is, and how he managed to get
out of a scrape with an armadillo whilst travelling in
the Amazon with just a piece of used dental floss and a
very, very sharp stick. Nor do I want to be laden down
with superfluous information on the economic argument
for the downfall of the Ottoman Empire!
What do I demand from a travel writer then? I want
to be able to understand them as a person, and know
why they have undertaken this particular journey. And
that means being able to step inside their head and
travel with them. Though this is nearly impossible,
Bruce Chatwin was one of the few writers that I feel
managed it.
Chatwin was not, however, a straight forward kind of
travel writer like Wilfred Thesiger or Norman Lewis.
One of the most amazing qualities that sets Chatwin
apart was his ability to mix fact and fiction in his ‘stories’.
As he said himself, “The word story is intend to
alert the reader to the fact that, however closely the narrative
may fit the facts, the fictional process has been at
work.” This is idea is best held in mind when considering
his best-selling book, The Songlines (1987).
BUY Bruce Chatwin books online from and
Though clearly a novel, it is also not a novel. Let
me explain. The main character is a guy called Bruce
who’s travelling around the Australian outback researching
the nomadic culture of the Aboriginal, and
their singing the world into existence through their
travelling of the Songlines. This coincidence is further
compounded by the fact that ‘Bruce’ records his notes
in very same moleskin notebooks that Bruce Chatwin
himself was famous for. This book, then, results in
being so much more than just a travel book or a novel.
It provides not only a combination of a portrait of an
amazing culture and a damn fine read; it eventually
draws the reader into questioning the very fabric of
human culture and our Western preconceptions. Who
could ask for more? An interesting aside: Salman
Rushdie, who travelled with Chatwin in Australia
whilst he was working on this book, provides an enlightening,
though brief, glimpse of Chatwin at work
in his book Imaginary Homelands (1991).
An obvious thread that joins much of Chatwin’s
work like The Songlines and Anatomy Of Restlessness
is his passion for nomadic life. This interest is represented
in both the opening section, ‘Horreur du domicile’,
which draws together various short pieces on his
own personal motivations to travel, and the chapter
entitled ‘The Nomadic Alternative’. In this chapter
the collection of pieces outline many of the arguments
that comprised Chatwin’s own unpublished thesis on
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