'Songlines' or 'Dreaming Tracks' are what all Europeans call the labyrinth of invisible pathways that meander all over Australia. To Aboriginals, they are the 'Footprints of the Ancestors'; they are both intricate sources of personal identity and territorial markers. From such ancient line, Bruce Chatwin has been able to trace a great deal about an Aboriginal culture as complex as it is different from our own. The conflict between the two ways of life mirrors that within 'civilised' man himself. Disputes over the right to excavate land that is sacred to wandering tribes highlight the importance of myth and instinct in the human psyche. What might in other hands seem theatrically picaresque, Bruce Chatwin transforms into something approaching the scale of Greek tragedy. . .
About the Author
Bruce Chatwin reinvented British travel writing with his first book, IN PATAGONIA, and followed it with four other books, each unique and extraordinary. He died in 1989.
The author couldn't give an account of a trip to the shops without some fantastic embroidering of mundane reality. This blend of myth, observation and outright invention is less an account of Aboriginal mythology than an excuse for the author to let rip. Travel writing has never been the same. (Kirkus UK)
Series: Vintage Classics
Number Of Pages: 304
Published: September 1998
Country of Publication: GB
Dimensions (cm): 19.8 x 12.9 x 1.9
Weight (kg): 0.22
Edition Number: 1