[David Mason]

Let's see if this works--it's from the weekend edition of the WSJ:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...LE_Video_Third

Dave

[Janice D. Soderling]

Thanks, this goes on my wish list. Interesting review.

[David Mason]

It's an amazingly complex case because he really was a terrific writer. Re-reading The Songlines, his most famous book, I was a bit let down (I much prefer other books I mention in the review), and I would love to hear from OZ folk here what they thought of it...

[David Mason]

Just bumping this up...

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Dave,

Your article, and Chatwin, and The Songlines, raise so many issues, strum so many chords, touch so many nerves - all of which are so central to my personal life and projects at this time - that the fact you created this thread now seems wholly serendipitous to me.

The reason I can't react is because I am travelling right now - I am stopped on a dusty hot roadside - through the country that Chatwin wrote about. I have been doing this for over a year now ... oh, if I started to tell, it would not end, and the heat here is ferocious, so I must get back on the road.

I am intrigued to know what you make of Chatwin, your impressions when you met him. When Chatwin and/or The Songlines are mentioned, the two words that come instantly to my mind are specious and meretricious.

Alas, I really have no time now. Australia is hot and hard and vast. And I wouldn't look to The Songlines (there! I just corrected a typo where I had written The Songlies!!) to understand this land or the culture that grew out of it.

Chatwin himself is another story. As you say - he is a complex character, and I much prefer to think of his theories on nomad and settled societies out of the Australian context. These questions go to the heart of my life's preoccupations, only I take a more psychological view of it, rather than anthropological or philosophical.

Of course, a writer can be both meretricious and great. There was certainly some kind of powerful daimon alive in Bruce Chatwin.

This is a vast topic - and all the threads it throws out would take time to follow. In a way, it's my life's work - the nature of Australia and travel writing - so do forgive this brief and inadequate reply to a deeply challenging, often disturbing, topic. I did not want you to believe your article had gone unnoticed. It deserves to spawn a huge discussion.

When my present journey is done - this leg of it, at least - I hope to articulate some of my thoughts on things you've raised. But it's hot as hell here right now, Dave, and I need to get to the coast, to my island, and sink into the Coral Sea for a while.

Cally

[David Mason]

I really appreciate your taking the time on the road to write a response, Cally. Indeed, I suspected there was something not quite right when I re-read The Songlines, though the bits from his notebooks and the almost mystical notion of some human connection at the source of things are very attractive. But yes, I could guess it wasn't right about Australia and I'm eager to learn more of what you're working on in this regard--or any regard.

In person Bruce was simply quite charming and generous, at least with me--I was a young kid eager to be a writer, and in our brief meeting he took me seriously as a writer, and I think I owe him some small debt for that. But the letters demonstrate that in the years before I met him he could be a terribly selfish fellow--a narcissist, as I say in the review, but perhaps something worse. I do believe he matured, and I would strongly recommend the best of his books--for me On the Black Hill and Utz are the most satisfying, but others continue to praise [i]In [/I]Patagonia. Some of the journalism in What Am I Doing Here is very good.

Anyway, safe home to your island--you can't imagine how exotic that sounds to a guy in the mountains.

Dave

[FOsen]

Great article, Dave. I'm confused, though. I thought some of the other reviews mentioned that he really had died of that desert fungus-thing he claimed to have had.

Frank

[David Mason]

Thanks, Frank. It's a pretty complicated story...

When one dies of AIDS, it's really of the various things the immune system can't attack, and it's fairly common for a sort of brain fungus to contribute. So yes, Bruce had a fungal infection, but his original story of getting it from eating an ancient Chinese egg has not, to my knowledge, been substantiated. Interestingly, when he was first taken to hospital with symptoms, long before he or anyone else announced anything, the doctor immediately diagnosed HIV.

A lot of reviewers make a big deal about his not having gone public about his sexuality or his HIV status, but I incline to be charitable when another person's privacy is involved, and there is also some evidence that he was protecting his parents in some way. You remember how it was in 1988--a lot of misinformation about HIV and AIDS.

Anyway, the dear friend who showed me where he'd buried Bruce's ashes, Patrick Leigh Fermor, just turned 96, and is doing very well. We read a writer like Chatwin partly through the narrative of the Byronic early death, but I can't help thinking of all the ways he might have grown and developed if he had lived. He was a remarkable talent, even if much of his work is left in some kind of unfinished state....

[Janice D. Soderling]

I'll just mention that Nicholas Shakespeare also wrote the authorized biography "Bruce Chatwin". I remember that I enjoyed it very much when I first read it, but B.C. was terra incognito then.

That was several year ago but after this thread appeared I pulled it off the shelf to reread prior to tackling the "letters".(When I've finished my current marathon read/re-read on Egypt.)

Looking forward to Cally's return on this subject.

[David Mason]

I think Shakespeare's bio is very good--doesn't shy from the dark side, either.