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Summer Reading
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I thought The English Patient was a wonderful book, I walked in Libyan desert looking for Zerzura for weeks after reading that book. But In The Skin Of A Lion is something so much more. This book moves me so I'm left speechless. The continuance, the surprises, the beauty, the characters. If it was possible to choose to write like someone I would absolutely pick Michael Ondaatje. His work is simply beautiful.
I am amazed. Read this book, read all of them. Find the fine red line that ties all the stories together. END
It is a bit too romantic in its depictions of some exceedingly difficult lives and there are too many metaphoric descriptions. Everything seems weighted. Nothing is light or allowed to pass easily. That is why some say the book is slow. But it does move along quite well. You need to read it slowly. It's not something to be crammed down or hurried.
The dreamlike, almost random quality of the narrative is amazing and it's filled with wonderdully imagined details and scenes that really put me in awe of this writer. I laughed out loud when Carvaggio escapes prison by painting himself blue, and found myself really touched by the imprints of his lost love that the main character finds continually.
Also, it is obvious the writer did an intense ammount of research into the lives of the people of the 1930's in canada. The workmen, the political statements, the actions all seem so real and work as a good balance to the dreamlike details.
His two weaknesses seem to be his dialogue and the ending. The dialogue constantly pulled me out of the dreamstate I was so happy to be in; I could never hear people talking like they do in this work, but maybe the people I know are vastly different than Ondaatje. The ending was also dissatisfying; it wrapped up almost like a political thriller instead of adhering to the poetic quality that really drives the work.
The reader who sticks to Ondaatje does more than merely finish a book. We observe people interrelating thorugh story telling, and if we're lucky we know ourselves a little better in the process. We realize how we are connected to disparate lines of people and stories that have come before us, and whose threads of existence are components of our own time and place. Mr. Ondaatje is a writer and an alchemist.
Many scenes from "In The Skin of A Lion" stick with me, but I especially recall the passage where Patrick wanders into the Canadian night searching for fire flies he sees off in the wooded distance. What he finds is gorgeously, and vividly rendered.
If you've "been wating to read this for a while", if you're just looking for something new and challenging, or if you want to discover a new favorite poet... read this book. If it seems like slow going, or if you're confused - don't be alarmed, it's normal. Keep going.