| Can I Come Look At These Items? | | This online store is in association with Amazon.com, so these great, high-qualiy products will come from their warehouse or from other partners. Thanks for shopping! |
|
|
|
Bruce Chatwin: A Biography | 
 enlarge | Author: Nicholas Shakespeare
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $18.00
Buy New: $6.00
You Save: $12.00 (67%)
New (6) Used (14) from $4.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 619207
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 672
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 1.4
ISBN: 0385498306
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780385498302
ASIN: 0385498306
Publication Date: July 17, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: New Softcover with pages that are clean, crisp and unmarked.
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
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
Product Description
Award-winning novelist Nicholas Shakespeare has written the definitive biography of one of the most influential literary figures of our time: Bruce Chatwin, whose works’ strangely compelling combination of research, first-hand experience, myth, and mystification may have been the real substance of his seemingly contradictory life.
Chatwin’s first book, In Patagonia, became an international bestseller, revived the art of travel writing, and inspired a generation to set out in search of adventure. Chatwin became a celebrity, while remaining a conundrum. With little formal education, he had become a director of Sotheby’s. An avid collector, he eschewed material things and revered the nomadic life. Married for twenty-three years, he had male lovers throughout the world. And only at his death did his personal myth fail him. Nicholas Shakespeare, who was given unrestricted access to his papers, spent eight years retracing Chatwin’s steps and interviewing the people who knew him. The result is a biography that is at once sympathetic and revelatory.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
Somewhat deceptive but vary enjoyable nonetheless July 24, 2008
Its fun to read about Bruce Chatwin's alleged 'genius' but you realize that for the most part, Bruce Chatwin had charisma and great recall of facts and tidbits, but analytically he spouted complete nonsense. Maybe that was his allure - his ability to make what is intellectually garbage seem real. In that regard, everything he wrote, and all his big ideas, were pure fiction. He was just great at confidently telling us it isn't, and we liked to believe him.
I've read this biography a couple of times, if only because I ran out of books and love reading all the lurid details about a sexually confused, self destructive narcissist like Bruce Chatwin.
I highly doubt I will read anymore books by Bruce Chatwin after reading (and re-reading) this biography. I will say that Nicholas Shakespeare does give a good read - but he pulled his punches - probably because he knew Bruce Chatwin and both are British writers moving (or least used to move) in the same circles. I really can't fault the biographer for that.
 Well worth your read August 12, 2007
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 July 22, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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 November 3, 2003
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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 November 3, 2003
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
|
|
|
| |
News 
