Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Chatwin, (Charles) Bruce - Hilton Kramer

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HILTON KRAMER

It has taken some 85 years, but it looks as if Patagonia has now acquired another English laureate of remarkable literary powers in the person of Bruce Chatwin, who reversed [W. H.] Hudson's journey, traveling from London to the remote corners of "the accursed land," as it is called in Buenos Aires, and coming away with a book that is a little masterpiece of travel, history and adventure. It is called, simply, "In Patagonia" …; it is short—199 pages; and it is a wonderful read.

For Mr. Chatwin is a marvelous storyteller—a miniaturist who packs dozens of odd tales, bizarre characters and unforgettable scenes into the 97 succinct chapters of his book, many of them scarcely a page in length. Like Hudson, he has a sharp and sympathetic eye for natural history, and his book abounds in vivid pictorial glimpses of the landscape, but it is in his accounts of the human history of Patagonia that he is most absorbing. About everything from the...

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1. Introduction
2. Maurice Richardson
3. Malcolm Deas
4. Hilton Kramer
5. Alastair Reid
6. Eve Auchincloss
7. Brian Martin
8. Mary Hope
9. Victoria Glendinning
10. John Hemming
11. John Thompson
12. Richard Hall
13. Anne DuchêNe
14. Francis King
15. Lorna Sage
16. V. S. Pritchett
17. John Updike
18. Copyright

1. John Updike