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In Patagonia

Bruce Chatwin

Summary

In Patagonia is an account of Chatwin's journey through the southern tip of South America in the mid-1970s, told in 97 short, numbered chapters that mix travel, history, legend and portraits of people met along the way. The book begins in childhood: in his grandmother's cabinet in England lay a piece of skin with coarse reddish hair, which he was told came from a 'brontosaurus' and had been sent by his grandmother's cousin, Charley Milward, a sailor who settled in Patagonia. Chatwin later learned it came from a mylodon, a giant ground sloth, found in a cave near Last Hope Sound, and his quest to find a piece of his own gives the book its thread. He sets out from Buenos Aires and travels south through Argentine and Chilean Patagonia, by bus, truck and on foot. Along the way he tells the stories of the region's exiles, dreamers and misfits. He follows the trail of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, who ranched near Cholila before returning to robbery. He visits descendants of the Welsh colonists of the Chubut valley, who came in 1865 to preserve their language and faith. He recounts the career of Orélie-Antoine de Tounens, a French lawyer who proclaimed himself King of Araucania and Patagonia, and the bloody suppression of the anarchist-led rural strikes of the early 1920s. He meets Boer settlers, Scots sheep-farmers, a lonely German schoolteacher and other émigrés, and reflects on the theory that restlessness is fundamental to human nature. He tells the story of the Fuegians taken to England by Captain FitzRoy of the Beagle, including Jemmy Button, and of the destruction of the native peoples of Tierra del Fuego. The later chapters reconstruct Charley Milward's adventurous and unlucky life as a ship's captain, wreck survivor, dentist's partner and foundry owner in Punta Arenas. At last Chatwin reaches the mylodon cave, where he finds some dung and a few hairs of the beast, and the book closes with the end of Charley's story and a sense of the journey's open circle. The book's blend of fact, anecdote and invention was later challenged by some of the people it portrayed.

Top Lessons

Restlessness as human nature
Chatwin believed that humans are naturally wanderers. The book tests this idea through the lives of exiles, adventurers and settlers.
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Truth in travel writing
Chatwin's mixture of fact and invention raises questions about the ethics of writing about real people. The book invites readers to ask what they expect from non-fiction.
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The fragment as form
The book's 97 short chapters move like a journey, each a fragment. It shows how structure can mirror experience.
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In Patagonia

Summary

Top Lessons

Restlessness as human nature

Truth in travel writing

The fragment as form

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Medical Lens