Bruce Chatwin's 'Utz': A Discussion on His Final Novel

Introduction to 'Utz' and Bruce Chatwin

• 📚 The podcast "Backlisted" discusses Bruce Chatwin's final novel, Utz, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1988.
• 🎙️ Guests Jonathan Wilson (sports writer) and Rachael Kerr (editor) join hosts John Mitchinson and Andy Miller.
• 🧐 Chatwin, a highly popular and critically revered author in the 1980s, is noted as having fallen somewhat out of fashion, with a documentary by Werner Herzog anticipated.

Discussed Books: 'Tell Me How It Ends' and 'By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept'

• migrant children crossing the US-Mexico border, structured around 40 questions asked during the immigration process.
• 💔 By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart is described as a polarizing book, with Andy Miller finding it terrible and Rachael Kerr highlighting its profound impact on her at age 19.
• ✍️ Smart's novel, a prose poem about her affair with poet George Barker, is noted for its intense emotional expression and challenging aesthetic, compared by Kerr to the unconventional power of H.P. Lovecraft's writing.

Bruce Chatwin's Life and Literary Style

• 🏉 Despite claiming to dislike sports, Chatwin boxed and captained the school rugby team, a fact that surprised the hosts.
• ✈️ Chatwin disliked being labeled a travel writer, preferring to focus on stories and storytelling, which he found came more easily while traveling.
• 🧐 His relationship with truth in writing is discussed, with his famous quote, "I don't believe in coming clean... as long as the story is true enough."

'Utz': Plot and Themes

• 🏺 Utz is a novel about a collector of Meissen porcelain in Prague, who protects his collection through the horrors of the 20th century.
• 🤔 The narrator's unreliability is a key feature, with subtle hints like the changing presence of a mustache, making the reader question the veracity of the events.
• 💭 Themes include the tension between nomadism and possessions, the idea that possessions can be both imprisoning and a form of escape, and the subversive notion that art collecting is a form of idolatry, inimical to Jehovah.

Reception and Legacy of 'Utz'

• 🏆 Utz was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1988, a year with a strong list including Salman Rushdie's 'The Satanic Verses' and Peter Carey's 'Oscar and Lucinda'.
• 🎭 The book is described as a fairy tale with sharp critiques of the art business, featuring a Russian doll structure where new details transform the narrative.
• ✨ The novel is praised for its precision, concision, and depth of ideas, with elements like the Golem legend and porcelain as a product of alchemy adding layers of meaning.
• ❤️ The story is seen as an unverifiable love story, offering a profound comment on writing and how fiction fills the gaps where factual knowledge is impossible.