Forty years ago, Chatwin´s debut book transformed travel writing. But just 12 years later, its author was dead. The Observer theatre critic, Chatwin´s editor for that book, reflects on a brief, brilliant career`Does anyone read Bruce Chatwin these days?` asked Blake Morrison, reviewing his letters seven years ago. Well, someone must: nearly 30 years after his death, all six of Chatwin´s books are still in print. But it is true that when the dominant writers of the 1970s and 1980s are discussed, Chatwin´s name is rarely among them. The penalty of once being fashionable is that you may come to be thought of as merely fashionable. Almost violently successful at first, his books are now less likely to be mentioned than the Moleskine notebooks in which he sketched and jotted.Vintage´s 40th anniversary edition of In Patagonia is an invitation to look again at one of the most vivid but elusive writers of the late 20th century. Chatwin´s first book, it helped to change the idea of what travel writing could be. It appeared at a rich literary moment, when both reportage and the novel were beginning to fly high in new directions. I remember the time well - I edited In Patagonia and in doing so became friends with the author. Angela Carter and Ryszard Kapu´sci´nski, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie were already publishing; Julian Barnes was preparing to take off. In Patagonia was in a category of its own. It was clearly not a novel, but it flirted with fiction. A collage of histories, sketches, myths and memories, with short scenes glinting towards each other, without judgment, conclusion or, often, links. Chatwin said he was trying to make a cubist portrait. It is paradoxical, in content and in style. The syntax is snappy but the vocabulary is orchidaceous. It holds back from intimate revelation - `I don´t believe in becoming clean,` Chatwin announced - but is fuelled by autobiography, lit up by personal obsessions. Continue reading...
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