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gomek's review against another edition
2.0
The parts actually about the native Australians were very interesting. But there's a whole lot of pseudo mystical babble included as well. Felt like he was using the material he gathered for the nomad book he didn't write as padding in this one.
bookish_things_london's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
macloo's review against another edition
2.0
Sometimes I'm very surprised at how flawed a book is when it has all these rave reviews and people talk about it like it was one of the best books they ever read. What in the world? This book is a mess. I mean, just read this adulatory bullshit. I feel like I read a different book.
Basically Chatwin met a guy, Arkady, who took him to meet various Aboriginal men in Australia, and Chatwin sometimes had conversations with them. They rode about the bush in Toyota Land Cruisers packed with esky coolers full of meat to grill when they made camp for the night. Maybe people liked Bruce Chatwin because they had never read Redmond O'Hanlon or the better books by Paul Theroux. I don't know.
The Songlines does have its moments. One is a leisurely chat between Chatwin and one of the "old men," who tells him the story of this hill, that ridge, that other feature of land, and so on, as they lounge at a location with a fine view of many notable features of that territory. There are several conversations that are brief echoes of this one, but here we glimpse the real power of having all that rooted knowledge of your place on Earth. It's quite beautiful.
Another memorable but very unpleasant scene is a supposed hunting trip that consists mostly of ramming one large kangaroo repeatedly with a truck, intending to kill it. I was disgusted, Chatwin was disgusted, and at least one of the Aboriginal men in the truck was disgusted — but not the driver, another Aboriginal man who thought this was just fine.
Another part that struck a strong chord with me was when an art dealer from Sydney is interviewing a man who paints Dreaming paintings and sells them to her. She's obviously just milking his culture for profit, and it turns out he knows it. This was also unpleasant, but not as bad as the hunting story.
Chatwin had been diligently researching "nomads" before he went to Australia and wrote this book. He had lots of notes, snippets, random quotes from other writers, a bunch of anecdotes from his own travels in several parts of Africa, and bits from interviews with academics. The Songlines starts out with his "adventures" with Arkady, but then, about halfway through, Arkady goes off somewhere and Chatwin gets out his notebooks and treats us to a dog's breakfast of snippets from them. A few are quite good, but most are not. I was especially impatient with the rambling, disconnected factoids about early hominids, Australopithecus and the like. I've been very interested in this topic and have read some excellent summaries of the findings — what is known and what is not — and Chatwin's thrown-together pieces of the story are just a mess. The longer this snippet section went on, the more annoyed I felt.
The central core of this book — the deep relationship of the Australian Aboriginal people with the land, the stories that are an integral part of that relationship, the singing of parts of the stories that have been entrusted to you (as both a member of a group and an individual with a particular connection to a spiritual entity), and the way the song makes the land and the land makes the song — this is marvelous. Sadly, Chatwin never got close enough to the people to do full justice to this core, and he padded out his text with a bunch of notes and jottings that for the most part had no business being here.
Basically Chatwin met a guy, Arkady, who took him to meet various Aboriginal men in Australia, and Chatwin sometimes had conversations with them. They rode about the bush in Toyota Land Cruisers packed with esky coolers full of meat to grill when they made camp for the night. Maybe people liked Bruce Chatwin because they had never read Redmond O'Hanlon or the better books by Paul Theroux. I don't know.
The Songlines does have its moments. One is a leisurely chat between Chatwin and one of the "old men," who tells him the story of this hill, that ridge, that other feature of land, and so on, as they lounge at a location with a fine view of many notable features of that territory. There are several conversations that are brief echoes of this one, but here we glimpse the real power of having all that rooted knowledge of your place on Earth. It's quite beautiful.
Another memorable but very unpleasant scene is a supposed hunting trip that consists mostly of ramming one large kangaroo repeatedly with a truck, intending to kill it. I was disgusted, Chatwin was disgusted, and at least one of the Aboriginal men in the truck was disgusted — but not the driver, another Aboriginal man who thought this was just fine.
Another part that struck a strong chord with me was when an art dealer from Sydney is interviewing a man who paints Dreaming paintings and sells them to her. She's obviously just milking his culture for profit, and it turns out he knows it. This was also unpleasant, but not as bad as the hunting story.
Chatwin had been diligently researching "nomads" before he went to Australia and wrote this book. He had lots of notes, snippets, random quotes from other writers, a bunch of anecdotes from his own travels in several parts of Africa, and bits from interviews with academics. The Songlines starts out with his "adventures" with Arkady, but then, about halfway through, Arkady goes off somewhere and Chatwin gets out his notebooks and treats us to a dog's breakfast of snippets from them. A few are quite good, but most are not. I was especially impatient with the rambling, disconnected factoids about early hominids, Australopithecus and the like. I've been very interested in this topic and have read some excellent summaries of the findings — what is known and what is not — and Chatwin's thrown-together pieces of the story are just a mess. The longer this snippet section went on, the more annoyed I felt.
The central core of this book — the deep relationship of the Australian Aboriginal people with the land, the stories that are an integral part of that relationship, the singing of parts of the stories that have been entrusted to you (as both a member of a group and an individual with a particular connection to a spiritual entity), and the way the song makes the land and the land makes the song — this is marvelous. Sadly, Chatwin never got close enough to the people to do full justice to this core, and he padded out his text with a bunch of notes and jottings that for the most part had no business being here.
brughiera's review against another edition
4.0
Dedicated to his long-suffering wife, Elizabeth, who was usually left behind when Chatwin went on his many travels, this book starts out as a traveller's tale of a visit to the Australian outback. It soon becomes clear that Chatwin is intent on delving below the surface of the harsh environment and the survival strategies of the aborigines. His fascination with their songlines eventually becomes linked to his quest to understand the nomad's way of life and his search for proof that a wandering nature is the essential essence of man. On the way, the reader gets a vivid picture of the degredation of aboriginal life together with a perception of their basic dignity and, sometimes, astuteness. Critical issues, such as the planning of a proposed railroad across much of the desert territory involving difficult negotiations with the aborigine communities, are dealt with lightly but in a way that rounds out the picture of the uneasy coexistence between the modern state and the original inhabitants of the land. A book to ponder.
ekovacs's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
5.0