Talk:The Songlines

Removed POV last sentence.

I removed the following POV, unencyclopedic, and slightly ungrammatical sentence from the end of this stub:

Read this for an interesting journey through anthropology, australia and well reason argument.

—CKA3KA (Skazka) 21:57, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Gaaa! I should have removed the last two sentences, not just the last. Here are the last two sentences. I've removed them both for the reason described above.

Chatwin captured the essence of this beautifully in one of his finest books. Read this for an interesting journey through anthropology, australia and well reason argument.

Actually, this whole stub reads more like a jacket cover than an article, but I haven't the time to fix the whole thing. I think I've removed the most egregious sentences, though. —CKA3KA (Skazka) 22:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:TheSonglinesBookCover.jpg

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BetacommandBot 04:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Published when?

Hi, i`m [1]and i found in this article "Publication Date 1982" in the box on the right. My edition (Vintage 2003) says "First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape Ltd in 1987". Was it published before? Where? Would be nice if s/o got the answer.Thanks--84.169.227.211 (talk) 15:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

According to Fantastic Fiction, it was published in 1987 by Jonathan Cape but therre was an earlier 1986 edition by Franklin Press, according to Abebooks, "for subscribers as part of their Signed First Editions series" GrahamHardy (talk) 13:25, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

criticism section

For the criticism section, or to further flush out what is fiction and what is not, I add this quote:

"Bruce... hadn't sat down with any Aborigine. He gets information second hand and repeats it. Aboriginal people are capable of dealing with the world in a philosophical way The problem was, he just wasn't there long enough, he didn't get involved at any depth."

Toly Sawenko (on whom the character Arkady is based), Bruce Chatwin: A Biography by Nicholas Shakespeare p 490. 2001.

Charges of 'false' or 'mis' representations come from... social scientists and locals claiming to know the Aboriginal culture better than Chatwin, either because they rely on academically rigorous research, or because they have lived and worked with Aboriginal communities for a long time. In effect, The Songlines reveals that Chatwin is a poor anthropologist (his visit too brief, his ethnography too superficial) whose travel writing is limited by his Western, neocolonial privilege.

The Global Politics of Contemporary Travel Writing By Debbie Lisle p 64. 2006. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.203.83.137 (talk) 01:58, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

The character of Arkady is based on Salman Rushdie as much as on any actual Russian-stock immigrant. Rushdie and Chatwin traveled around the outback in the early eighties and no doubt they discussed some of the ideas and stories of the novel during the writing process. And for the record, novelists and literary writers are under no obligation to "stick to the real-life truth" in what they write. Not even if their books feel as effortlessly real and observed from reality as The Songlines does in its Australian scenes (the first hundred pages include some of the most overpoweringly lifelike, convincing, atmospheric, hit-it-on-the-nail portrayals of those settings and their people that you're likely to find in any book). 83.254.154.164 (talk) 03:54, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Does no one have the courage to point out that Chatwin is simply FULL OF SHIT?

His book is bad anthropology and bad history.

This article is full of simple-minded nonsense, "oldest living culture" and other absurdity. It is nothing more than fiction, based on Chatwin's fancies and prejudices.

-- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.241.144.28 (talk) 07:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

If you can find reliable sources that point out the flaws in the book, feel free to add them here or to the article. Without sources, criticism is often removed on wikipedia.Dialectric (talk) 13:36, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Tags

I've tagged this article for inappropriate tone and lack of sources. At the moment it reads like a English student's book review: rhetorical questions such as "What are we if not defined by our environment?" have no place in encyclopaedia articles and, as the above unsigned commentator states, "oldest living culture" is a claim which needs proof. It's not clear from the article whether the opinions are Chatwin's, or whether they belong to the article's author(s): the article needs to be about the book and sourced reactions to it, rather than being an abbreviated version of the book itself ~dom Kaos~ (talk) 17:01, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Genesis

Any information about the genesis of the book? Chatwin's journey to Australia? Relation of journey and book? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.144.202.22 (talk) 01:31, 5 January 2015 (UTC)