Oral history in written form.

Style: Laconic, vivid prose. Chatwin learned to compress by cataloguing objects at Sotheby's for years. The book is 97 short vignettes he called Cubist: small pictures tilting toward each other to form a portrait of place. Reminds me of Red Plenty in structure, Hemingway in terseness.

Theme: Restless wandering. Chatwin asks whether we have "journeys mapped out in our central nervous systems" — the only explanation for our insane restlessness. He identifies with blighted wanderers: Cain, the Wandering Jew, Coleridge ("a stranger at his own birthplace, unable to sink roots anywhere"). I should read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner sometime.

Verdict: I came looking for a preview of Patagonian nature and got "quick snapshots of ordinary people" instead. Still worth it for the prose.