Q&A …

… Nicholas Shakespeare on Bruce Chatwin | Five Books | Five Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Chatwin was a great writer, but the restlessness that drove him is less easy to pin down. Readers sense a tension behind the work. While the prose is clear, vivid and confident, the author seems opaque, unmoored and capable of whirring off in all directions. He copied into one of his signature Moleskine notebooks this telling line from Montaigne: “I ordinarily reply to those who ask me the reason for my travels, that I know well what I am fleeing from, but not what I am looking for.”