Do You like book In Patagonia (2003)?
Qué cosa tan maravillosa. Leyendo un poco sobre el libro, me encontré con que en algún momento acusaron a Chatwin de falsear información: qué soberana burrada, qué corta lectura. Si bien es un libro de viajes que, supuestamente, habla de lo vivido por el autor en su viaje a la Patagonia, quedarse únicamente en el terreno de lo "real" y lo "inventado" es no darse mucha cuenta de nada. Acá unas notitas sobre lo "real" y lo "ficticio" en este libro. - En la Patagonia empieza con un pedazo de piel que, en la imaginación infantil del narrador, pertenece a un dinosaurio. Ese es el punto de partida, lo que hace que inicie toda la narración (y la travesía). Después veremos que la piel es de otro animal, de una especie de perezoso gigante. El mismo Chatwin dice algo así como que a él le seguía pareciendo más interesante pensar que la piel era de un brontosaurio. Esto podría ser una especie de guía: hay historias que la ficción puede volver más interesantes. - En más de una ocasión detuve mi lectura para googlear los nombres de todos los fantásticos e increíbles personajes que aparecen. Me sorprendí muchas veces al enterarme que eran reales los forajidos del Salvaje Oeste o la nobleza francesa-patagona. A veces la realidad no requiere arreglos para volverse sorprendente. -En algún momento decidí dejar de googlear. No importaba. Esa Patagonia, la de Chatwin, tal vez no se correspondía con la realidad siempre, tal vez sí. Qué más da. Esa Patagonia existe únicamente en este libro y era esa la geografía que me interesaba conocer.
—Ale Vergara
A difficult book to analyze. The writing style seems simple - composed mainly of short statements - yet the author's eye picks out the oddest details. These details, together with a wide literary knowledge, well-researched history, myth and legend and encounters with strange and sometimes wonderful characters along the way, add up to an unusual read that gives one a peculiar and almost mystical feel for the country. The story begins with a glass-fronted cabinet in his grandmother's dining room and a scrap of leathery skin sprouting ginger hairs. This was said to be the remains of a brontosaurus discovered in a cave in Patagonia by Charley Milward, his grandmother's cousin. The book is like the journal of a long-desired quest - with many deviations and adventures along the way - to discover the truth hiding amongst the muddle of family history.Some sections - especially the revealing human ones - seemed almost fragmentary and I found myself re-reading and wanting more information. Others, mostly those dealing with historical figures, were (for me) too involved and difficult to absorb. But these are small things in what is an unusual and rather special book.
—Nell Grey
Patagonia is that stretch of land at the southern tip of South America, the major part of which is Argentina and the rest, Chile. In the 501 Must Read Books list this is included as a travel book. I think this is a bit off. The title gives a hint. It's "In Patagonia." The preposition "in" makes a lot of difference. Bruce Chatwin did not make a lot of description of the various places he had been in Patagonia when he started travelling there in 1974. At least not as much as the people--both living and dead--who, at one time or another in their lives, had been part of the place. The book is more like a collection of mini-biographies of all sorts of characters: odd, tragic, triumphant, mythical, the strange and historical. Most of the characters I have not heard about before, ever. But some did ring a bell, like the outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Charles Darwin and Ferdinand Magellan (whose fleet passed that way before crossing the Pacific Ocean then getting himself killed in Mactan Island, the Philippines).Excellently-researched, entertaining and well-written, I had to withhold two stars however because there's no food and/or sex here.
—Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly
