In the late 1970s Ondaatje returned to his native island of Sri Lanka. As he records his journey through the drug-like heat and intoxicating fragrances of that "pendant off the ear of India, " Ondaatje simultaneously retraces the baroque mythology of his Dutch-Ceylonese family. An inspired travel narrative and family memoir by an exceptional writer.
Running in the Family (Vintage International)
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Book Description
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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Best known for his novel The English Patient , Ondaatje wrote this 1982 memoir after returning to his native Ceylon. His experiences led to a "you can go home again" reflection on his family and country. "For the outsider, this memoir offers a poignant vision exotic in cultural particulars, familiar in intimate human feelings" ( LJ 11/15/82).
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
“Brightly coloured, sweet and painful, bloody-minded and otherworldly, [this book] achieves the status of legend.”
–Margaret Atwood
“Eloquent, oblique, witty, full of light and feeling.…Ondaatje’s knowledge of the fragility and luck of life is very clear. So, too, is the grace and originality of his prose.”
–The New Yorker
“Ondaatje has produced a remarkable book.…Shimmering through the haze of heat and memory is an impressionistic, sometimes surreal portrait of an exotic time and place now gone, a colonial paradise that had its own rhythms and imperatives.”
–Globe and Mail
“A beautiful, luscious book. Michael Ondaatje has depicted his extraordinary family, who delighted in masks and costumes and love affairs that ‘rainbowed over marriages’ in the kind of language that makes glory of their lives. He has gone on a poet’s journey to Sri Lanka (Ceylon), and the reader who travels with him enters a truly magical world.”
–Maxine Hong Kingston
“It sparkles with the intensity and vividness of its multifaceted tales of romance and intrigue.”
–Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“A brilliant, charming, poetic, hyperbolic holiday of a book.…Ondaatje walks the line between fact and fiction with a delicately rendered delight.”
–Vancouver Province
“…the brilliant and moving book he has written is original in every way that matters.”
–W. S. Merwin
“A beautiful, luscious book of discovery and remembrance.”
–Hamilton Spectator
“With a prose style equal to the voluptuousness of [Ondaatje’s] subject and a sense of humor never too far away, Running in the Family is sheer reading pleasure.”
–Washington Post
“It dazzles with its range of imagination, richness of language and the consistently involving changes of mood and tempo.”
–Toronto Star
“This is an intriguing, funny, dream-like book, impossible to put down.”
–Winnipeg Free Press
“…brief, vivid scenes, moments revived out of remote memories, pictures of the intensities lived by his passionate parents… amid the lush flora, the predatory fauna, and the old-fashioned life of the British colonies. This is great story-telling.…"
–Leon Edel
From the Hardcover edition.
–Margaret Atwood
“Eloquent, oblique, witty, full of light and feeling.…Ondaatje’s knowledge of the fragility and luck of life is very clear. So, too, is the grace and originality of his prose.”
–The New Yorker
“Ondaatje has produced a remarkable book.…Shimmering through the haze of heat and memory is an impressionistic, sometimes surreal portrait of an exotic time and place now gone, a colonial paradise that had its own rhythms and imperatives.”
–Globe and Mail
“A beautiful, luscious book. Michael Ondaatje has depicted his extraordinary family, who delighted in masks and costumes and love affairs that ‘rainbowed over marriages’ in the kind of language that makes glory of their lives. He has gone on a poet’s journey to Sri Lanka (Ceylon), and the reader who travels with him enters a truly magical world.”
–Maxine Hong Kingston
“It sparkles with the intensity and vividness of its multifaceted tales of romance and intrigue.”
–Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“A brilliant, charming, poetic, hyperbolic holiday of a book.…Ondaatje walks the line between fact and fiction with a delicately rendered delight.”
–Vancouver Province
“…the brilliant and moving book he has written is original in every way that matters.”
–W. S. Merwin
“A beautiful, luscious book of discovery and remembrance.”
–Hamilton Spectator
“With a prose style equal to the voluptuousness of [Ondaatje’s] subject and a sense of humor never too far away, Running in the Family is sheer reading pleasure.”
–Washington Post
“It dazzles with its range of imagination, richness of language and the consistently involving changes of mood and tempo.”
–Toronto Star
“This is an intriguing, funny, dream-like book, impossible to put down.”
–Winnipeg Free Press
“…brief, vivid scenes, moments revived out of remote memories, pictures of the intensities lived by his passionate parents… amid the lush flora, the predatory fauna, and the old-fashioned life of the British colonies. This is great story-telling.…"
–Leon Edel
From the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
44 of 47 people found the following review helpful
By Janelle W.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
"Running in the Family" is an impressionistically written and reflective memoir of Michael Ondaatje's eccentric Ceylonese family.
The book begins with a series of disjointed stories about Ondaatje's parents and grandparents. I found this part somewhat hard to get through as Ondaatje drops into the stories without providing the reader with the necessary information to understand who the players are and why they are important. However, since the book is highly impressionistic in style, perhaps this approach works. After all, most of us learn about our family history in bits and pieces; we don't pick up yarns and memory bites in chronological order.
The third section, "Don't Talk to Me about Matisse" is a literary treasure! Ondaatje weaves a travel journal with childhood memories. Ondaatje's journey through Sri Lanka and memory land is depicted with great passion and reflection: "I witnessed everything. One morning I would wake and just smell things for the whole day, it was so rich I had to select senses. And still everything moved slowly with the assured fateful speed of a coconut falling on someone's head, like the Jaffna train, like the fan at low speed, like the necessary sleep in the afternoon with dreams blinded by toddy."
Ondaatje generously included several of his poems in the middle of the book. "The Cinnamon Peeler", with its strong sensuality, serves as a fitting metaphor for the stories about romantic interludes in the author's family. "The Cinnamon Peeler" is so beautiful, I plan to commit it to memory.
Ondaatje dwells on the salient qualities of his relatives and homeland. If this book were a painting, it would be a mostly green wash of color with bright, blood red splashes. The red splashes could represent the tragedy so inherent in Ondaatje's family history. Alcoholism and mental illness rule the house in this family. There are many humorous moments, however, and Ondaatje delivers them with great bravado: "Lalla's great claim to fame was that she was the first woman in Ceylon to have a mastectomy. ... She kept losing the contraption to servants who were mystified by it as well as to the dog, Chindit, who would be found gnawing at the foam as if it were tender chicken." These hilarious memories give the reader a reprieve from the underlying tragedy like a much-needed downpour during a drought.
In the final sections, Ondaatje slowly reveals the many layers of his father's sad, but remarkable life. One chapter, called "Dialogues" merely consists of bits and pieces of conversations about his father. Whether Ondaatje imagined these conversations or actually heard them retold is not important. They give homage to his father in a unique and poignant way.
If you're looking for a travel journal on Sri Lanka, don't look here. But, if you want unforgettable impressions of an exotic land and a remarkable family, if you yearn for a memoir rendered with the finest of literary care, "Running in the Family" will surely please.
24 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
No author can make every book work. It's unfair to expect that. This is the first Ondaajate book I read, make that: devoured. I loved the non-linearity, the depth of love for his home country, the characters gathering and separating. I write this review because I believe strongly that Anil's Ghost is the companion piece to "Running in the Family" and less well-done, less artful. But this book more than makes up for the flaws in the later book. Perhaps the kleig lights of fame are too hot for a writer to work at his best. I say that because the author of this book is so gifted and has so much to evoke that I expect he will do so again, maybe not in his beloved, insane Sri Lanka, or maybe back there again. So, in closing, If you despaired of loving "Anil's Ghost" read this and you're efforts will be fully redeemed.
30 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I thought that this was a beautiful book but I wouldn't recommend it to everyone-if you're the type whose reading is limited to thrillers and soppy romance then I doubt this would do for you. But if you like imaginative, beautiful, flawless writing, like me, then you'd love this wonderful memoir everybit as much as I did. Ondaatje transports you into his world through his witty, tender and sensual writing...in places it reads like a poem. Running in the Family is sort of like a sketchbook...filled with humourous anecdotes, sensual poems and glimpses of beauty and history...and of course, his outrageous family. Even though I live in Sri Lanka and am familiar with most of the places and things he writes about I was still delightfully stunned by the way he adds new insight and meaning and beauty to these things. Also, I used to imagine that memoirs were dull and boring...but I totally regret my words now. This is hilarious (though in places exaggerated), beautiful and powerful stuff and I give it my highest recommendation.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
not my favorite
It is not my favorite Michael Ondaatje novel but it is still an interesting read. I still think it is worth a read.
Published 3 months ago by mark freeman
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful writing that takes you to another world.
The writing is beautiful. Oondatje skillfully uses vivid language that makes the memoir engaging and poetic (not purely for the language, but also for actual poems Ondaatje chooses... Read more
Published 5 months ago by smele
2.0 out of 5 stars
Very disappointing
After Anil's ghost,I had high hopes for this book. It is a rambling account of paying homage to a father whose image the author was trying to restore. this is no "Roots". Read more
Published 8 months ago by Kiran Desai
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Book of Michael Ondaatje's That I've Read Yet
In the late 1970s, Ondaatje returned to Sri Lanka, his native island. As Ondaatje tells of his journey, he also recalls the history of his Dutch-Ceylonese family, with various... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Black Plum
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ondaatje's Memoir
I love Ondaatje and this memoir is a wonderful read, very interesting , with wonderful scenery and such colorful characters in his family. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Poetic Soul
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great Settings and Scenes
I look back at this book and think that I read it when I was too young to understand it. The sensory elements of the work are easy to grasp, but the broader questions about family... Read more
Published 24 months ago by J. Smallridge
2.0 out of 5 stars
Abstruse Organization, Soporific Content
Upon finishing the first few chapters of this book, I was left confounded by the poor organization of the chapters and material. Read more
Published on September 19, 2010 by Brendan Tsui
5.0 out of 5 stars
Even Better Than The English Patient
Ondaatje at his loftily lyrical, yet unpretentious best. An undoubted favorite among Canadian literary memoirs, this is the story of Michael Ondaatje's crazy family, who were among... Read more
Published on September 4, 2009 by A. Golbeck
3.0 out of 5 stars
Tigers
The times in the recent past that we have read about Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, in the newspapers has concerned the Tamil Tigers who have finally been crushed and one wonders if they... Read more
Published on August 24, 2009 by Doro
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Favorite Memoir
I thoroughly enjoyed this book for its exotic locale and irreverent description of the author's own family. In fact, it made me laugh out loud in places.
Published on September 13, 2008 by J. A. Patterson
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