Re: Heartsong

This is without question one of my favourite books. The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin. What more can I say? To even begin to fathom what the Dreamtime and Songlines mean is to be arrogant. Chatwin provided a glimpse into this, and what a glimpse. Any words I can use to describe my impression of this is a failure, but things like sophistication in language might be a crude start.

Argh, now I want to go and reread it again. If I recall correctly, Chatwin speculated that man had developed a symbiosis with the big cats, not the least of which being the sabre toothed cats. If I remember this right, I was fascinated by his weaving together of this idea of man and big cats coexisting in not just the same regions, but the same landscapes like caves. This through anthropological records of campsites and so on.

And as I recall in the book, he recounts an engagement with a redneck aussie in a bar, who went off on the locals and their gibberish to which Chatwin said he slowly tried to examine the extreme craft and intelligence that goes into language. And especially the language of the Songlines.

This love of language is what causes me to wander down to the canyonlands, to the 'rez' of the Hopi, of the Apache, and just get myself into a situation so I can just listen to languages. Having very close Navajo and Hopi friends, there is nothing more soothing than to hang out with people who can speak the language that comes from the land.

Gadszooks... all these recollections come rushing back at the mention of this book.

A great, great book. One of my favs of all time. Tweet