What Am I Doing Here?, Bruce Chatwin's last book, was published in May 1989, some months after his death at the age of 48. It remains a fine book. Several of the pieces testify to Chatwin's odd, capricious, certainly obsessive and, at times, original mind, which revitalised British travel writing. However, last year a second "last" Chatwin book, Anatomy of Restlessness, appeared, gathering previously uncollected work. That it took two people to edit this disappointing volume is a mystery. Why it was ever published is an even greater puzzle. Chatwin's readers will recognise many of the assembled remnants as earlier drafts of known pieces. "The Morality of Things", the text of a speech on the subject of collecting, delivered at a Red Cross charity function in 1973, redates the theme of his 1988 Booker contender, Utz. Also included are four very long reviews written for the TLS, three of which are turgid beyond belief. Even more bizarre is the inclusion of a ten-page business letter written to publisher Tom Maschler, proposing a book about nomads. As a writer he is a bit like a Faberge egg - at his best winsome, elegant, a sterile exotic to be admired, if not loved. This ill-advised last offering does no favours either to the writing or the myth.
