#acrossApril April 29: set below the equator
Chatwin ventures into the desolate land of Outback Australia to learn the meaning of the Aboriginals‘ ancient “Dreaming-tracks.”
#acrossApril April 29: set below the equator
Chatwin ventures into the desolate land of Outback Australia to learn the meaning of the Aboriginals‘ ancient “Dreaming-tracks.”
#7days7books Day 5
Seven books that left a deep impression on me and changed me.
Among my bad boy books - problems everywhere. Idealistic, outright lying, and yet so profoundly inspiring to my little mind. I adore Chatwin (and others I associate)
@batsy tagged me. Returning the favor to @jewright Want to share? (Are you already tagged?)
Describes his time in Alice and in aboriginal communities learning about songlines and aboriginal culture, explores migration and nomadism. Some sections are all quotes and notes from his journals over the years. Idea that people developed tools to fight off predators. Sedentary life in towns made these into weapons used against other people because of scarcity of resources.
Chatwin again adopts the role of the observer in a strange land, this time in the outback of Australia, spending time with the Aborigines and those locals who work with and around them. Part travelogue, part study of Aboriginal culture and thought and how it has been impacted by European Australia, part meditation on the nomadic nature of mankind ancestors and how this impacts the way we think and act and what we lost when we settled down.
Reading chapters 1-3 & 21 for class.
I really hope one day to read this book in whole.
This book is beautifully written and well composed.
A taste of art 🎨❤️
“‘So a musical phrase‘, I said ‘is a map reference?‘
‘Music‘, said Arkady, ‘is a memory bank for finding one‘s way about the world.‘”
“Aboriginals believed that all the ‘living things‘ had been made in secret beneath the earths crust, as well as all the white man‘s gear - his aeroplanes, his guns, his Toyota Land Cruisers - and every invention that will ever be invented; slumbering below the surface, waiting their turn to be called.”
“‘To wound the earth‘, he answered earnestly, ‘ is to wound yourself, and if others wound the earth, they are wounding you.”
#birthdaygiveaway @Read4life
Hope I‘m not too late! Only saw this just now after I got up!
I spent an amazing vacation in Melbourne/Victoria, Australian in 1999. I would love to go back to Australia and visit some other places. I read the tagged book while there.
Had a day off, had a errand to run, but when I get to the shop it is closed for half an hour. Discount bookstore on the next block. Good way to kill the time ...... I suppose I needed more books right?
#rockinmay #mysteriousways
I read this as one of my first books on an around the world challenge. I love the idea that routes are only known to aboriginal tribes by their songs. For me definitely mysterious. A really great book.
This is my new favorite memoir. Travelogue, history lesson, science lesson, and investigation into human nature all in one, this was a life-altering experience for me. I can't recommend this one enough.
Bought myself a beautifull new edition of my favourite travelogue, published by the Folio Society!