My first read of Chatwin's writing, and this book turns out to have been his last. The essays are grouped under titles, such as "Friends", which includes Diana Vreeland. "Encounters" includes a wild memoir of being in Africa with Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski as they filmed a movie. He also writes of nomads, French fashion designer Madeleine Vionnet in Paris, and meeting a "wolf-boy" in India in 1978.
Reading Chatwin's essays is like getting an education about the world of the last 35 years of the 20th Century. He sought out the rare and unusual, often focusing on one person, or a small group, to tell the story of how they live. I'll look for more from him. ( )

Bruce Chatwin was perhaps the biggest star of the British travel-writing boom of the eighties, but also the first to burn out, a victim of that other great viral phenomenon of the period, AIDS. Before becoming a serious traveller, he had already established himself as a formidable judge of fine art, with a glowing career ahead of him at Sotheby's. But then he went off to South America for six months, and wrote In Patagonia, the first of a short but insanely beautiful collection of books that all hover somewhere on the borders of fiction and travel-writing.
This was Chatwin's last book, a collection of his short stories, essays and journalism from the seventies and eighties which he prepared for publication during his final illness (which he refers to in several pieces, but still steadfastly refuses to call by its proper name, even though everyone who read the book must have known what it was...).

Despite the circumstances, almost everything in the book still seems to reflect Chatwin's usual concern for perfection of style, and it's a pleasure to read throughout. The subject-matter, as you might expect, ranges widely over his big interests in life - in particular the fine art business, travel, architecture, nomads, and literature. He says in an introductory note that all but one of the pieces were "my ideas", but there does seem to be quite a spectrum between very personal reflections and obvious newspaper commissions (like the Observer article describing a cruise on the Volga with a boatload of German Stalingrad veterans and widows - a kind of trip it's rather difficult to imagine Chatwin going on on his own initiative).
There are some very interesting peripheral notes related to his other books, such as his account of working with Werner Herzog on the film version of The viceroy of Ouidah, and some tantalising hints of other things that might have been developed into books if he had had more time.
A book that everyone who enjoys Chatwin's prose would want to have on their shelves to complete the set, but perhaps not the first one you would reach for if you don't know his work yet. ( )

Bruce is seen at his best here in pieces that have been polished before publication. At his best he was a great writer. ( )

A dazzling collection of essays, not just travel writing but art and art history as well. The people Chatwin met, the places; it does feel like a compendium for completists, but the quality is universally so high that you can't grudge the publishers their choice. ( )

Chatwin always tells a good story and he tells it well. Even when one questions or disagrees with his perceptual bias, he is clear and vibrant. And that's all we can ask when someone else is doing the seeing [in a travel book] for us. ( )