I´m off to a very good start for Boolikesopoly ;D.

Die Känguru-Chroniken: I tried, I really tried, but I don´t find this audiobook funny at all. And the Känguru is so annoying, I cannot endure another minute of listening to it. This is really not my thing.

I listened to 109 out of 292 minutes, which is about the 37% mark of the book. The print edition has 271 pages, 37 % amounts to 100 pages read, so I´m making $1.00 for this book. Read for square:

In Patagonia: I only read a couple pf pages in this book and I knew immediately that this book isn´t for me. I cannot tell you why, I just know it is. Since I didn´t even read 10% of this book, I´m not earning morning with this one. Read for square:

Let´s hope that I will choose a better book with my next die roll tomorrow.

I´m still listening to an audiobook for round 1, but I´m not sure if that one is going to end in a DNF. For round 2, however, I´m going to choose my first physical read. 

Starting off from square 6, this lands me on square 14:

I´m trying to read as many books from my physical TBR as possible and I think Bruce Chatwin´s In Patagonia might just be the perfect match for this task.

Page count: 296 = $3.00

Current bank account: $20.00

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 style. Chatwin’s writing is highly personable and readily engaging. It captivates and holds the reader’s interest, while conveying various facts and truths. The style is never preachy, yet he masterfully conveys a sense of biting satirical wit through some of his observations, especially in regard to potential methods of exploitation against the Aboriginal people. Yet, his own depiction of the Aborigines does not shy away from stark realism—a portrayal that in a way reflects the Australian landscape.

His writing is visual. He adeptly portrays his surroundings and the various characteristics and mannerisms of the people with whom he interacts, allowing the reader to obtain a complete picture within the mind’s eye. Through his rendering, the Aboriginal songlines, or dreaming tracks that represent the footpaths and journeys taken by the totemic beings of the creation myths, become vibrantly alive. The positioning of various elements—land, wind, light, water—work together to help you visualize or “read” the movement of, for example an ancestral lizard, as described in one of these dreamings. The land itself may be stark and harsh, yet it is teeming with a lifelike expression that’s full of majestic beauty and wonder. 

As Chatwin notes, these dreamings are highly personal—an essential part of the self in Aboriginal culture. Their essence becomes a study of origins and nature—a study that Chatwin readily takes to heart. The latter part of the book draws on Chatwin’s own personal experiences and past interactions that hold similarities to the aboriginal journeys he has described. Chatwin’s reflections on origin and self, and the many journeys and experiences he has faced become a personal songline that he has come to gradually cultivate over time…an illustrative story full of personal highs and lows, paired with a kind of personal struggle of self-expression evident in his prose. Yet in the end, his “songline” reflects a kind of hope in this quest for knowledge and understanding of self in relation to one’s surroundings—a hope based upon the basic fundamentals of human nature.

Copy provided by NetGalley

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 book came my way, but what a feast of language to savour. Must be serendipity.