Songlines

I've read stuff by Bruce Chatwin before; he's an English writer who travels and researches and puts together books which are thoughtful and interesting. This particular one is about his visit to the Northern Territory, in order to find out about "songlines", or the way that the Aboriginal people of that area saw the land and their totems.

It's good to read a book that doesn't brand Australians as "friendly, casual people" and instead highlights the racism, drunkeness and stupidity which also characterises the average person. It was also good that the Aboriginal people that Chatwin met were also given a balanced overview. The actual information about the songlines was fascinating, and completely new to me - illustrating just how limited my knowledge is, and I'd say, most Australians knowledge is about Aboriginal culture.

It's a good book, although there's a large chunk in the middle where he just quotes random people about Darwinism and war and a whole lot of things which don't relate to anything. Kind of interesting but out of place, and it really ruins the flow of the book. It ends very randomly, too. The first half chugs along well, but the editor should have made him redo the rest of it. An important book to read, but maybe the author was resting on his laurels a bit.