CHATWIN, Bruce. The Songlines. London, Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1987.
8vo. Original black cloth, gilt title to spine, with illustrated dust jacket, not price-clipped; pp. vi, 293; apart from the usual toning of the paper, near fine.
First edition. Observations by Bruce Chatwin during his sojourn to Australia, and his investigation into the aboriginal tradition of the songlines. The book, in a postmodern fashion, straddles the line between fiction and non-fiction. The first half follows the narrator on his travels through wild Australia, the second is dedicated to Chatwin's musings on the nature of man. The book itself is controversial, with some calling it colonialist, simplistic or factually unreliable. Today, however, we accept a similar standard of writing from our politicians and journalists, which renders the criticism fairly moot.
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