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In Patagonia (Penguin Classics) |  | Author: Bruce Chatwin
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Rating:  20 reviews
Media: Paperback
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 0142437190
Dewey Decimal Number: 918.270464
EAN: 9780142437193
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Product Description
In Patagonia is Bruce Chatwin's exquisite account of his journey through "the uttermost part of the earth," that stretch of land at the southern tip of South America, where bandits were once made welcome and Charles Darwin formed part of his "survival of the fittest" theory. Chatwin's evocative descriptions, notes on the odd history of the region, and enchanting anecdotes make In Patagonia an exhilarating look at a place that still retains the exotic mystery of a far-off, unseen land. An instant classic upon publication in 1977, In Patagonia remains a masterwork of literature.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 20
 A Vivid Imagination and a Powerfully Bracing Landscape Makes for a Superb Travelogue August 12, 2006
Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA)
31 out of 32 found this review helpful
Published back in 1978, Bruce Chatwin's seamless mix of fact and fiction is still among the most enthralling of travel books. Prompted by a piece of reddish animal skin he found in his grandmother's curio cabinet when he was a child, the author ignites himself on a flight of fancy about its origin. This leads him to an expansive area of wild beauty, Patagonia on South America's southernmost tip. I have been lucky enough to visit this part of the world myself about four years ago, and I can confirm from my travels that Chatwin does an amazing job of capturing not only its physical splendor but its colorful inhabitants. However, this is no linear travel narrative, as the author breaks his stories down into mini-sections, ninety-seven in total.
Several of the episodes deal with his own experiences on the road and the individuals he encounters like the gauchos on the pampas, the Welsh-originated villagers, a French soprano, and a hippie from Haight-Ashbury looking for work in the mines. Interspersed with these accounts are snippets of history, real or imagined, such as an unknown connection between Magellan's expedition and Shakespeare's "The Tempest", the whereabouts of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid after they left the states, and a 19th-century European lawyer who convinced the local Araucanian Indians to elect him their monarch. Chatwin shows particular gift for culling whimsical trivia into a greater storytelling context that is hard to resist as long as the reader is aware that little of it is verifiable. He inevitably ends the book the way he started - by finding the source of the animal scrap. Few writers have shown such a vivid imagination and a powerful sense of imagery as Chatwin has with his splendid travelogue. This will make those with an extreme case of wanderlust want to book their flights to Punta Arenas, Chile, right away.
An old favorite. September 30, 2008
frumiousb (Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is a re-read for me. I actually gave my copy to my partner years and years ago when we were in that relationship stage where you try to prove your meant-to-be-ness to each other by sharing books and music. I figured that since we both loved travel writing and we both had a dream of visiting Argentina, then Bruce Chatwin was a safe bet. (He's been a favorite writer of mine since falling in love with his work through the film version of Utz.)
I couldn't have been more off-base. He read it all right, but he really didn't like it. I think that I wouldn't be exaggerating to say that it actively irritated him. Since then he's tried a couple more times to read Chatwin, each one a failure. That remains the Dividing Line of Travel Writers for us-- I like eccentric people who talk about characters and odd history. B. wants to read about the beauty of the landscape and the things that a person can do while visiting. We have an awful lot of Meant-To-Be-Ness in other ways, but not travel writing, apparently.
Anyhow. I loved it. As I loved it the first time. I like the character of Chatwin as he meanders across the scene. I enjoy the way that he meditates on the people and on the history that affects their and his lives. I find that the loose way that he ties everything together works very well for me. I love and share his love of walking, and what that teaches you about where you are.
We have not yet made it to Argentina as a couple, but when we go, I'll be clutching this book under my arm. Recommended.
For Those With Wanderlust January 5, 2009
Joe (Belize)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
My passion for travel and discovery made this man and his writings a great addition to my library. In Patagonia is a great introduction to Chatwin's style and stories of exploration, and the delivery is pleasant. He goes beyond the tourist venues to become immersed in local culture, and then shares his experiences in such a way as to make me grateful he did.
What makes his writings more than simply a travelogue is the ability to make culture and perspective not only accessible, but fun!
For those that want to go everywhere and do everything, Bruce Chatwin is a great example: he did. He did, and his writings are a beautiful tribute to that passion to go off the beaten track.
In Patagonia July 4, 2008
Stephen Balbach (Ashton, MD United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Bruce Chatwin in 1974 was an unknown British journalist with no books to his name. Seeking the life of a nomad he flew to the southern part of South America and severed ties with his newspaper and former life with a single-sentence telegram: "Have gone to Patagonia." For the next 6 months he walked and hitchhiked around this remote region keeping a diary which became the basis for the book. According to the The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing (2002) it is one of three most important travel books of its era: "[its] laconic and elliptical style, in its ninety-seven short sections averaging little more than a couple of page each, seemed to finally bring modernist aesthetics to a fundamentally nineteenth-century genre..[it was] a landmark in contemporary travel writing." The narrative does follow a geographic route, but the included map does not show it, the reader has to piece together where on the map Chatwin is next. There is almost no narrative about actual travel, each of the mini chapters starts in a new place with Chatwin already arrived. The people he meets and stays with have no background or reason why he is there. Throughout is interweaved chapters on Patagonian history, often highly esoteric and in some cases true original research by Chatwin he solves some puzzle or mystery of history: Chapter 49 is as good an etymology on the word "patagonia" as will ever be found.
Subsequent revelations showed some of it to be fiction; some of the people Chatwin wrote about later came forward and denied things happened, or who were characterized incorrectly. Chatwin never denied this but explained that his work did not so much change reality as augment it, sort of like how political cartoons can bring out a hidden truth.
Chatwin, who died age 48 of AIDS (he was bi-sexual and one of the super-star AIDS victims in the 1980s), went on to write other well known books and is recognized as a skilled stylist. His travel writing is very literary and the book is credited with reviving interest in the genre as a legitimate form of literature. It is full of great poetic imagery, I just picked a page at random and found this quote: "She was waiting for me, a white face behind a dusty window. She smiled, her painted mouth unfurling as a red flag caught in a sudden breeze. Her hair was dyed dark-auburn. Her legs were a mesopotamia of varicose veins. She still had the tatter of an extraordinary beauty. She had been making pastry and the grey dough clung to her hands. Her blood-red nails were cracked and chipped."
In Patagonia gets better with time September 14, 2008
Pablo Baques (Newport, RI, USA.)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I am enjoying every single one of the short, sometimes very short, ninety seven stories of Bruce's In Patagonia. I do not miss at all the lack of a threading narrative giving unnecessary details of how he got from one town to the next. Perhaps in this era of short attention span and infinite linking our minds have morphed into absorbers of high density language only, and In Patagonia is all wheat and no chaff.
I must admit that Bruce's credibility was enhanced by the mention of some names like Teófilo Breide: I went to school with another member of that arab family with expansive land possessions near Epuyén. But beyond the actual names, Bruce's description of places, character, circumstances and attitudes is so accurate, so masterly perceived and conveyed that his prose invariably conjures up the scene in my mind, and I re-read to savour every sentence, at times a single word, as if sipping expensive wine.
If you have never been to Patagonia, reading this book is next to knowing Patagonia well. I am fortunate enough to enjoy both privileges.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 20
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