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The Songlines (Vintage Crucial Classics)
 
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The Songlines (Vintage Crucial Classics) (Paperback)

by Bruce Chatwin (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (7 Aug 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099458152
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099458159
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 472,318 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #14 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > C > Chatwin, Bruce

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
The late Bruce Chatwin carved out a literary career as unique as any writer's in this century: his books included In Patagonia, a fabulist travel narrative, The Viceroy of Ouidah, a mock-historical tale of a Brazilian slave-trader in 19th century Africa, and The Songlines, his beautiful, elegiac, comic account of following the invisible pathways traced by the Australian aborigines. Chatwin was nothing if not erudite, and the vast, eclectic body of literature that underlies this tale of trekking across the outback gives it a resonance found in few other recent travel books. A poignancy, as well, since Chatwin's untimely death made The Songlines one of his last books. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review
'Extraordinary...a remarkable and satisfying book' Observer

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The Songlines (Vintage Crucial Classics)
88% buy the item featured on this page:
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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A wandering star, 19 Jul 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: The Songlines (Vintage classics) (Paperback)
The songlines criss cross Australia; the paths taken by the first men as they sang creation into being. Each Aborigine tends his section of the line, and must regularly sing the songs that keep creation new.

Chatwin's wanderings took him to Australia's red centre to explore the origins of these lines, as part of a project he was toying with (but never completed, so far as I'm aware) exploring the roots of man's incessant need to travel.

His prose is as sparse and dusty as the landscape itself as he meets the native and European Australians who inhabit the vast emptiness of the outback. The result is as beautiful and strange as the outback itself.

The book uncovers a little about the Aborigines, a group who have not been often explored in mainstream wirting before, as well as the racism felt by many Australians towards them.

But its main success is opening up the dusty interior itself - a place on a scale that is unimaginable to Europeans. Chatwin's triumph is to reveal the magic that pervades Australia - that a stagnant pond can be as important a spiritual site as Ayers Rock.

For anyone with an interest in Australia, Aboriginal culture or the nature of man's wanderlust, this is an essential read. Highly recommended.

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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Outback adventure, 29 Sep 2003
By kimbofo (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   
In the late 1980s, travel writer Bruce Chatwin visited the Australian outback to find out more about the songlines, the invisible pathways across the continent which connect communities and follow ancient boundaries. During his journey, he is accompanied by a Russian-born Australian, Arkady Volchok, who is mapping the sacred sites of the aborigines. Volchok proves to be a wonderful and knowledgeable host, showing Chatwin the rugged beauty of the landscape and introducing him to its many native human inhabitants.

Chatwin's writing is deceptively simple but very engaging; he captures feelings and characters so aptly that it's almost like you're on the journey with him. I thoroughly enjoyed his adventure to Alice Springs and the far north, especially his encounters with Jim Hanlon, a 73-year-old loner who wanted Chatwin to stay in a caravan "smelling of something dead" to finish his book, and Donkey Donk, an aboriginal who takes him hunting in a Ford Sedan which degenerates into a bit of a sad, hit-and-miss affair.

My only quibble is that the book begins to wane about two-thirds of the way in and never quite picks up the pace again. Chatwin fills much of the last few chapters with jottings from old notebooks in an attempt to explore his idea that travelling is a natural instinct in humankind that has been tamed by the trappings of materialistic life. I appreciated the point, but felt it had been laboured much too strongly.

Despite this, The Songlines is a highly readable and interesting travel tale, well worth reading, especially if you are interested in nomadic lifestyles, aboriginal culture and the Australian outback.

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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A story of a segment of humanity who have a commitment, 9 Oct 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The Songlines (Vintage classics) (Paperback)
This story is not really an edited book, rather a conversation with a dusty traveller whom you have met on an isolated rural railway station, somewhere far away, with two days until the next train. It starts as something to pass the time, but becomes a tale of the global history of Man, revealing many reasons for doing what we do - or having done what we have done. It makes us question the values that our civilisation has socialised us into believing in, not because we envy the squalid freedom of the aborigines, but because we must envy that they still understand the nature of Nature, and the nature of Man, and also of Man in Nature.. Sometimes it asks questions and answers them, and sometimes it gives an answer and you are left searching for the question. A book to be read alone, without distraction, when you have time to read it without laying it down. An memorable book which can be used to find some answers to many problems in the world today, whether they be related to religious divergence, racism, ethnic conflict, suppression of minorities, environmental conflicts, etc., etc., etc..
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The human tide
This is a unique and unclassifiable book, part novel, part travel book, part notebook full of quotations and speculations. Read more
Published 24 months ago by Mr. David Cheshire

3.0 out of 5 stars Aboriginals in Australia
In Alice Springs the narrator called Bruce meets Arkady Volchok, an Australian citizen who is mapping the sacred sites of the Aboriginals. Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2007 by Philippe Horak

4.0 out of 5 stars Eye-opening view into new cultural perspecitve + situation
A great, thoughtful read, stimulating, observing, searching for many answers.....

A mixture of philosophical thinking and suggestion, formed from insightful discoveries, and a... Read more

Published on 1 April 2006 by Adrian McO-Campbell

4.0 out of 5 stars Communicating through song
I was recommended this book by several different people, if you are interested in the 'aboriginal' culture/travelling or you think you might be then this book is for you... Read more
Published on 9 Mar 2004 by Mr Gary Davison

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting
All in all the book was alright, not superb but alright. I found the notes a bit tedious but quite interesting but what intrigued me the most was Bruce Chatwin's view of women... Read more
Published on 22 April 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars A refreshing take on human nature.
Chatwin's work is always effectively fictional, albeit written in a documentary style. Here he offers us the chance to step into his interpretation of the human condition - a... Read more
Published on 3 Aug 2000

4.0 out of 5 stars Sincere attempt to explain the plight of Aboriginal culture
This book is the author's therapy for a bad case of writer's block. A curate's egg but the good bits are truly superb. Read more
Published on 26 Jun 2000 by robert.farrer@kcl.ac.uk

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly wonderful to experience, heartbreaking to finish.
Beautiful, evocative writing, which touches the soul. You will not want it to end.
Published on 23 Jun 2000

5.0 out of 5 stars Chatwin - The Songlines.
When asked about this book, Chatwin quipped: "I made it up". Yet if this is fantasy, real life is pale. Read more
Published on 27 Aug 1999

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