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:
“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)
“Critics generally come to be critics not by reason of their fitness for this, but of their unfitness for anything else. Books should be tried by a judge and jury as though they were a crime, and counsel should be heard on both sides.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)