Product Description

A biography of Bruce Chatwin, based on private notebooks, diaries, letters and hundreds of interviews. It illuminates the many sides of Chatwin, from Sotheby's director, archaeologist, "Sunday Times" journalist and traveller to devoted husband and active gay, socialite and loner.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #112527 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 604 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Bruce Chatwin was the golden child of the contemporary English novel; by the time he died of an AIDS-related illness aged 49 in January 1989 he had produced the startlingly original masterpieces that made his name. Chatwin came late to being a published writer; In Patagonia, his instant classic of what can loosely be termed "travel literature", came out in 1977. In the preceding years this precocious, intense figure had been an art specialist at Sotheby's, a journalist with The Sunday Times, an archaeologist and a restless, questing traveller. By the time his novel of studying the Aboriginal dreamtime in Australia, The Songlines, was published, he had gained a worldwide audience.

An obsessive art collector, Chatwin also acquired people as he did fabulous objects. He took both male and female lovers while continuing to remain married to his wife Elizabeth, seemingly the most enduring relationship of his life. It is her cooperation and tenacity which enabled this biography to come about, as well as Nicholas Shakespeare's exhaustive research (the book was eight years in the making). It is the international span of Chatwin's experiences that makes the reader appreciate his desire to know all cultures and disciplines. There is some excellent, evocative writing here, particularly in Shakespeare's account of Chatwin's last weeks, his disappointment at not winning the Booker Prize for Utz and the detailed passage describing Chatwin's awful, miserable death surrounded by friends and family. There are a plethora of adjectives used to describe Chatwin such as "elusive", "mercurial", and "charismatic". Yet what Nicholas Shakespeare brings across in this immense, excellent life of Chatwin is the complete aloneness of the man. He was a flamboyant fabulist, an unparalleled conversationalist, yet, as the Australian poet Les Murray is quoted as saying: "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

From the Publisher
Extraordinary reviews for the definitive biography
The definitive biography of Bruce Chatwin by Nicholas Shakespeare has been met with stunning reviews.

"In Nicholas Shakespeare he has found, posthumously, the right biographer. This is a magnificent work of empathy and detection." Colin Thubron, Sunday Times

"Though it runs to 550 pages, Nicholas Shakespeare’s biography feels concise: comprehensively researched, elegantly written, perfectly balanced between the life, the books and the ideas. It's hard to imagine the Life being better done - or that, Chatwin’s books being few, and so much having been written since his death 10 years ago, there is anything now left to say." Blake Morrison, Independent on Sunday

"I take my scalp off to Nicholas Shakespeare. Biographies don’t come any better than this. Eight years in the writing, Bruce Chatwin is a glorious quilt-work of texts, voices and places, joined together with consummate judgement . . . Wisely Nicholas Shakespeare eschews detailed literary analysis. Such is his skill as a biographer, there is no need." Justin Wintle, Financial Times

" . . .an epic piece of work of immense fascination. In awe-inspiring detail and with a rounding-out of all the other characters, Shakespeare takes us successively through the milieux of Chatwin’s life . . . Moreover he does what Chatwin never did and drenches all these worlds in their emotional, human implications." Duncan Fallowell, The Times

"This excellent . . . biography is very far removed from Chatwin’s own anecdotal concision. However, it is fantastically difficult to fashion a narrative out of the inchoate facts of someone’s life. Shakespeare has managed to pull it off." Ian Thomson, Guardian

"It is so difficult to have any sense of another person’s inner life, but in this vastly enjoyable book Shakespeare successfully shines the torch onto a psychic landscape peopled by the fearful monsters that Chatwin kept mostly at bay by continually moving and reinventing himself." Sara Wheeler, Independent

"Shakespeare must be praised for his energy, his always lucid presentation, and – above all – for his mostly poker-faced willingness to leave us as suspiciously intrigued by his strange subject as we were before." Ian Hamilton, Sunday Telegraph

"This is an authorised biography, but with none of the inhibition that an authorised biography usually entails. Nicholas Shakespeare has obviously done his research thoroughly – travelled in Chatwin’s footsteps, interviewed all his friends – and, although I am still not entirely convinced that Bruce Chatwin was the most fascinating man who ever lived, he proves quite fascinating enough to sustain these 550 pages." Lynn Barber, Daily Telegraph

But perhaps as compelling are the testimonies of those who knew Chatwin, as the following descriptions of his most complex personality reveal. he was so many different things, the storyteller, the traveller, the innocent, the mythmaker, the art collector, the lover of many.

THE STORYTELLER "He was looking for stories the world could give him and that he could embellish. He didn’t give a damn whether they were true or not; only whether they were good." (Salman Rushdie on Bruce Chatwin)

THE TRAVELLER "He was lonely and he wanted to be. He had those blue implacable eyes that said ‘I will forget you, I will reject you because neither you nor any other human being can give me what I want’." (Les Murray on Bruce Chatwin)

THE INNOCENT "I saw this guy back in the woods. And this son-of-a-bitch was stark naked except for his hiking boots. And you won’t believe this but he’d tied some flowers round his pecker. I figured he was a hippie except most of them can’t talk, just grunt, but this one had a hoity-toity way of speaking. I told him if he didn’t put his pants on I’d have to take him in. Good looking fella but sort of crazy look in his eyes; he reminded me of a little kid." (Charlie Van, caretaker of Lake of the Woods)

THE MYTHMAKER "He finds difficulty in remembering facts and only the bizarre or trifling really appeals to him." (Bruce Chatwin - school report, Michaelmas 1956) "Every writer is a cut-purse. The art is to make one’s thefts as invisible as possible." (Bruce Chatwin to Colin Thubron)

THE COLLECTOR "If you put 10 things on a table, Bruce would pick out the best one. Basically, he had a strange thing, rather unfashionable now, which is called a good eye." (John Hewett) "He’d come into my room at Christie’s. ‘Gosh, isn’t that so, so beautiful,’ and it might be something I hadn’t noticed. He didn’t know what it was, when it was done, who did it; but he knew it had quality. He could suddenly bring it out of the mire." (Brian Sewell)

THE LOVER "He was amazing to look at. There are few people in this world who have the kind of looks which enchant and enthrall. Your stomach just drops to your knees, your heart skips a beat, you’re not prepared for it. It isn’t just beauty, it’s a glow, something in the eyes. And it works on both sexes." (Susan Sontag on Bruce Chatwin) "His ambivalence was his impetus. Sexually, Bruce was a polymorphous pervert. He’s out to seduce everybody, it doesn’t matter if you are male, female, an ocelot or a tea-cosy." (Miranda Rothschild on Bruce Chatwin)

Customer Reviews

This must be definitive.
The best way to annoy Bruce Chatwin would probably have been, on the basis of this biography, to file his books under the Travel section, or the Gay Author section. Which is ironic, since his bisexuality and wanderlust are two key themes in this immaculately researched and skillfully written biography. Nicholas has been granted access not only to most of Bruce's friends, associates and relations, but also his extensive notebooks, at one time thought to be so scandalous that they were to be held in the Bodleian library away from the public until 2010. This book is a journey in its own right though - Shakespeare travels in the footsteps of Chatwin through Africa, Argentina and Australia, but never lets his subject over take him - this is a well paced and balanced book. Chatwin was never a prolific writer - he wrote marginally less than Jane Austen, and never had a strong reputation as an author until his final years. In an ideal world, this book would be read as a companion to Chatwin's own work. However, whether you have read all, or some, of his writing, I can definitely recommend this book.

Shakespeare's Chatwin surpasses anything Bruce ever wrote
A few years back I indulged myself in a marathon reading of every Ernest Hemingway biography that came to hand. Not all were top-notch, but a few were so good that I will forever after prefer to read a Hemingway bio to anything by Papa himself.

And so with Nicholas Shakespeare's lovely masterpiece of a biography of Bruce Chatwin. Chatwin's own works are scoured for biographical data, but most of Shakespeare's research involved 8 years of painstaking interviews and worldwide travels to Afghanistan, India, Patagonia, New York and elsewhere. Simply put, this is a more enjoyable book than anything Chatwin himself ever wrote, and maybe it's better than anything Chatwin could write.

The parallels to Hemingway can be expanded. Chatwin's life was more varied and exciting than anything he was able to commit to his tight, crystallised prose. He was a much greater man than the sum of his works, and he's a very very lucky dead author indeed to have had someone like Nicholas Shakespeare take the first crack at a full-length treatment of the Chatwin life.

Again like Hemingway, Chatwin was brilliant, charismatic, generous--and often supercilious, nasty and a downright selfish bastard. He was so dedicated to his craft that he appears never to have felt a pang of guilt over his readiness to sponge off friends and his long-suffering wife. Anyone who thinks he wants Chatwin as a role model will give the idea second thoughts before finishing this marvelous book!

Engaging biography of a remarkable literary figure
The seven or so years spent researching and writing this book is clearly evident in this thorough, well-written biography. Obviously, the late Bruce Chatwin would make a challenging candidate for any biographer to tackle, but in Nicholas Shakespeare the right choice was made. The admiration Shakespeare has for his subject is paramount, and his enthusiasm is reflected in the lucidly written pages, but without necessarily overdoing it.

But Chatwin was a man who generated almost magical interest in those he came in contact with, and like myself, through reading his work, although he kept himself well out of it. Having read most of the Chatwin ouevre, I found the biography doubled as a reference aid too, as it cleverly described the background work and processes Chatwin was engaged in before he set out to write a particular book.

More importantly, it managed to shed more light on the development of Chatwin's complex character, his unconventional marriage and his secret sexuality. It was also intriguing to read about the struggle and sacrifices he had to make to produce his beguiling art. Shakespeare has managed to unearth everything imaginable: from ideas jotted down by Chatwin himself in his safeguarded moleskin notebooks, to interviewing endless family, friends and acquaintances from all over the world.

The transformation of Chatwin from a Sotheby's high-flyer to a restless writer is the driving force behind the book. It is a joy to read, but the final chapters describing his falling victim to AIDS are ultimately the most fascinating, and are penned with careful dignity. It is still hard to believe that he was only 48 years old, having died only a decade ago. Nevertheless, the weighty 550 pages make a relatively light, but highly absorbing read when his life is injected into them.

For those of you who need yet to discover the real Bruce Chatwin, this biography could be read as a possible starting point. It will give you a thorough insight into one of the most colourful and intriguing literary figures of the late twentieth century. And believe me, after having read it, it will spark your interest to read Bruce Chatwin's own dazzling output of work, which are all very different in their own right.