Lawrence Mackinreviews The Songlinesby Bruce Chatwin and Time Out's Sydneyguide
The Songlines
Bruce Chatwin
Vintage, £7.99
When it comes to travel writing, it is impossible to escape Bruce Chatwin. For many In Patagonia remains his masterpiece, and the benchmark by which other travel books are judged, even if he may have been a bit liberal with the facts about where he went and whom he met. The Songlines, though, is a truly astonishing book. In it Chatwin turns his fierce cultural intelligence to the Aborigines and travels around Australia in their company, learning how their world was sung into existence and how their entire history, which is winding inexorably to its end, can be traced in the physical landscape around them. There is something of the school of magical realism about this book, and at times it seems as if the stories being spun are not about the harsh red earth of Australia but from an entirely mythical land. The realism with which they are delivered, though, and the jarring border where the stories of the ancestors are lashed to the realities of today, ground this illuminating cultural history. It is an admirable work, with a dark dash of sadness. Many travel writers have plundered its larder for their own prose, but few have made anything worth setting on the same table.
Sydney
Time Out, £12.99
And from the most rural parts of Australia we move to its most urban. This guide opens with a great history section, including a brief subsection on Aborigines, then jumps straight into the listings and ubercool recommendations that Time Out has become synonymous with. For a city guide, there is a great deal of detail, and the colourful panels are particularly useful: barbecue etiquette and free booze, anyone?