(Original Review, 1988-05-15)I’ve been reading “The Songlines” by Bruce Chatwin for the past couple of days, which I’m really enjoying at about the halfway point. It’s a travel book, I suppose, about Chatwin’s experiences in the Australian Outback learning of Aboriginal culture and their belief in ‘...
Bruce Chatwin’s book has much to offer readers of multiple disciplines…the historian, the travel reader, readers of literature and those who simply enjoy the personal anecdotes of memoirs and autobiographies. One of the reasons why Chatwin’s book can have such a broad interest is his writing styl...
This rather eclectic collection of Chatwin's writings is simply a great read and a suitable homage to his craft. The breadth of his travel and experience is made to seem almost ordinary, when clearly the writer was anything but. This was my first reading of Chatwin and was purely by chance that the ...
3,5 stars, rounded up. I consider teaching Songlines, and, unwilling to spend money on Nicholas Shakespeare's biography of Chatwin, picked up this collection instead. It turned out to be a good resource, tracing the development of Chatwin's ideas, especially On the Black Hill and Songlines (the latt...
It left me lukewarm, compared to Chatwin's collected letters, which are more informative and consistently rather amusing. The first section, Horreur du domicile, is OK; the second, Stories, quite unremarkable; the third, The Nomadic Alternative, quite redundant if you know the letters; Reviews - mig...
This was a surprising little thing. It was was a beautifully written account of the history of a family, of a time, of two places, of tragedy on the heels of fortune or more tragedy. Beyond the exquisite evocative quality, what came as a surprise was how it reminded me of Latin-american writing i...
This book was complex, hard to understand and grim. It wasn't what I had expected. I'm sure if I understood the language I would've had a better understanding. However, the parts I did understand were good. Francisco had a very diverse and interesting life encountering many strange and appalling cha...
I am in love with the structure of this book; initially, it describes a series of encounters with black and white Australians living in the nearly uninhabitable Central Australia. Chatwin's guide on this journey is an Australian of Russian descent, one of the many striking figures we meet - and I mu...
More tone poem than travelogue, this reads like a series of evenings at an especially erudite, obsessive uncle's house. An uncle who falls asleep rather quickly after dinner, so keeps his stories short.
I had to read Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines last month for my travel writing course. This is my first experience with Chatwin's writing and with this form of travel literature. I wasn't sure what to expect going into it, so I opted for not expecting anything, which turned out well in the end. Sinc...
Important: Our sites use cookies.
We use the information stored using cookies and similar technologies for advertising and statistics purposes.
Stored data allow us to tailor the websites to individual user's interests.
Cookies may be also used by third parties cooperating with BookLikes, like advertisers, research companies and providers of multimedia applications.
You can choose how cookies are handled by your device via your browser settings.
If you choose not to receive cookies at any time, BookLikes will not function properly and certain services will not be provided.
For more information, please go to our Privacy Policy.
Log in with Facebook 
