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T U E S D AY, M A R C H 1 1 , 2 0 0 8In Patagonia -- Where Lying Isn't So BadI'll happily get on my high horse about memoirists who distort thetruth or out and out lie -- the news has been filled with them lately,from a half-Indian gang banger in LA who turned out to be a upperclass white chick who wanted to give voice to the voiceless (and get alovely near $100,000 advance in the process) to a Holocaust survivorwho was not a Jew, not a Holocaust survivor and apparently was NOTsheltered by wolves who defended her from the Nazis. (I wonder whattipped people off?)So here I am just finishing Bruce Chatwin's delightfully untrustworthybook "In Patagonia," which I suspected was half fabulist, half true and Icouldn't care less. The tale of his travels in Patagonia (whichencompasses Argentina and Chile and isn't a well-defined region -- see,even the geography is suspect), it is bursting with stories aboutdinosaurs, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (who cavorted inPatagonia while making half-hearted efforts to settle down), Welshfarmers who clung to their Welshness, history lessons, Germans whorecreated the Rhineland, a Scotsman who had never seen Scotland butwore a kilt to dinner, seafarers, priests, mad poetry-quoting lingeriesalesmen and really quite a bit more to do with dinosaurs than Iexpected.I finished in a glow and read the introduction (which should always beread last, if at all, in any book) and it reassured me that in fact the bookwas indeed "colorful" with the truth -- Nicholas Shakespeare helpfullysays, "He told not half a truth but a truth and a half." Chatwin himselfdid not want this posted in the travel section and freely admitted it wasnot a documentary of his journey, changing names of people, throwingin a fanciful detail when it felt right and so on. And that self-awarenessof what he had created forgives a lot of sins. The label that Penguinuses on the back of my edition is even more succinct: "In Patagonia" islisted as "literature/travel." Indeed. And in the right order.POSTED BY MICHAEL IN NEW YORK AT 8:26 PM

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