Vintage Ondaatje [Paperback]

Michael Ondaatje (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 2004

In his novels, poetry, and memoirs, Booker Prize winner Michael Ondaatje moves from the blasted landscape of Billy the Kid in 1880s New Mexico to the New Orleans jazz world of the legendary Buddy Bolden at the turn of the century, from his native Sri Lanka to the African desert of World War II. Compassionate, lyrical, spellbinding, the work he has created unfolds with mystery and eloquence and enlarges our literature.

Included in Vintage Ondaatje are portions of the novels Anil’s Ghost, In the Skin of the Lion, Coming Through Slaughter, and The English Patient; the memoir Running in the Family; sections from The Collected Works of Billy the Kid; and a selection of the poetry.

Vintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of the great modern writers, presented in attractive, affordable paperback editions.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The reader who travels with Ondaatje enters a truly magical world.” --Maxine Hong Kingston

From the Inside Flap

In his novels, poetry, and memoirs, Booker Prize winner Michael Ondaatje moves from the blasted landscape of Billy the Kid in 1880s New Mexico to the New Orleans jazz world of the legendary Buddy Bolden at the turn of the century, from his native Sri Lanka to the African desert of World War II. Compassionate, lyrical, spellbinding, the work he has created unfolds with mystery and eloquence and enlarges our literature.

Included in Vintage Ondaatje are portions of the novels Anil's Ghost, In the Skin of the Lion, Coming Through Slaughter, and The English Patient; the memoir Running in the Family; sections from The Collected Works of Billy the Kid; and a selection of the poetry.

Vintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of the great modern writers, presented in attractive, affordable paperback editions.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; First Edition edition (October 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400077443
• ISBN-13: 978-1400077441
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,546,082 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars And the best is yet to come., March 9, 2006

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Vintage Ondaatje (Paperback)

I wish there was a way I could give a copy of this book to everyone who wants to write in America. I don't know how many years I've been reading Ondaatje's books, but it must have been in college I picked up a copy of his BILLY THE KID book and plunged in, getting high on the strangeness and weirdness and, what I didn't immediately perceive, its Canadianness. The poetry of the book made its story come alive in dazzling ways, like great gardens of tumbleweeds springing up from the sand and beginning to roll at a word. VINTAGE ONDAATJE brings together a lot of work from the beginning of his career to excerpts from his latest novel, ANIL'S GHOST, which I'm sure will rank as one of his finest achievements, even though it didn't have perhaps the cultural oomph of its predecessor, the Booker Prize winner THE ENGLISH PATIENT.

Even from the limited sections printed here in VO, ANIL'S GHOST reveals itself slowly, deliberately, as though emerging from a film of water, or through the smoke of burning sandalwood. If throughout his body of work Ondaatje has celebrated and critiqued the modern world's nomadism, ANIL'S GHOST reworks some familiar concepts and makes them new again. Cunningly the poems sometimes serve as a sort of garnish for the longer prose works, and at other times the poems themselves seem like the polished, rafined quintessences of glorious mystery. I think of him as I think of D H Lawrence, a marvelous poet whose artillery, or arsenal of poetic effects and knowledge are even better put to serve in the making of a series of brilliant modern novels. That's not to say I'd throw out BIRDS, BEASTS AND FLOWERS to make room for, say, WOMEN IN LOVE, I'm just saying you couldn't have the latter without the former.

I can't believe I'm the first to speak up about this book. As I say, I hope that in the future everyone will receive a copy of this book at birth. It should be an essential human right like access to clean water and no more circumcision.