Status Updates From Mit Chatwin

[Bruce Chatwin] was sent to collect a painting by Cézanne—a painting for which an export license would not have been granted; like most Cézannes, the picture was unsigned. Chatwin borrowed a collapsible easel and a paint set, He wrapped the picture up in oil-cloth and tucked it under his arm. When challenged by Customs, he declared: "Moi-même, je suis peintre."

If Bruce Chatwin had been portly, myopic and mouse-haired his life and reputation would have been quite different.

The Viceroy of Ouida is the least immediately beguiling, though not the least accomplished of Chatwin's books. It is the most jeweled and the most horror-filled: there are knifings, brandings of flesh, poisonings, cholera, beatings, pus and dysentery.

The book, of course, was always intended to be made up of byways: it was meant to slope off, to jump backwards and forwards in time, to slip from description to speculation, from history to evocation.