Critics
"With this book," a reviewer noted, "Chatwin redefined the genre of travel writing with his little nuggets of historical information weaved intricately together with his search for anecdotes." The New York Times described it as a "little masterpiece of travel, history, and adventure." Chatwin's fascination with Patagonia had its roots in a scrap of mylodon skin that sailor Charley Milward, his grandmother's cousin, had sent back to England.
After Chatwin had published the book and gained acclaim as a travel writer, however, residents in the region came forward to contradict the events depicted in the book. It was the first, but not the last, time in his career that conversations and characters that Chatwin reported were alleged to have been fictionalised.
Read more about this topic: In Patagonia
Famous quotes containing the word critics:
“Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you’re cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)
“Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today—but the core of science fiction, its essence ... has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.”
—Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)