Incontrovertibly, one of the most prominent themes in this excerpt is that of the dichotomy between truth and artificiality. To the narrator, the modern life is one which necessitates posturing and pretense. For example, whilst relating his life prior to journeying, the narrator adopts a sardonic tone, placing the word “ ‘expert’ ” in brackets as if to suspend belief. Additionally, he notes: “People said I had a great career” basing his statement on outside opinion instead of making this assertion from a personal standpoint. When he wakes up blind, his ophthalmologist counsels: “You’ve been looking to closely at pictures.”and suggests that instead, he “swap them for some long horizons.” In a way, the pictures in the sterile art gallery are metaphors for artificiality since pictures are reproductions of reality themselves. Chatwin lapsing into blindness as a result of looking too much at them suggests that he has been spending too much time in the sanitized myopic bubble that his modern society strives to create. Furthermore, he has lost track of his priorities and has strayed too far from his ‘natural’ origins and as a result, his eye – his window of perception– stayed “sluggish and clouded.” After all, human eyes were adapted to looking at “long horizons”, not cramped sterile pictures. Therefore, through the use of metaphors and a sardonic tone, Chatwin reveals the artificial nature of modern life.
Conversely, the colourful nomadic lifestyle stands in stark contrast to the somber modern one. Instead of aseptic art galleries and austere “sale-rooms”, there are “brothels”, “vultures”, “Caesarean births” and “rabid dog[s]”. In this setting, death is intertwined with the life’s mundane routines, this stark honesty being characterized by the “vultures [that] flexed their wings along the roof tops.” greeting him each morning as “[he] would watch the men at their daily grooming.” In a way, the nomadic lifestyle is the epitome of honesty since they are devoid of respect for artifice, symbols of authority, or ‘civilization’ seeing as they “didn’t give a damn: for the Pharaohs of Egypt or the British cavalry at Omdurman.” Therefore, the honesty of the nomadic lifestyle is demonstrated by the use of vivid scenery as well as a lackadaisical attitude towards authority.
Similarly, Chatwin chose Africa to visit because it was the site of human evolution, where the oldest human remains were uncovered1. This inexplicable urge to visit Africa may be interpreted as a need to rediscover his origins and assume an Edenic beatific existence, much like the pastoral lifestyle of the nomads. The fact that his eyes “had recovered by the time [he] reached the airport.” is testament to the supernatural nature of his blindness, being the physical manifestation of his yearning for the fantastic. The first stage of the mythological journey, the Call to Adventure – signifies that fate has summoned the hero, usually in the form of a supernatural event, and the hero traverses the borders of his own society to explore the unknown, and undertakes a phantasmagorical odyssey of some sort. Hence, Chatwin’s mysterious blindness and subsequent journeying conforms perfectly to the Call of Adventure phase of the Universal Hero’s Journey Structure. As the narrator enumerates his adventures, which include a “narrow escape from a rabid dog”, the extemporaneous “role of an anesthetic for a Caesarean birth” at an understaffed hospital, and exotic names and places such as visiting “Dongola Ranch in a trading felucca”, “Red Sea Hills”, and “Omdurman”, there is a sense of expansion and freedom in the sentence structure itself. For example, he progresses from short staccato sentences such as “ ‘Where would you like to go?’ ‘Africa.’ ” to a deluge of long flowing sentences such as “At an understaffed clinic, I acted the role of anaesthetist for a Caesarean birth. I next joined up with a geologist who was surveying for minerals in the Red Sea Hills.” Therefore, the narrator’s new life as an honorary nomad is antithetical to his previous claustrophobic role as an art appraiser.
In continuance with the motif of the dichotomy between ‘civilized’ and ‘nomadic’ lifestyles, the nomads pitied the villagers for having been domesticated as they “looked down on the villagers as though they were some other animal.” As the nomads “trade their meat for grain.”, they are also solidifying their powerful predatory role as hunters and the villager’s subordinate roles as the agriculturalists. Furthermore, the nomads are idealized as possessing a heroic countenance, being “tall and lean.” and sporting “sand-coloured cottons folded in an X across the chest” with “shields of elephant hide and ‘Crusader’ swords dangling from their belts.” Chatwin also adopts a jovial avuncular tone in describing the camaraderie that exists among the nomads through use of phrases such as the “hoots of laughter”, “great friends”, and “jokes.” As well, the nomads “anointed each other’s hair.”– grooming being a bonding gesture that belies intimacy and tenderness. This warmth stands in stark contrast to Chatwin’s deadpan account of his former life which is noticeably devoid of personal adjectives of any kind. For example, in enjoying a lucrative occupation as an art appraiser, one would be expected to feel mortified at losing one’s eyesight. Chatwin however, observes with cold objective detachment: “One morning, I woke up blind.” Ergo, through the use of divergent tones, Chatwin contrasts the honesty and warmth of the nomadic lifestyle with the sterility and artifice of the modern lifestyle.
In tracing Chatwin’s progression from a self-professed ‘expert’ on modern painting to a ‘horizon-struck’ wanderer and an advocate of the nomadic lifestyle, this excerpt explores the themes of truth and artifice, tradition and modernity, as well as the discrepancy between the modern and nomadic lifestyle. In conforming to the Call of Adventure phase of Joseph Campbell’s Universal Hero Structure, Chatwin pays homage to the revered ancient myths of ages past as well as imbues his text with an element of the fantastic. Hence, in using psychosomatic blindness as the catalyst for change, Chatwin asserts that importance of journeying, exploration, and camaraderie.
