I had great expectations about this book, it is one of the favorites of my wife and for years it stood temptingly staring at me in our library. But I'I had great expectations about this book, it is one of the favorites of my wife and for years it stood temptingly staring at me in our library. But I'm afraid it turned out to be a disappointment. As in "In Patagonia" Chatwin reports about one of his journeys, a meandering quest, not in Fireland this time but in Australia where he went looking for the key to the Aboriginal-culture. This is a quite interesting topic of course, and the information he gives about the Songlines and everything that's related with them, is very intruiging and challenging. But Chatwin has made a very dull affair of his report, it is not more than a chronicle of his interviews with Aboriginals and other people. It could not charm me, especially because it was so self-centered: Bruce Chatwin is all around, and his seemingly easy way to gain the confidence of the Aboriginals wasn't really credible to me. And of course it doesn't help when you read in other reviews that he had the habit of inventing some of the stuff he wrote about (also in other books). Already before page 100 I noticed I began to read diagonally, and that is lethal. What a pity. But if I ever succeed in getting to Australia, perhaps I'll make another attempt....more
Wow, this was a surprising discovery! At first it seemed to be a classic adventure story about a sturdy German, named Voss, who was the first ever to Wow, this was a surprising discovery! At first it seemed to be a classic adventure story about a sturdy German, named Voss, who was the first ever to make the passage through Australia, from east to west, around 1840. This story is mixed with the platonic lovestory between this Voss-character and the headstrong lady Laura. But the book offers much more than this: it is a derisive portrait of society in Sydney (in the manner of Jane Austen), an accumulation of wisdom on life, death and love (in the manner of Henry James) and a quest for the dark side of reality (Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, of course). On top of that it offers a (first?) evocation of the dreamtime-world of the aboriginals, etc.
This is quite tough reading though: White mixes the storylines with lots of commentaries and especially the ending of the expedition is rather raw. Finally, this book is an illustration of the fact that it is almost impossible to grasp the real truth in history. A book to reread......more
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