Jim’s Reviews > With Chatwin: Portrait of a Writer > Status Update

[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."

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.