Bruce Chatwin: A Biography
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.54 (849 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0385498306 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 672 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-12-13 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
A fascinating look at Chatwin and the nature of biography Shakespeare clearly started off worshipping Chatwin and admiring his writings deeply. As he went on with his research the hero worship is tempered by the reality he uncovers, particularly Chatwin's fictionalisation of so much of his life and work. For all his supposed charms, Chatwin comes across as a rather horrible person, sad, desperate, lonely, unable to come to terms with his sexuality and perfectly willing to make people suffer for it. This book has something of the widow's revenge about it as his wife comes across as a saint who put up with a monster of a husband. Chatwin was a good novelist, a good writer of tra. Well Done! broadfork_com Great big fat source to further reference and cross-reference writers.I was one of those enamored with Bruce in the eighties (traveled in South America in 1988/89). I can now only remember 'In Patagonia' for its affect as serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (selective).Vague memory of Songlines fitting Bruce's own criticism as "a series of non-sequiturs."This was a great trip down memory lane, and for pop-psychology study, evolution of a writer, etc.I am currently writing an apology to Jesus & the Unabomber.. No there there L. Alper It's hard to know if my reaction to this biography is due to the subject himself or is the fault of the biographer. Nicholas Shakespeare's "Bruce Chatwin" is long, well-researched, & has the full cooperation of Chatwin's family. Yet, all throughout the book, I never really got a sense of who Chatwin was, & why his family & friends (even casual aquaintances) viewed him so adoringly despite his cavalier treatment of them.Admittedly, this may be due to Chatwin himself. An ambiguous, intensely guarded man, it's hard to tell even from his writings such as "In Patagonia" exactly what he thinks about a place or person. Persona
And only at his death did his personal myth fail him. Chatwin became a celebrity, while remaining a conundrum. The result is a biography that is at once sympathetic and revelatory.. Chatwin’s first book, In Patagonia, became an international bestseller, revived the art of travel writing, and inspired a generation to set out in search of adventure. Nicholas Shakespeare, who was given unrestricted access to his papers, spent eight years retracing Chatwin’s steps and interviewing the people who knew him. With little formal education, he had become a director of Sotheby’s. Married for twenty-three years, he had male lovers throughout the world. An avid collector, he eschewed material things and revered the nomadic life. Award-winning novelist Nicholas Shakespeare has written the definitive biography of one of the most influential literary figures of our time: Bruce Chatwin, whose works’ strangely compelling combination of research, first-hand experience, myth, and mystification may have been the real substance of his seemingly contradictory life
(Chatwin cheered up considerably when a friend told him that Alberto Moravia had given the book a glowing thumbs-up in an Italian newspaper.) What comes across most, perhaps, in this immense and excellent life, is the complete aloneness of the man, an almost impenetrable solitude. Even when Chatwin experiences a writer's block while working on The Viceroy of Ouidah, he does it with style: To try to finish the book, Bruce rented a house in Ronda for five months: "an exquisite neo-Classical pavilion restored by an Argentinean architect who has run out of money." He wrote in longhand on 20 yellow legal pads, refilling his Mont Blanc from two bottles of Asprey's brown ink. He had those blue, implacable eyes that said: 'I will reject you, I will forget you, because neither you nor any other human being can give me wh