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Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Bruce Chatwin I'm a big fan of the late Bruce Chatwin, having stumbled upon On The Black Hill years ago before discovering The Songlines and his various travelogues and essays and other pieces that hard to define. Until I read In Patagonia I was never much of one for travel writing, but there was a period of years when I kept a copy of In Patagonia in my car at all times just in case I was stuck in traffic or had to wait in the car for any extended period because I could pick it up at any time and immediately become engrossed. I should point out that I'm one of those people who, if not otherwise occupied, needs to be reading something, anything. I can't even conceive of eating alone and not having something to read. That way lies madness...
Anyway, Chatwin was quite a character, (equal parts charmer, manipulator, and thief) who was not above intermixing fiction with fact in an effort to tell a good story because in his life, reality never quite lived up to his imagination. If you choose to read him, read him as fiction and you won't be disappointed. I bring Chatwin up because I was reading the latest issue of the New York Review of Books and, in an excellent article on Werner Herzog by Ian Buruma, Buruma opens with this Chatwin anecdote:
In her memoir about Bruce Chatwin, Susannah Clapp tells the following story. Not long before his death, already very ill, Chatwin was receiving guests in his room at the Ritz in London. Many of them left with a gift. One friend was given a small jagged object which Chatwin identified as a subincision knife, used to slit the urethra in an Aboriginal initiation rite. He had found it in the Australian bush, he said, with his connoisseur's eye: 'It's obviously made from some sort of desert opal. It's a wonderful color, almost the color of chartreuse.' Not long after, the director of the Australian National Gallery spotted the object in the grateful recipient's house. He held it up to the light and muttered: 'Hmmm. Amazing what the Abos can do with a bit of an old beer bottle.' For more on Chatwin, who led a fascinating life, try Neil Shakespeare's Bruce Chatwin: A Biography. It's not perfect, but it's the best thing so far...
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