In Patagonia

 Published in 1977, this is now considered classic in travel literature.  It is a tail that fallows the authors wandering and curiosity. 

It is a look at the communities and locations through the people he meets, the legends he hears and the literature he has read.  As an art and architecture writer - Chatwin set out because of a map he had seen in the house of one of his interviewees.  He looked at it and said I always wanted to go there.  The very senior persons said - so have I; go there for me  - and he did.

This land has Scotch, English, Boers, Chileans, and other outsiders who are supposed to represent the civilized world and live on the land that adsorbed the blood of the indigenous people who take pride in replacing the “backward” inhabitants.   This is the perversity of human history and the writing and publishing history by the winners.

Yet in this rugged and remote land victors continue to change.  There is the time of Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid – which really did happen and the author enjoys visiting the sites and collecting the local versions of the stories and history.  He uncovers uprising of the anarchists,  Simon Radowitzky – a Russian Jew who led the peons and entered prisons that are horror stories by themselves.

Darwin’s visit is given a short comment, while Jemmy Button the Patagonia who is brought to Europe to be civilized and returns to lead a small revolt gets a fascinating reflection.  And so does the obscure individual who wrote the indigenous dictionary – the only thing left from the original population.  We meet a woman who sold all she had and wanders the world to see flowering shrubs and works as a gardener to support her travels. 

We find out that there are aspects of Patagonia in Donnes poetry, Dante’s infernal and even Poe’s short stories.  We find the land and the people rugged, we discover the background, but in the end we are not presented with a place or a people that calls out to be visited.  It is Chatwin’s perspective and it is fun and informative reading.  How accurate it may be today is something we cannot know, it need another wanderer with keen observation, and ear for details and the ability to adapt.

It is said that he redefined what it means to be a travel writer.