Review: In Patagonia
In Patagonia is a book that, like Desert Solitaire, captures a place but is not a travel book. Bruce Chatwin has written an ode to a people and place that he found himself drawn into.
Chatwin’s Patagonia is a desolate, supernatural place inhabited by loners, discards, and outlaws to which he was drawn by a possibly fictitious brontosaurous skin. The inhabitants are simultaneously historical, fictional, and contemporaneous giving the place a timelessness that few places can claim. The result is to place a real location outside into a magical realm.
It’s a beautiful and unique work.
Strongly recommended.