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Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin

par Bruce Chatwin, Elizabeth CHATWIN (Directeur de publication), Nicholas Shakespeare (Directeur de publication)

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A definitive collection of personal correspondence by the late author offers insight into his life and perspectives and includes letters written to family members and friends including Patrick Leigh Fermor, Paul Theroux, and Susan Sontag.
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Under the sun. The letters of Bruce Chatwin is a very disappointing book, which tells the reader nothing much about Bruce Chatwin. The letters and postcards for this edition were selected and edited by Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare. Whilst Shakespeare is quoted saying that Chatwin "tells not a half truth, but a truth and a half", the same cannot be said of this volume of correspondance. It tells but half a truth, if not less. The selection of letters and the story that is told in the book is incomplete and biased.

Under the sun. The letters of Bruce Chatwin consists of selected letters and post cards, with intermissions written by Elizabeth Chatwin, his widow, and Nicholas Shakespeare, his biographer. The collection starts with the earliest surviving correspondance, letters Chatwin wrote to his parents as a child in the decade between 1948 - 1958. For readers unfamiliar with the life of Bruce Chatwin, the biographical intermissions fill in the gaps, and describe Chatwin's career, at first as a staff member at Sotheby's, then as a journalist and eventually and a travel writer and novelist. From each period of his life, surviving letters are published.

It is remarkable how little the letters tell us about the life of Bruce Chatwin. Almost all the letters are very superficial and do not talk about deeper issues of problem that Chatwin must have experienced in his life. Chatwin married at the age of 25, which is relatively early. While Nicholas Shakespeare has stated elsewhere that he would consider Bruce Chatwin mainly homosexual, the biographical descriptions in this volume reinforce the view that Bruce Chatwin put forward that he was bisexual. This collection of letters does not contain any letters with any of his homosexual friends, neither platonic nor sexual, and no correspondence with other sexual partners on issues related to sexuality of personal affairs. Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare write in a comment that no such letters have become available. This seems just a little bit too easy.

The biographical comments in the book add information to the periods when Bruce Chatwin stayed in Australia and Argentina, to work on his two masterpieces of travel writing. These descriptions barely disguise that Chatwin abused the trust of his hosts and that he essentially plagiarized other people's ideas to write major portions of Songlines and In Patagonia.

It is somewhat peculiar that Bruce Chatwin maintained closeted throughout the 1970s and 80s; this volume of correspondance does not give any clue why that is so. The fact that the Chatwins divorced, and Bruce Chatwin lived separately from Elizabeth Chatwin is mentioned as a fact, but none of the correspondance describes in detail which feelings and thoughts brought them together again. The fact that Bruce Chatwin contracted HIV and died from AIDS is but very fleetingly mentioned, almost obscured.

Most of the letters in Under the sun. The letters of Bruce Chatwin are letters to and from Elizabeth Chatwin. While this seems natural for a married couple, the same fact becomes peculiar towards the end of Chatwin's life.

Both Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare have separately written, respectively a Preface and an Introduction. It is not explained why they should act as co-editors, but it is said that with the publication it is hoped to keep Bruce Chatwin in the eye of the public. In his introduction, Nicholas Shakespeare does explicitely state that the editors had no other intention than to present Bruce Chatwin in a true light.

However, the sincerity of that statement seems doubtful. In Under the sun. The letters of Bruce Chatwin, both the way in which the material was selected and presented, the reader feels that they are manipulated. There is a strong impression that Elizabeth Chatwin wishes to convey a certain image about Bruce Chatwin, obscuring or omitting material which does not fit the picture of the way she would like Bruce and possible herself remembered.

Hopefully, eventually, more material will surface enabling future biographers to sketch a more complete portrait of Bruce Chatwin. Under the sun. The letters of Bruce Chatwin may eventually have a complementary function, for now it should not be read as the most authoritative or reliable document on Bruce Chatwin's life. ( )
  edwinbcn | Oct 20, 2014 |
Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare have produced a marvellous collection of the letters of Bruce Chatwin and are to be congratulated. Other reviews have rightly said that `Under the Sun' makes a good companion volume to Nicholas Shakespeare's biography, however if I had to choose only one then I would definitely want this book.

For those of us who love Bruce Chatwin's writing `Under the Sun' is a bonus which reflects the many facets of the man - his erudition, pomposity, curiosity, charm, his ability to make friends with the most fascinating people and to irritate many others. The letters also show his restlessness, his chronic need to be on the move - but also his absolute dependence upon and love of Elizabeth, his wife.

If I have one tiny criticism it is that the book lacks a `who's who' - he corresponded with so many people it was, at times, hard to recall where they all fitted in especially as I shall hopefully be dipping-in to it for many years to come. ( )
1 voter Stromata | Nov 20, 2012 |
Our understanding of the complex character of Bruce Chatwin is much improved by the publication of his letters in this book.
They have been superbly selected and edited by his long-suffering wife,Elizabeth and his biographer,Nicholas Shakespeare.
One must admit that his books,with the exception of 'On The Black Hill' are not easy reads,albeit they are all fine works. This volume of letters will fill many a gap and answer quite a few questions about this strange but brilliant man. ( )
  devenish | Mar 1, 2011 |
Things are happening around us.

At the moment you are reading this, a number of rescue operations are taking place, by academics and non – academics alike, to save from oblivion, deceased but still admired writers who are at risk of being washed away by the flood of new authors who arrogantly claim their space on the bookshelves.

Clearly it has become nearly impossible for dead writers and their works to keep their ground against the tsunami of the nearly 500.000 new titles ( in English) which are proposed each year. Fighting for attention in the media with reviews, dug – up early books, biographies and literary companions, it seems that even the most celebrated writers of the previous generation are pushed out of the light – sweep of our attention by the newcomers and are slipping, as they say, “under the radar”.

Authors have a shelf life and their masterpieces an expiry date.

I have become increasingly aware of this struggle while reading introductions and companions of some great books. For instance Stephen D. Dowden in his introduction to the companion to Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain says: “Mann’s place in the canon of modernist classics may not be secure…” and Peter Carey in his foreword to his biography of Golding, says “…Golding’s name does not spark instant recognition…”

If great writers like Thomas Mann and William Golding still have to motivate and defend their position on the literary Canon, what about lesser Gods like Colin Farell or Bruce Chatwin, who have passed away, at a much too young age, and can not strengthen their reputation with new books like their contemporaries Julian Barnes or Salman Rushdie? Colin Farell was saved “in extremis” last year, first by the publication of his “Krishnapur” by the famous Folio society, then by posthumously winning “the lost Man Booker” for the forgotten year 1970. This will surely “buy him some time” but the effect of the prize seems to have ebbed away already.

Bruce Chatwin however has to rely on the efforts of his wife Elisabeth and his biographer Nicholas Shakespeare to keep him “under the sun”. In 1999, ten years after the writer’s untimely death, Shakespeare wrote a splendid Chatwin biography which deservedly received widespread critical acclaim,. The biography, which at moments reads like a genuine adventure roman, depicts in detail Chatwin’s life and the biographical moments of inspiration and conception of his different books: the cult-novel “In Patagonia”, the Flaubertian “The Viceroy of Ouidah”, the slim gem “Utz”, and the masterpiece “The Song lines”.

But for all its merits, the biography may have come too early, for in it’s honest depicting of the writer-traveler’s short live, it demystified Chatwin, who until then had been slowly growing the status of a cult writer.

But the biography did revive the interest in Chatwin albeit only for a few years.

Now again, ten years later, we can only observe that the interest in Chatwin’s works is waning and that his books are slipping into oblivion.
Again there is an urgent need of un-dusting and this is exactly the aim of this new book, a compilation of letters from Bruce Chatwin, collected under the title “Under the Sun” sampled and edited by his wife and his biographer. The picture on the cover of the hard back edition is well chosen. It shows a Chatwin half hidden, on the verge of disappearing in the long grass.

Keeping the above in mind, it was with some apprehension that I started reading Chatwin’s letters. I was at first confirmed in my dubious feelings, as the first 100 or so pages are absolutely without interest. Chatwin, despite some flashes of precocity, is no Wunderkind and his letters during his schooldays and the Sotheby years are quite boring. The same goes for the letters of the last days of the writer’s life. His wife takes over the writing while an exhausted Chatwin dictates some short letters. Poignant enough for the collector of Chatwiana, but it remains less interesting from a literary point. I understand that the early and later letters were added for the sake of completeness but Shakespeare’s biography is much more interesting reading for these periods of Chatwin’s live.

But I am happy I persevered because from the moment Chatwin starts to struggle with his first attempt of a book “The nomadic alternative” (p130!) and explains his aims to correspondents like Desmond Morris or James Ivory, things do get more interesting. Frustrated that his “In Patagonia” is not understood as the “Wonder Voyage” he wanted to describe, for example, Chatwin explains in his letter to his agent Deborah Rogers what were his intentions. This is interesting for it gives the inquisitive reader the possibility to gauge the success of the attempt, evaluate the literary techniques that were employed and discuss their merits.

Chatwin destroyed the drafts of his books. Some suggest that he did that to hide the fact that writing his books was hard work and that he wanted to give the impression that his “In Patagonia” was really a barely corrected genuine travel journal or diary.
Therefore the letters are the closest we can get to the non-edited Bruce Chatwin. In one of these letters for instance he describes a Czech marriage where he is best man to a fellow archeologist. That happening is turned into a funeral scene in the opening pages of UTZ and shows how the writer turned a real life situation into scenes of his book.

Not everybody would appreciate such transformations, especially not the people who trusted him and who under his charming spell, would open their hearts, their diaries and family albums. The Welsh community and the Australians were not all happy with how they were depicted in “Patagonia” and the “Songlines”. But writers, according to me write fiction and to confront them with inaccuracies is unfair. They are artists after all.
Sometimes the situations are kind of funny. Chatwin had for his “In Patagonia” taken whole chunks out of the diary of Monica Bartnett’s (a far relative) father’s diary. Bartnett who knows that Chatwin is writing a book gives him full access to all her private papers , even let him copy whole parts, but then is dumbfounded when she reads her father’s lines in the book Chatwin so graciously send her. But far from being an “idea snatcher”, Chatwin corrects the subsequent impressions of the book and offers his genuine apologies.

Bruce Chatwin really is a fascinating character. You either love him or hate him. Chatting away, impressing people around him with his travels, his cultural erudition and the many grotesque anecdotes he so eagerly recounts, he is the master storyteller “par excellence”.
There is an anecdote, recalled by Theroux I think, where Chatwin is sitting during a dinner between two adventurers who have just returned from an expedition to the Himalaya or something like that in the most dreadful conditions. But it is Chatwin who with all his anecdotes and stories attracts all the attention and impresses everybody, including the two mountaineers!

In the center of a network of famous and less famous people, he discusses in his letters issues from the most intellectual arcane to the most elementary gossip.
Who knows Osip Mandelstam, John Flemming and Hugh Honour for instance? Why should Peter Mathiessen’s “Far Tortuga” be preferred to his “Snow leopard”? Have you seen Jean Vigo’s great movie l’Atalante? Have you read the Baburnama, Ib’n Khaldun’s Muquaddimah or the poems by David Ap Gwilym? Did you meet the exentric Princess Marie-Gabrielle von Urach, or fascinating Eileen Gray? Do the names Luis Barragan or Professor Zazzo ring a bell?
Reading a paragraph of Chatwin’s biography or letters invariably sends you to Google or an encyclopedia for fascinating new discoveries!

Most interesting are Chatwin’s literary models, the writers who influenced his original prose. There are the ones he speaks about like Racine and Turgenev. He advices aspiring young writers to read Chekhov, Isaac Babel, Guy de Maupassant, Ivan Bunin and even Carson Mc Cullers’ sad café. Chatwin, being who he is claims, that his biggest influence is Zahir ud-Din Mohammed Babur with his Babur – Nama !
He admires Flaubert, especially the Flaubert from the letters and the short stories. He writes, he says, the Viceroy of Ouidah, a Flaubertian conte, “in the high style of Salammbo”…

But there are also the more immediate influences which he does not mention: the travel writers, the people who are pushed of the scene by his own noisy appearance. Writer-travelers like Robert Byron, who with his two “sacred texts”, the road to Oxiana and the Station for instance, were a huge influence on Chatwin as we now know. Or Blaise Cendrars or Frederick Prokosch or even the famous writer-traveler and friend of Chatwin Patrick Leigh Fermor!

Finally, there are some real gems to be found in the books. Michael Ignatieff letter for instance. Ignatieff who had witnessed Chatwin’s erratic behavior during a last visit, wrote a letter of adieu to the dying, but still lucid writer which is baffling in its sincere simplicity and humanity: “I’m not sure it is among the offices of friendship to convey my sense of foreboding & disquiet at how I saw you. I must just be expressing a friend’s regret at losing you to a great wave of conviction, to some gust of certainty, that leaves me here, rooted to the spot, and you carried far away. In which case, I can only wave you onto your journey”.

I for one, find Chatwin a fascinating writer and he is one of the few of whom I have all the books, read all the books and admired all the books. Now he is in danger to slip under the radar and there is a genuine risk that his books will be only remembered as literary curiosities like Byron’s Oxiana.

Rather than advising this book of collected letters, which has certainly its merits, I would nudge friends to Shakespeare’s biography or even better to one of Chatwin’s brilliant books. The fascinating journeys he offers us are without doubt unique experiences the like we will not encounter again soon.

http://macumbeira-macumbeira.blogspot.com/2010/12/under-sun-letters-by-bruce-cha... ( )
8 voter Macumbeira | Dec 22, 2010 |
4 sur 4

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Bruce Chatwinauteur principaltoutes les éditionscalculé
CHATWIN, ElizabethDirecteur de publicationauteur principaltoutes les éditionsconfirmé
Shakespeare, NicholasDirecteur de publicationauteur principaltoutes les éditionsconfirmé
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