Bruce Chatwin: A Biography

Amazon.com

Bruce Chatwin was the golden child of contemporary English letters. Paradoxically, however, his books appeared relatively late in his life: until 1977, when the 37-year-old author published In Patagonia, this precocious, intense figure had occupied himself as an art specialist at Sotheby's, a journalist with the Sunday Times, an archaeologist, and a restless, perennial traveler. Once he got started, of course, Chatwin made up for lost time. By 1989, when he died of an AIDS-related illness, he had produced seven books--including two superb novels and his sui generis masterpiece, The Songlines--and won himself a worldwide audience.

As Nicholas Shakespeare makes clear in Bruce Chatwin, his subject remained an obsessive art collector long after he left Sotheby's. He was no less assiduous when it came to the acquisition of human trophies, taking both male and female lovers throughout the course of his marriage. Many a wife might have resented these magpie impulses--and indeed, Elizabeth Chatwin and her errant spouse endured some rocky times. Yet she remained touchingly loyal to him, and it was her cooperation and tenacity that enabled this biography to come about. Shakespeare captures the author's peculiar charisma and his tendency to transform everything--friendships, landscapes, meals, journeys--into aesthetic artifacts. Even when Chatwin experiences a writer's block while working on The Viceroy of Ouidah, he does it with style:

To try to finish the book, Bruce rented a house in Ronda for five months: "an exquisite neo-Classical pavilion restored by an Argentinean architect who has run out of money." He wrote in longhand on 20 yellow legal pads, refilling his Mont Blanc from two bottles of Asprey's brown ink.

There is excellent, evocative writing throughout Shakespeare's biography. The passages describing Chatwin's miserable death are both harrowing and deeply moving, but Shakespeare is no less adept at conveying, say, his subject's disappointment at failing to win the Booker Prize for Utz. (Chatwin cheered up considerably when a friend told him that Alberto Moravia had given the book a glowing thumbs-up in an Italian newspaper.) What comes across most, perhaps, in this immense and excellent life, is the complete aloneness of the man, an almost impenetrable solitude. Australian poet Les Murray may have had the last word when he noted: "He was lonely and he wanted to be. He had those blue, implacable eyes that said: 'I will reject you, I will forget you, because neither you nor any other human being can give me what I want.'" --Catherine Taylor

Book Description

"Unimprovable (and unstoppably readable)"
--Pico Iyer, Time

"Moving and elegant...A superb portrayal of the restless and randy travel writer brings us as close to his hidden heart as we're likely to get."
--Salon.com

"Shakespeare's engrossing bio does exactly what Chatwin's fans have longed to do: get beneath the alluring but elusive quality of his persona and prose. [Grade]: 'A'"
--Entertainment Weekly

"Immensely readable... Shakespeare portrays a man of colossal energies and intellect in perpetual conflict, whose life was a web of contradiction, controversy, and conundrum.... Shakespeare artfully synthesizes what could have been cacophonous voices into an impressively rendered and remarkably coherent portrait."
--Vogue

"Quite simply, one of the most beautifully written, painstakingly researched, and cleverly constructed biographies written this decade. Shakespeare has a quite extraordinary empathy for his subject, whom he portrays with humor, warmth, and an eye for telling detail, creating a book almost as original, intelligent, and observant as those by Chatwin himself."
--William Dalrymple, Literary Review (London)

Bruce Chatwin burst onto the literary landscape in 1977 with In Patagonia, which quickly became one of the most influential travel books of the twentieth century. The books that followed-- The Viceroy of Ouidah, On the Black Hill, The Songlines, and Utz--confirmed his status as a major writer able to reinvent himself constantly. And the life he led successfully established him as one of the most charismatic and elusive literary figures of our time.

Beautiful to behold, charming, intelligent, a writer of exquisite prose, Chatwin was welcome in every society--from the most glamorous patrons of Sotheby's, where he held his first job, to the remote tribes of Africa. He was a thinker of striking originality, a reader of astonishing breadth and depth, and a mesmerizing storyteller. Salman Rushdie claimed that "he had the most erudite and possibly the most brilliant mind I ever came across."

And yet for all the adoration he received, when Chatwin died of AIDS in 1989, he died an enigma, a panoply of apparently conflicting identities. Married for twenty-three years to his American wife, Elizabeth, he was also an active homosexual. A socialite who loved to regale his rich and famous friends with uproariously funny stories about his travels and the people he met on them, he was at heart a single-minded loner who explored the limits of extreme solitude.

Award-winning novelist Nicholas Shakespeare spent eight years traveling across five continents in Chatwin's footsteps. He was given unrestricted access to Chatwin's private notebooks, diaries, and letters, and has gathered evidence from Chatwin's peers, his friends, his family, his hosts, his enemies, and his lovers. The result is this masterful biography, rendered in a graceful narrative that brilliantly leads us into Chatwin's world--across all the vast geographic, social, and emotional expanses that he traveled--and into his psyche.

Beautiful to behold, charming, intelligent, a writer of exquisite prose, Chatwin was welcome in every society--from the most glamorous patrons of Sotheby's, where he held his first job, to the remote tribes of Africa. He was a thinker of striking originality, a reader of astonishing erudition, and a mesmerizing storyteller. Although married for twenty-three years to his American wife, Elizabeth, he was also an active homosexual, but at heart, a loner.

Acclaimed novelist Nicholas Shakespeare spent eight years traveling in Chatwin's footsteps. The result is this definitive biography rendered in a graceful narrative that brilliantly leads us into Chatwin's world, from the glittering dinner tables among the famous to foreign deserts among nomads, and into his psyche. -->

Customer Reviews:

Well worth your read.......2007-08-12

Have you read Chatwin's books, and wondered more about the man who wrote them? I certainly did, and Shakespeare's biography of Chatwin is a well-researched, and extremley well-written insite into B.C. Shakespeare has clearly spent a great deal of time interviewing and collecting information about Chatwin, which (given B.C's diverse persona) is no easy task.

Shakespeare helps to reveal the character behind these mysterious books, and taps into the personal life and inspiration of this intrepid travel writer. I am certaint this is the best biography of Chatwin on the market today; and after having read this, it seems that Chatwin's truly restless nature - and his personal insecurities - are better understood than simply having read his works. A majestic and incredible life is revealed in this biography. Highly recommended.

Brilliant biography- if you are already a Chatwin fan.......2004-07-23

I loved this book. I thought it was the best biography I have ever read. But, like shakespeare, I am biased, coming into the reading of it already captivated by Chatwin's writings and personality. Those who are of a similar disposition must read this book, each line is carefully researched and laid out to present the complex facets of Chatwin's life in all its glory.

People who are not Chatwin fans will probably find this book so so, and may feel annoyed by the selfish, arrogant, insensitive and, at times, brutal attitude of Chatwin's personality - exemplified over issues such as his explotation of people in Patagonia and Australia to generate his own unique material for 'In Patagonia' and 'The Songlines' and his frequent betrayal of his devoted wife. Some people I know even think Chatwin deserved his premature death in 1989 from Aids.

Although Shakespeare is obviously in the former category- in a review of Utz he calls Chatwin 'the greatest stylist writing in England today'. But he does consider all the sides of Chatwin's remarkable personality and left me at the end shaking my head at what a remarkable life he led, wishing I could have met him in the flesh.

Flawed biography.......2003-11-03

My main beef with the book was with its fawning biographer. I felt as if Shakespeare lost his objectivity, and fell under the star power of his subject. While he discusses Chatwin's flaws, he does so with an aspect of fan-worship, which, if one is to believe the biography, was par for the course - everyone fell under his spell. I would hope for better from the biographer - some more real balance, some real critisism.

By-products of this were some seriously pedantic chapters. For example, the chapter about the cabinet wasn't painstakingly researched, it was painfully boring. I remember a relationship with someone who I loved so intensely that I was able to draw her likeness from memory, which was remarkable, given my complete inability to draw anything's likeness. Shakespeare appears to seek to recreate Chatwin through sheer intensity of concentration, spending inordinate time on irrelevant minutae. At the end of the day, he does his subject a disservice.

Flawed biography.......2003-11-03

Perfect.......2002-07-22

I can't recommend this book highly enough. Shakespeare has constructed the finest biography I have ever read. At times, it even seems that Chatwin's merely a supporting cast member to Shakespeare's storytelling. I found mself limiting how many pages I could read a day so that I could drag it out as long as possible. It's not just for Chatwin fans either. I went into the bio with no knowledge of him.

Average customer rating:

Too much about people and not enough about travel
The Master Stylist
Rocks and diamonds
Very enjoyable
Such an interesting life!

What Am I Doing Here?
Bruce Chatwin
Manufacturer: Viking Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0670825085

Amazon.com

This is the last of Bruce Chatwin's works to be published while he was still alive (he penned the introduction in 1988, a few months before he died). It's a collection of Chatwin gems--profiles, essays, and travel stories that span the world, from trekking in Nepal and sailing down the Volga to working on a film with Werner Herzog in Ghana and traveling with Indira Gandhi in India. Chatwin excels, as usual, in the finely honed tale.

Book Description

In this text, Bruce Chatwin writes of his father, of his friend Howard Hodgkin, and of his talks with Andre Malraux and Nadezhda Mandelstram. He also follows unholy grails on his travels, such as the rumour of a "wolf-boy" in India, or the idea of looking for a Yeti.

Customer Reviews:

Too much about people and not enough about travel.......2007-02-23

Chatwin's stories of Africa, Nepal and Afghanistan of the 1980s were all very riveting, but there were many more essays about his obscure friends I had no interest in. I especially liked his write-up of the civil war he experienced in a small African country. But because this book was mostly a profile of his friends, I only give it three instead of four stars.

The Master Stylist.......2004-12-23

This is Bruce Chatwin's dying opus. He edited the pieces in What Am I Doing Here (a quote from one of Rimbaud's letters, writing home from Egypt) whilst weak, fevered and dying from AIDS in 1988. It is the first and best of the collections of Chatwin's shorter writings, composed of articles written when writing for the Sunday Times Magazine in the early 1970s, other newspaper articles, Granta contributions and other miscellaneous pieces.

This compendium, arguably more than any of his other travel books and novels, gives a good insight into the complex and fascinating life Chatwin lived, always in pursuit of the bizzare, the exotic, the beautiful and a good story. Chatwin's writings cover themes as dispirate as travel, art, politics, people and literature. Always discussed in a terse, erudite style that became his trademark. The breadth and depth of Chatwin's knowledge is incredible, thus these writings are not the most accessible. Some appreciation of art history, literature and anthropology for example is necessary to comprehend some of the more esoteric pieces in the collection.

Readers who give Chatwin the time will be able to unravel a wealth of brilliantly illuminated stories. From personal tales about family members, meetings with fabulously well connected and artistic people - such as George Costakis the Soviet art collector and Madeline Vionnet the French dressmaker, descriptions of his travels to far flung places - Patagonia, Afghanistan, China, searching for yeti in the Himalayas - the list goes on, one never fails to marvel at the rich tapestry that comprised Chatwin's life. Certainly, he lived a life about as far from the mundane as it is possible to get.

How did Chatwin manage to constantly encounter such fascinating and varied people and draw out their stories? Part of the reason lies in his connections from his days working as Sotheby's, another explanation lies in his innate charm that seduced men and women all over the world. Also it should be remembered that Chatwin was frequently liberal with the truth in order to tell a story that fitted with his own remarkable perception of the world and its inhabitants. At times he put the fictional process to work in odd instances - his biographical piece on the artist Howard Hodgkin for instance has been declared innacurate by Hodgkin himself, and this as explained in the bibliographical note was published as a 'portrait of the artist' to accompany the catalogue for the Tate Gallery exhibition 'Howard Hodgkin's Indian Leaves'! How did Chatwin get away with it? The truth will probably never fully out, but I would recommend Nicholas Shakespeare's excellent biography 'Bruce Chatwin' for readers interested in finding out more about Chatwin's life.

As a final note, I agree with the opinion of Salman Rushdie that the four short pieces at the end of the book 'Tales of the Art World', written in the last year of Chatwin's life are among the best he ever wrote. Four final drops of genius that Chatwin left before departing this world.

Rocks and diamonds.......2004-07-16

Whether its following the insufferable Kinski through the jungles of Ghana, tracing the Von Daniken lines through the deserts of Peru or climbing after the mythical Yeti in the Nepalese Himalaya, Bruce Chatwin takes you to the strangest places and introduces you to the oddest folks. In 'What Am I Doing Here,' his hodge-podge collection of stories, travelogues, and portraits, Chatwin once again shows his talent for bringing the odd, the exotic and the extreme to light. Where else could one learn about such unknowns as Soviet art collector, George Costakis or South African composer, Kenneth Volans? During his world-wide wanderings, Chatwin met with more than his share of eccentrics and rescued them from oblivion with the magic of his pen. While one often wonders why we should know about these places and characters, it is Chatwin's masterfully wrought prose and storytelling gifts that keep you reading on. While many pieces skirt the periphery of eccentricity and will only appeal to hardcore Chatwinophiles, his best work centers around the more well-known. His biographical sketches of André Malraux and Ernst Jünger brim with sharp insights and intriguing facts. When it comes to giving you a taste of place, his river journey down the Volga does more in 20 pages then most travel writers achieve with 200. But his tour de force is his scathing and trenchant analysis of the demise of French Algeria in 'The Very Sad Story of Salah Bougrine.' Sad and savage at the same time, it explains the labyrinthian chaos of France's Vietnam better than any history book I've ever read.

Like in all his works, the line between fact and fiction is near impossible to discern, but in the end, it doesn't really matter as Chatwin creates sublime pictures with his words. It's not surprising that this ex-Sotheby's employee and art-fanatic sought to recreate with his pen what others have done with the brush. Often deemed a master storyteller, Chatwin was even more the master of the vignette. Brilliantly colored worlds of exotic people and places all dashed onto the page with a tightly-controlled pen. The best of these leave you with a zesty aftertaste, full of inspiration and quirky knowledge, while the weaker---most of the so-called 'stories' of the collection---often leave you hanging for more, searching for a point.

But maybe Chatwin wrote them with just that intention in mind: that there is no point, no underlying theme that might glue these disparate pieces into one congruent whole. Instead, one should revel in the chisled and stark sentences that hide much behind their austere exterior. Chatwin lures you in with his deceptively simple prose, then opens up a world full of rich imagery and insight.

If you are looking for an armchair escape to faraway lands, or for encounters with strange figures, then take a chance on Chatwin and dive into a world where you too will soon ask, 'What Am I Doing Here?'

Very enjoyable.......2003-03-09

I wasn't familiar with Bruce Chatwin when my girlfriend gave me this book for Christmas. I really like his casual, captivating style. I doubt that he was able to write anything that I wouldn't find interesting.

Such an interesting life!.......2002-12-12

I've always thought to myself that when I'm getting close to death and I look back on my life, there's one thing I'll want. At this point, I don't particularly care about money, or love, or having kids or anything like that. But when I die, I want to look back on what I did throughout life, and think: Holy cow. My life was so INTERESTING!

When Bruce Chatwin died in '88, there is no doubt that he fulfilled that same goal. His life was undeniably fascinating, and this book is snippets of it. 35 stories, each concerning different people or places, and all of them are riveting.

Chatwin covered an incredible amount of ground throughout his life, and the book gives one a minor snapshot of some of those places. It feels like someone were interviewing him about his life, and just asked the broad question: So, what were your favorite experiences?

I lacked the necessary background in art history to fully appreciate a lot of his stories (he being an art connoisseur), but even with little to no knowledge of such things, Chatwin's book was fascinating; he makes you care about what he cares about, whether you did before or not.

When I finished the book, I put it down and immediately wanted another one just like it. Undoubtedly Chatwin had more stories to tell, but the general public will have to be satisfied with his own self-selected highlights from a fascinating life.

Customer Reviews:

A fascinating book about a fantastic place........2002-08-13

This book is about Patagonia, the southern part of South America. Windswept, cool, rainy or dry, depending on one's location, Patagonia is the uttermost realm of the Earth. This book, out of many, is the best I have ever seen on the area.

The writers, Paul Theroux, and the late Bruce Chatwin, are both very well acquainted with the region, Each writer has a differing style, and each writer's commentary therefore varies. Yet, both harmoniously intertwine into a fascinating mesh. In addition to each capturing the essence of the land and the harsh climate in his own way, both writers present fascinating vignettes on Patagonian history, culture, and people.

You will learn about the origin of Patagonia's name, its role in Shakespeare's plays, its history of sheltering Welsh nationalism, its ground sloth fossils, Butch Cassidy staying in hiding there, its glaciers and fiords, etc., etc., etc.

All of this is superbly complimented by Fred Hirschmann's stunning color photography. In four-color format, these photographs form the most excellent composite for a book since Eliot Porter's masterpiece on the lost Glen Canyon. Again and again, I return to these photos for their inspiration and beauty.

Book Description

Series Editors: Kinley E. Roby, Northeastern University; Herbert Sussman, Northeastern University; Joseph Bartolomeo, University of Massachusetts; George Economou, University of Oklahoma; Arthur F. Kinney, University of Massachusetts

Twayne's United States Authors, English Authors, and World Authors Series present concise critical introductions to great writers and their works.

Devoted to critical interpretation and discussion of an author's work, each study takes account of major literary trends and important scholarly contributions and provides new critical insights with an original point of view. An Authors Series volume addresses readers ranging from advanced high school students to university professors. The book suggests to the informed reader new ways of considering a writer's work. A reader new to the work under examination will, after reading the Authors Series, be compelled to turn to the originals, bringing to the reading a basic knowledge and fresh critical perspectives. Each volume features:

A critical, interpretive study and explication of the author's works
A brief biography of the author
An accessible chronology outlining the life, work, and relevant historical background of the author
Aids for further study -- complete notes and references, a selected annotated bibliography, and an index
A readable style presented in a manageable length

Customer Reviews:

Patrick Meanor's new book opens up Bruce Chatwin to all........1998-09-24

Indeed Chatwin is a mystery to his readers. I was one of them. Even his closest friends and editor (Susannah Clapp) wrote puzzling portraits of Chatwin. Chatwin was surely a writer and a man of contradictions...no less apparaent in his several personal relationships of both female and male lovers. Any writer dying at the relatively youthful age of 48 (from AIDS) leaves his readers both sad and puzzled. Chatwin is one of them. Sad, because we are deprived of his special gift of the pen and deprived because we no longer have access to a writer of his depth and contribution to this special literary genre. Dr. Meanor's book, Bruce Chatwin (Twayne's English Authors series, No. 542) opens up his life and his writing in a way which suggests an approach to his work. We begin to comprehend in ways we never first understood, what motivated him to travel afar in the first place and what bothered him about modern life and how he revealed his personal and literary restlessness. Chatwin suddenly becomes much more accessible, but the search still continues, even though Chatwin's personal journey has ended.

Average customer rating:

This book is NOT out of print.

Bruce Chatwin (Border Lines)
Nicholas Murray
Manufacturer: Dufour Editions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

This book is NOT out of print........1999-04-13

This book has JUST been reviewed by the Financial Times of London and is available through them at a disocunted price. It is NOT out of print.

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Bruce Chatwin: A Biography
Nicholas Shakespeare
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LBYJVE

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Los Viajes (Altair Viajes)
Bruce Chatwin
Manufacturer: Peninsular Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Spain | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

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Que Hago Yo Aqui?
Bruce Chatwin
Manufacturer: El Aleph
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Telling Lives: From W.B. Yeats to Bruce Chatwin

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Telling Lives: From W.B. Yeats to Bruce Chatwin

Manufacturer: Papermac
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0333765524

Average customer rating:

Please ...
Maybe I missed something....
Yawn....
An interesting first hand account of the elusive BC
maybe she did, maybe she didn't

With Chatwin: Portrait of a Writer
Susannah Clapp
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Authors | Arts & Literature | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0679410333
Release Date: 1997-07-29

Amazon.com

With Chatwin is a charming exploration of the life of beloved writer Bruce Chatwin. Chatwin--both high-brow and low-, both collector and nomad--was a man of contradictions. His writing "hovered teasingly between fact and fiction," and he was fascinated by paradoxical subjects: a private art collection in a Communist country; a publicity-loving woman who lives alone in the desert. For Chatwin, being on the road was an obsession. He "was an inventive and adventurous traveller," an itinerant who got writer's block at home and who believed that people are happiest when on the move. "Travel does not merely broaden the mind," he once said. "It makes the mind."

Book 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.

Customer Reviews:

Please ... .......2006-01-10

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...........2003-10-13

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...........2000-04-04

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.......1999-07-20

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, I almost wish I hadn't started it. Yes I did learn a bit about Bruce, but although Clapp was a friend and is sympathetic to her subject, I didn't particularly like the man who emerged. He seemed quite vain, shallow, even childish at times. The book did not greatly enhance my enjoyment or understanding of Chatwin's work - and in some ways it made it less interesting by stripping away a bit of the mystery (I know that'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 RL Stevenson - definitely a 5 star essay in a 3 star book. Other parts of the book read more like a Sotheby's catalogue - long lists of objects and people that will be of little interest to many readers. If you can't be bothered to wade through N.Shakespeare's doorstopper this is a good, but not great, intro to Brucie.

maybe she did, maybe she didn't.......1999-03-18

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 the biographer was about to be replaced with the sycophantic anecdotal mush of a close friend (Clapp was once Chatwin's editor). And secondly, this book would possibly render Chatwin as real, and that really wouldn't do. As all Chatwin'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 that Chatwin had made his life.

I'd like to say that Clapp managed to surmount these difficulties for me, but unfortunately, she didn't. However, she also did not fail to surprise me

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