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Read In Patagonia (2003)

In Patagonia (2003)

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Rating
3.78 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
0142437190 (ISBN13: 9780142437193)
Language
English
Publisher
penguin classics

In Patagonia (2003) - Plot & Excerpts

It was the day before I left for my vacation to South America that I learned about this book. It was an offhand mention by a client, "Oh, have you read In Patagonia?" I picked it up on my way home and stuffed it into the already full backpack.Chatwin's writing got under my skin, and I don't necessarily mean that in a good way. At times he can turn a beautiful phrase when describing a sunset or the wind scoured landscape that seems to go forever. In other places I wanted him to move on, his prose making me claustrophobic in a place big enough to swallow me whole.But it was the enveloping wonder of the peripatetic experience that ultimately won me over. Chatwin's willingness to let the experience take hold and push the observer to internal places they might not want to go - once I was in Patagonia, I got it. "It", whatever that thing was and is, changed me. Chatwin mentions the stories of people that spend time, too much time, in the fierce desolation of Patagonia and don't escape with their lives. The wind talks to you, says those things back to you that are inside, that are supposed to stay down.Torres del Paine, ChileNear the end of our vacation we were in Ushuaia, Argentina in Tierra del Fuego - the bottom of Patagonia, the tip of the continent. Emboldened and inspired by Chatwin, I asked my wife if we could check to see if there were any last minute berths on a ship to Antarctica. This additional 11 days to our itinerary, and un-budgeted expense, met with solid and well defended resistance by my better half. But would we ever be here again? Somehow my persuasion worked and we took the last boat of the season out of Patagonia to a place that was unlike any other I've ever been.Beagle Channel, looking back towards UshuaiaI'll forgive Chatwin's too many references to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and colonial white-man timbre to some of his musings in exchange for reminding me the importance of walking to experience and getting me out of my comfort zone; getting me close enough to high-fin whales and watch seals display their molars.

Even though I am a lover of travel and adventure literature, I have never picked up this classic by Bruce Chatwin. It was interesting to read the introduction and learn how controversial the book has become. Chatwin fudged a few facts and many of the people he wrote about weren't too happy with their treatment. For myself, I thought the book was very interesting and it kept me reading and not wanting to put it down. Each chapter, some as short as 3-4 paragraphs, are recollections or observances or a bit of history about Patagonia and the people who live there. With the exception of the continued focus on Uncle Charley near the end, most of these chapters were engaging and showed the author's flair for writing about places and people.Where the book fails, though, is that this is not a personal story at all. It's bookended with a piece of hide that the young Chatwin sees in his grandmother's house, supposedly a hide from a pre-historic Patagonian animal that captivates his young mind and imagination. So, although it's something of a quest that takes him there, he never expands upon it, or offers any insight into how his life has been changed, or is changing, by Patagonia. In fact, there is little personal reflection at all, except the times when he recounted how he walked here and there. One chapter details a hike on a trail through a swampy area with a raging river, which he has to cross naked. Later, he watches the stars, but there's nothing of substance to his doing this. It's rather pedestrian, actually.Chatwin gives a good portray of Patagonia, enhanced or not, and this book is worth reading. Just don't expect any kind of life lesson to be gleaned from it.

What do You think about In Patagonia (2003)?

Qué cosa tan maravillosa. Leyendo un poco sobre el libro, me encontré con que en algún momento acusaron a Chatwin de falsear información: qué soberana burrada, qué corta lectura. Si bien es un libro de viajes que, supuestamente, habla de lo vivido por el autor en su viaje a la Patagonia, quedarse únicamente en el terreno de lo "real" y lo "inventado" es no darse mucha cuenta de nada. Acá unas notitas sobre lo "real" y lo "ficticio" en este libro. - En la Patagonia empieza con un pedazo de piel que, en la imaginación infantil del narrador, pertenece a un dinosaurio. Ese es el punto de partida, lo que hace que inicie toda la narración (y la travesía). Después veremos que la piel es de otro animal, de una especie de perezoso gigante. El mismo Chatwin dice algo así como que a él le seguía pareciendo más interesante pensar que la piel era de un brontosaurio. Esto podría ser una especie de guía: hay historias que la ficción puede volver más interesantes. - En más de una ocasión detuve mi lectura para googlear los nombres de todos los fantásticos e increíbles personajes que aparecen. Me sorprendí muchas veces al enterarme que eran reales los forajidos del Salvaje Oeste o la nobleza francesa-patagona. A veces la realidad no requiere arreglos para volverse sorprendente. -En algún momento decidí dejar de googlear. No importaba. Esa Patagonia, la de Chatwin, tal vez no se correspondía con la realidad siempre, tal vez sí. Qué más da. Esa Patagonia existe únicamente en este libro y era esa la geografía que me interesaba conocer.
—Ale Vergara

A difficult book to analyze. The writing style seems simple - composed mainly of short statements - yet the author's eye picks out the oddest details. These details, together with a wide literary knowledge, well-researched history, myth and legend and encounters with strange and sometimes wonderful characters along the way, add up to an unusual read that gives one a peculiar and almost mystical feel for the country. The story begins with a glass-fronted cabinet in his grandmother's dining room and a scrap of leathery skin sprouting ginger hairs. This was said to be the remains of a brontosaurus discovered in a cave in Patagonia by Charley Milward, his grandmother's cousin. The book is like the journal of a long-desired quest - with many deviations and adventures along the way - to discover the truth hiding amongst the muddle of family history.Some sections - especially the revealing human ones - seemed almost fragmentary and I found myself re-reading and wanting more information. Others, mostly those dealing with historical figures, were (for me) too involved and difficult to absorb. But these are small things in what is an unusual and rather special book.
—Nell Grey

Patagonia is that stretch of land at the southern tip of South America, the major part of which is Argentina and the rest, Chile. In the 501 Must Read Books list this is included as a travel book. I think this is a bit off. The title gives a hint. It's "In Patagonia." The preposition "in" makes a lot of difference. Bruce Chatwin did not make a lot of description of the various places he had been in Patagonia when he started travelling there in 1974. At least not as much as the people--both living and dead--who, at one time or another in their lives, had been part of the place. The book is more like a collection of mini-biographies of all sorts of characters: odd, tragic, triumphant, mythical, the strange and historical. Most of the characters I have not heard about before, ever. But some did ring a bell, like the outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Charles Darwin and Ferdinand Magellan (whose fleet passed that way before crossing the Pacific Ocean then getting himself killed in Mactan Island, the Philippines).Excellently-researched, entertaining and well-written, I had to withhold two stars however because there's no food and/or sex here.
—Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly

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