About this title: Bruce Chatwin (1940-1989) was, for much of his short life, obsessed with the idea of nomadism, feeling that restlessness is encoded into human DNA. His first book, IN PATAGONIA, is a most unorthodox travel book (a designation Chatwin disliked), a picaresque chronicle of his own wanderings through the wildest parts of South America. Chatwin writes lyrically about the landscapes, the history, and most of all the vast variety of people he meets, whom he describes in evocative, impressionistic vignettes that are not unlike short stories. Chatwin's odd, fanciful, perhaps not always literally true, ...
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Description: Acceptable. 1988-Paperback----Used-Acceptable-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin, New York
Date Published: 1988
ISBN-13:9780140112917ISBN:014011291X
Description: Good/Wraps. . Trade paperback, good condition, w. ltly rubbed wraps, sme lt marks. Lt coffee ring on fr. Ltly bumped corners, sme v. lt edgwr. Tanned p. edges. Ltly tanned pages. O/w cln, tight, unmarked. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Date Published: 1988-06-07
ISBN-13:9780140112917ISBN:014011291X
Description: Fair. The cover has been creased badly and worn; the pages in this book are yellowed Every heavytail order includes with a sweet! We carefully hand clean and reinspect each and every item we ship. Our quality control process ensures items to be in the condition described or better. Heavytail is determined to earn your repeat business through old fashioned customer service. We love international orders. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Date Published: 1988-06-07
ISBN-13:9780140112917ISBN:014011291X
Description: Fair. Different cover art; edges worn; The cover has been creased; the pages in this book are yellowed; Every heavytail order includes with a sweet! We carefully hand clean and reinspect each and every item we ship. Our quality control process ensures items to be in the condition described or better. Heavytail is determined to earn your repeat business through old fashioned customer service. We love international orders. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Penguin, New York
Date Published: 1988
ISBN-13:9780140112917ISBN:014011291X
Description: Very Good + 12mo = 7-9" 204pp. Trade paperback. Classic of Travel Lit. Pages and front cover slightly browned along edges. Very clean and tight inside and out. Includes pages of b&w photos. read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Date Published: 1988-06-07
ISBN-13:9780140112917ISBN:014011291X
Description: Clean. No DJ, as issued. Classic account of the author's journey through the southern tip of South America. A little masterpiece of travel, history and adventure. 204 pp, illustrated with photos and maps. Bumped corners. read more
Description: Very Good. 014011291X Softcover book in excellent condition, no spine creases, looks nearly new, different cover. Shop & Save With US. read more
Description: Satisfaction Guaranteed. Shipped quickly. 1988. Paperback. Used, very good. Very good overall with light to moderate wear. No dust jacket. read more
"The truly fine-grained books are always impossible to review or describe. Even dragged-out praise leaves most of the best things unnoted. Certainly this is true in the case of In Patagonia, one of those unclassifiable mandarin anatomies whose summarized "action" but barely suggests the innumerable felicities of perception that make the book. A copy of In Our Time packed in his rucksack, Chatwin busses from Buenos Aires into Patagonia, tramps around, meets people and collects their stories--much as Ishmael "goes whaling" or Bloom "runs some errands and thinks about stuff." Updike, in his reviewer-guise of the Common Reader, on the occasion of Brodsky's Venetian capriccio Watermark marvels at those writers "beyond academic conventions, beyond commercial hopes" who depart from, dispense with or otherwise transcend plot (or the story hooks of "travel writing") to regale us with their "rare sensibility and curious fund of information; we are flattered to be in his or her company" (readers who complain that cetological lore trammels their breeze through Moby Dick miss the point: the prose of that long chapter is splendid). A truly picaresque narrative sensibility (rare enough) and a curio-cabinet of odd learning Chatwin indeed has, plus an enriching assimilation of those masters of unsettling concision, Mandelstam and Borges. Who knew a desert at land's end would offer such a mad dream of the world? Chatwin has the magic eye."
"Enjoyable, but not as enjoyable as The Songlines and a good bit more dated. As opposed to say, Paul Theroux's books and The Songlines I felt the book told me little about the places Chatwin visited and not even that much about Chatwin himself. Perhaps my disappointment reflects inflated expectations but I don't really see why this book is still regarded as a classic."
"An unorthodox work of travel writing, Chatwin voyages to one of the southernmost points on the globe to explore Los Gauchos, abandoned civilizations, and penguin colonies on the tip of Argentina.
The book intrigues from the beginning with talk of old maps that used to show Patagonia overrun by dinosaurs and sea creatures, but gradually becomes less and less interesting, and Chatwin's perspective seems to become more bizarre. A good book to check out if you're in to experimental travel writing, but definitly not a whispy summer read."
"This is one of those books I've tried to read many times, and perhaps the moment wasn't right. It's funny. I find that I can see ways I've changed by how receptive I am to a particular book at a particular moment...In any case I went back to it this time after my son spent some time in Argentina, and then I visited him there. He wanted to make it to Patagonia, but didn't have the time, nor did I, but being that much closer reminded me of the existence of that book, which I recently picked up again. This time, I was riveted. The Butch Cassidy/Sundance Kid stuff is just enthralling, and it is simultaneously romantic and depressing to think about all of the people who have migrated to Patagonia because it is the end of the earth. Chatwin is an old-fashioned storyteller with a gift for detail--really marvelous language. I recommend this book to anyone with a love of history, travel, or language, or who has ever fantasized about escaping the familiar via an adventure."
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