Product Description
In this vivid and fascinating portrait of Bruce Chatwin, Susannah Clapp has brilliantly captured the intense energy and chameleon-like complexity of this supremely original and contradictory figure. A bi-sexual of arresting beauty, Chatwin loved to perform for an audience, to dazzle and seduce with talk, tales and outlandish facts. As Craig Raine has written, "He always knew more than you.He was a fine-art expert who could spot a fake as well as a great original, and his eye earned him the reputation of an aesthete." But Chatwin--obsessed with the theme of nomadism--was always pleased to rough it, travelling to the most far-flung and exotic landscapes, whether it was Tibet, Mali, Gabon, Sudan, China or South America. He has been compared to T. E. Lawrence, Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Rimbaud.

Susannah Clapp was Chatwin's first editor, and she describes in detail her work with him on In Patagonia, a book that changed the idea of what travel writing could be. Her poised, impressionistic account skillfully describes his life from a series of oblique angles. We move from his childhood through the years at Sotheby's in London--years rich in the machinations of the art market--to his studying archaeology at the University of Edinburgh and the beginnings of his writing at the London Sunday Times Magazine, to his travels and the six strikingly different books that he wrote before he died of AIDS in 1989 at the age of forty-eight. She gives us unique insight into how Chatwin thought and wrote and where he did it, whether in forts or towers, in Wales or Rajasthan, always with a Mont Blanc pen on American yellow legal pads, taking the material from his eighty-five moleskin notebooks (now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford), bought in a shop on the Left Bank in Paris. Clapp subtly brings to life the writer behind the work.

This is a highly distilled and absorbing look at one of the most enthralling writers of our time. Amazon.com Review
With Chatwin is a charming exploration of the life ofbeloved writer Bruce Chatwin. Chatwin--both high-brow and low-, bothcollector and nomad--was a man of contradictions. His writing"hovered teasingly between fact and fiction," and he wasfascinated by paradoxical subjects: a private art collection in aCommunist country; a publicity-loving woman who lives alone in thedesert. For Chatwin, being on the road was an obsession. He "wasan inventive and adventurous traveller," an itinerant who gotwriter's block at home and who believed that people are happiest whenon the move. "Travel does not merely broaden the mind," heonce said. "It makes the mind." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Please ...
I'm not sure if this book is about Chatwin or it is about Clapp showing off who is who ....For example, Chatwin is liken to Christopher Isherwood, then Lord Snowdon's photo of Chatwin, than Jane Brown's photo ... blah, blah, blah, ...I agree with another reviewer about this book: pretentious and not much on the substance. After the first 10 to 15 pages, I skimmed the rest (there was more name dropping)!

If you are a Chatwin fan, skip this book!

Maybe I missed something....
I have read several of Bruce Chatwin's books.When I first came upon this book I thought it would help complete the picture I had been forming of Chatwin. The memories of Chatwin based on Susannah Clapp's own experiences, as his editor, felt incomplete, somehow.I finished the book wondering why Clapp had written it, not that it was boring or anything, it just didn't pull me in (in a way that other accounts or biographies of other writers have).I wasn't sure when I finished the book if Clapp wasn't somehow trying to knock Chatwin down a peg.I maybe missed something.Having said that, I would still recommend it to anyone interested in Chatwin's life.

Yawn....
I'll be honest here: I simply could not finish this book! I read the first 20 pages or so, then dipped & skimmed thruout the rest trying to find something worth reading. It was fruitless. This book is boring and pretentious. It's not even worth discussing further!

An interesting first hand account of the elusive BC
I'd read a few of Chatwin's books before I read this memoir. I was curious to know a bit more about the almost invisible narrator of In Patagonia, but after finishing the book, Ialmost wish I hadn't started it. Yes I didlearn a bit about Bruce, but although Clapp was a friend and is sympatheticto her subject, I didn't particularly like the man who emerged. He seemedquite vain, shallow, even childish at times. The book did not greatlyenhance my enjoyment or understanding of Chatwin's work - and in some waysit made it less interesting by stripping away a bit of the mystery (I knowthat's my fault for choosing to read it, not the author's for writing it!) There is one great chapter in which the author discusses Chatwin and RLStevenson - definitely a 5 star essay in a 3 star book. Other parts of thebook read more like a Sotheby's catalogue - long lists of objects andpeople that will be of little interest to many readers. If you can't bebothered to wade through N.Shakespeare's doorstopper this is a good, butnot great, intro to Brucie.

maybe she did, maybe she didn't
I knew before I opened this book that it was going to trouble me on two counts. Firstly, Susannah Clapp''s book is not a biography: it is a '`portrait of a writer". In other words, the incisive drive of thebiographer was about to be replaced with the sycophantic anecdotal mush ofa close friend (Clapp was once Chatwin's editor). And secondly, this bookwould possibly render Chatwin as real, and that really wouldn't do. As allChatwin's work was hinged on the fact he was always present by his absence,to paint the author back in Clapp was about to deface the work of art thatChatwin had made his life.

I'd like to say that Clapp managed to surmountthese difficulties for me, but unfortunately, she didn't. However, she alsodid not fail to surprise me ... Read more

Product Description
This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: The Songlines, in Patagonia, Anatomy of Restlessness, What Am I Doing Here?, Winding Paths, Photographs and Notebooks. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: The Songlines is a 1986 book written by Bruce Chatwin, combining fiction and non-fiction. Chatwin describes a trip to Australia which he has taken for the express purpose of researching Aboriginal song and its connections to nomadic travel. Discussions with Australians, many of them Indigenous Australians, yield insights into Outback culture, Aboriginal culture and religion, and the Aboriginal land rights movement. In the book Chatwin develops his thesis about the primordial nature of Aboriginal song. The writing does not shy away from the actual condition of life for present day indigenous Australians, it does not present the songlines as a new-age fad but from an appreciation of the art and culture of the people for whom they are the keystone of the Real. While the book's first half chronicles the main character's travels through Outback Australia and his various encounters, the second half is dedicated to his musings on the nature of man as nomad and city builder. The basic idea that Chatwin posits is that language started as song, and the aboriginal dreamtime sings the land into existence. A key concept of aboriginal culture is that the aboriginals and the land are one. By singing the land, the land itself exists; you see the tree, the rock, the path, the land. What are we if not defined by our environment? And in one of the harshest environments on Earth one of our oldest civilizations became literally as one with the country. This central concept then branches out from Aboriginal culture, as Chatwin combines evidence gained there with preconceived ideas on the ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=1473548 ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from The Modern Language Review, published by Modern Humanities Research Association on July 1, 2001. The length of the article is 5609 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the supplier: Issues are presented concerning the similarities which exist between a short story by Bruce Chatwin entitled "The Estate of Maximilian Tod" and short stories by Jorge Luis Borges entitled "Ficciones".

Citation Details
Title: The sincerest form of flattery: a note on Bruce Chatwin's "The Estate of Maximilian Tod" as an imitation of Borges.(author Jorge Luis Borges)
Author: Iain A.D. Stewart
Publication: The Modern Language Review (Refereed)
Date: July 1, 2001
Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association
Volume: 86Issue: 3Page: 723(9)

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Product Description
This digital document is an article from Letras Libres, published by Editorial Vuelta, S.A. de C.V. on October 1, 2001. The length of the article is 935 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: BIOGRAFIA: VIDA Y MUERTE DE CHATWIN.(Bruce Chatwin)(TT: Biography: life and death of Chatwin.)(TA: Bruce Chatwin)(Reseña)
Author: Fabienne Bradu
Publication: Letras Libres (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2001
Publisher: Editorial Vuelta, S.A. de C.V.
Volume: 3Issue: 34Page: 99

Article Type: Reseña

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Product Description
This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Books by Bruce Chatwin, Novels by Bruce Chatwin, Short Story Collections by Bruce Chatwin, on the Black Hill, the Songlines, in Patagonia, the Viceroy of Ouidah, Utz, Anatomy of Restlessness, What Am I Doing Here?, Winding Paths, Photographs and Notebooks. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: On the Black Hill is a novel by Bruce Chatwin published in 1982 and winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for that year. In 1987 it was made into a film, directed by Andrew Grieve. The novel's setting is the border of Herefordshire, in England and Radnorshire, in Wales. In the early pages we are told the border runs through the very farmhouse: One of the windows looked out over the green fields of England: the other looked back into Wales... Culturally the central characters are Welshmen, with the surname Jones. The story is told through the technique of flashback, and portrays the lives of twin brothers, Lewis and Benjamin Jones, on their isolated upland farm called The Vision. The twins develop a bond that is shown throughout the novel as very special. Lewis is portrayed as the stronger more masculine or dominant twin, whereas Benjamin is the more feminine or intuitive one, both in appearance and in the tasks which he does around the house. He seems to be constantly drawn to his mother's side while she is alive, and there is also a suggestion of more than a brotherly love toward his twin Lewis. Lewis is the one who wants to break free but Benjamin joins the army at the time of the Great War but his efforts are frustrated by his family ties and the indefinable, unbreakable tie to the land. Chatwin also tells the reader of the brutality involved in farming at the time in this area. Amos, the father of the two twins, shows h...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=1064385 ... Read more

Product Description
Webster's bibliographic and event-based timelines are comprehensive in scope, covering virtually all topics, geographic locations and people. They do so from a linguistic point of view, and in the case of this book, the focus is on "Bruce Chatwin," including when used in literature (e.g. all authors that might have Bruce Chatwin in their name). As such, this book represents the largest compilation of timeline events associated with Bruce Chatwin when it is used in proper noun form. Webster's timelines cover bibliographic citations, patented inventions, as well as non-conventional and alternative meanings which capture ambiguities in usage. These furthermore cover all parts of speech (possessive, institutional usage, geographic usage) and contexts, including pop culture, the arts, social sciences (linguistics, history, geography, economics, sociology, political science), business, computer science, literature, law, medicine, psychology, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology and other physical sciences. This "data dump" results in a comprehensive set of entries for a bibliographic and/or event-based timeline on the proper name Bruce Chatwin, since editorial decisions to include or exclude events is purely a linguistic process. The resulting entries are used under license or with permission, used under "fair use" conditions, used in agreement with the original authors, or are in the public domain. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from New Criterion, published by Foundation for Cultural Review on March 1, 2000. The length of the article is 2193 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Nicholas Shakespeare Bruce Chatwin.(Review) (book review)
Author: Jeffrey Meyers
Publication: New Criterion (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2000
Publisher: Foundation for Cultural Review
Volume: 18Issue: 7Page: 62

Article Type: Book Review

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Product Description
Chapters: Bruce Chatwin, Rick Allen, Roy Goodall, Edward Houseman, William Birkett, Richard Belmont. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 29. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Charles Bruce Chatwin (13 May 1940 18 January 1989) was an English novelist and travel writer. He won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel On the Black Hill (1982). Married and bisexual, he was one of the first prominent men in England known to have contracted HIV and died of AIDS, although he hid the facts of his illness. Bruce Chatwin was born in 1940 in the Shearwood Road nursing home in Sheffield, England, and his first home was his grandparents' house in Dronfield, near Sheffield. His mother, Margharita (née Turnell), had moved back to her parents' home when Chatwin's father, Charles Chatwin, went away to serve with the Royal Naval Reserve. They had been living at Barnt Green, Worcestershire. Chatwin spent his early childhood living with his parents in West Heath in Birmingham (then in Warwickshire), where his father had a law practice. He was educated at Marlborough College, in Wiltshire. After leaving Marlborough College in 1958, Chatwin reluctantly moved to London to work as a porter in the Works of Art department at the auction house Sotheby's. Thanks to his sharp visual acuity, he quickly became Sotheby's expert on Impressionist art. He later became a director of the company. In late 1964 he began to suffer from problems with his sight, which he attributed to the close analysis of artwork entailed by his job. He consulted eye specialist Patrick Trevor-Roper, who diagnosed a latent squint and recommended that Chatwin take a six-month break from his work at Sotheby's. Trevor-Roper had been involved in the design of an eye hospital in Addis Ababa, and suggested Chatwin visit east Africa. In Feb...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=449749 ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of (Charles) Bruce Chatwin, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 2043 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Product Description
Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Michel Foucault, Rudolf Nureyev, Bruce Chatwin, Thierry Paulin, Jacques Demy, Guy Hocquenghem, Serge Daney, Daniel Bensaïd, Severo Sarduy, Vincent Fourcade, Copi, Scott Ross, Cyril Collard. Excerpt:Bruce Chatwin Charles Bruce Chatwin (13 May 1940 18 January 1989) was an English novelist and travel writer . He won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel On the Black Hill (1982). Married and bisexual , he was one of the first prominent men in England known to have contracted HIV and died of AIDS , although he hid the facts of his illness. Early life Bruce Chatwin was born in 1940 in the Shearwood Road nursing home in Sheffield , England , and his first home was his grandparents' house in Dronfield , near Sheffield. His mother, Margharita ( née Turnell), had moved back to her parents' home when Chatwin's father, Charles Chatwin, went away to serve with the Royal Naval Reserve . They had been living at Barnt Green , Worcestershire . Chatwin spent his early childhood living with his parents in West Heath in Birmingham (then in Warwickshire ), where his father had a law practice . He was educated at Marlborough College , in Wiltshire . Art and archaeology After leaving Marlborough College in 1958, Chatwin reluctantly moved to London to work as a porter in the Works of Art department at the auction house Sotheby's . Thanks to his sharp visual acuity, he quickly became Sotheby's expert on Impressionist art. He later became a director of the company. In late 1964 he began to suffer from problems with his sight, which he attributed to the close analysis of artwork entailed by his job. He consulted eye specialist Patrick Trevor-Roper , who diagnosed a latent squint and recommended that Chatwin take a six-month break from his work at Sotheby's. Trevor-Roper had been involved in ... ... Read more

Product Description
From time immemorial "the tradition of the campfire has faced that of the pyramid": settled peoples have contemplated nomads with a mixture of fascination, envy, disdain and fear. The English-speaking world seems to have had a particular obsession with certain nomadic peoples, stemming often from their own wanderlust and admiration for the unfettered life of those who roam the deserts and mountains of the world's remotest corners. Jon Ure looks at four regions that are rich in nomadic culture: the Arabian peninsular with its Bedouin; the Sahara with its Moors and Tuareg; the mountains of Southern Iran with their migratory pastoral tribes; and the steppes of Central Asia with their Mongol horsemen and Tartar descendants. He has travelled with all these peoples and here observes their special characteristics and what he learnt about their past. But most appealing are his insights into the array of eccentric Britons and Americans who also chose to seek them out, sometimes even to travel with them. Many of them, as he discovered, were often odder than the exotic peoples they sought. Some, like Lady Hester Stanhope and the Hon.Jane Digby, were exiles from 19th-century high society; others were footloose adventurers, like Richard Burton and T.E. Lawrence. There were distinguished literary figures like Vita Sackville-West, Freya Stark and Bruce Chatwin; and notable scholars like Gertrude Bell and Owen Lattimore. Whoever they are, John Ure has found them and brings them all to life here with skill and humour. ... Read more