The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin

I'm haunted by my ex-boyfriends' tastes. I've acquired a small portion of DirtDog's love for Brahams, String Songster's disdain towards Mozart, and Scottish? Stephen's passion for the Beatles, Iain Banks and Kate Bush. Stephen introduced me to Bruce Chatwin and I read On the Black Hill one magical weekend back in 1995. Stephen spoke of The Songlines as if, obviously as a literate person, I had read it. I had never heard of it, but had a hard time envisioning the author of a very quiet novel of brothers in Wales (On the Black Hill) exploring the depths of aboriginal origin stories. Stephen also introduced me to Dougie MacLean and other connections between Scotland and Australian Aborigines that I didn't understand but felt somehow magical, mysterious and apparent at the time.

I'm also haunted by the tastes of people who have appeared in my life perhaps only to inflict some new idea on me. I owe a great love of Where in the World is Carmen San Diego to a roommate I otherwise couldn't stand and I like LIVE songs on Jack Radio just because I associate them with String Songster's Ex Chemaine (whom I only met once). One more influential person was a gardening client in Philadelphia. She introduced me to great garden writers because she could tell from an annotated plant list I created for her that our styles were similar. She fed me fabulous fresh fruit as I worked in her garden, wanted to travel with my parents, and talked books with me as I planted her shrubs. She compared several other authors to Bruce Chatwin and discussed his early demise as if I (along with all other literate cool people) had mourned his early passing in 1989. I knew in my time gardening with her that I had found a kindred spirit and I'm still angry with myself that we don't keep in touch.
So Bruce Chatwin comes with baggage. To me, he's a haunted author. Haunted by great memories, but haunted none the less. I found The Songlines in the KU card catalog one day and felt tingly all over. I remember being physically relieved when it wasn't on the shelf where it was supposed to be. I checked out another Bruce Chatwin book but was never able to start it because of the weight of Stephen memories expecting me to love it.

That's all the backstory to the February book review (I pushed hard but didn't finish it until March 1).
One cold January day I was looking through the Mister's novels (hoping to find the two books that I started over the summer and somewhere lost in the move) and discovered The Songlines, a paperback he clearly bought for a college class but doesn't recall reading. And I read it. And I thought nothing about loving it for the sake of Scottish? Stephen. And couldn't recall the name of the kindred spirit in Philadelphia. So the biggest deal of reading this book is a change in status of my personal ghosts. Good to be able to read a book on its own merits. Sad to be unaffected by once-dominant emotions.

As for the book, its really good. It happened to me at a time when I'm teaching and thinking about human coevolution (particularly as pertains to agriculture) and the range of thoughts presented really resonates. Chatwin writes a tale, as if memoir, of traveling through Australia talking to (or not talking to) native people about their songlines, but peppers the last half with his notes from years of travel about nomads, pastoralists, hunters, the journey and the human condition. The book is short on plot, the characters are very realistic and very far from heroic, and there are several times that one wonders exactly when we'll get to the point and if we'll recognize it when we get there. Which, is, I believe, very intentional, as the point of the book, as with the songlines themselves, is that there is no linear destination and the journey itself is to be valued. Not a unique philosophy, certainly, and one prone to annoy me in a book (unless the journey is full of adventures that further the "journey is the destination" plot, which was not the case in this book) but very well executed in this case.
I'm having a hard time determining to whom I'd recommend this book. I'd suggest it for some time when you are hoping to feel intellectual and culturally challenged. It is the perfect book for a college lit. class because it is an overall enjoyable read, but it makes one feel that the world is so full of ideas and isn't it wonderful to be exploring all of these great anthropological-psychological-literary ideas from around the world? While I say it's great for a college lit. class for that reason, here I am at 34 feeling special for having read a book largely of ideas. I'm also feeling that my genuine intellectual friends (DirtDog, the siblings in-law) are just laughing at the suggestion that such a short compilation of notes really requires thought.

No rodents make appearances in The Songlines, although many marsupials do.

Digeridoo photo from the wikipedia commons.