Coming Through Slaughter

Coming Through Slaughter 

by Michael Ondaatje
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This felt more like a poetry collection than a novel. It has a very definite narrative thread running through it, but the form makes it read like poetry. It was Ondaatje's first novel and his amazing way with language is already apparent. This is a very dark story of people in terrible places (both literally and mentally) and the lyrical language provides a sharp contrast to the action in many places. 
This story takes place in the American south, mostly New Orleans, Louisiana, but Ondaatje lives in Canada so I am counting this toward the Canadian Reading Challenge. 

Divisadero

Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved how Ondaatje structured this book. It starts with out as the story of 4 people--a family--and expands and contracts to explore the lives of those people and the people who touch their lives. Ondaatje's sentences are beautiful even when his subject is ugly and the insight into what it is to be human is amazing. The counts toward the Canadian Book Challenge. If you haven't read Ondaatje you need to. He is a master.

The English Patient

The English Patient 
by Michael Ondaatje
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The desert could not be claimed or owned--it was a peice of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names long before Canterbury existed, long before battles and treaties quilted Europe and the East." (p. 138)
This was not my favorite Ondaatje novel, but it was beautifully written and included a lot of thought provoking passages. The perspective of the various characters on the bombing of Hiroshima was especially striking to me. I found the jumping around in time somewhat confusing and found some of the men were also difficult to keep track of who was who. 
I am counting this toward the 13th Canadian Book Challenge.

Review: In the Skin of a Lion

In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"This is the story a young girl gathers in a car during the early hours of the morning. ... She listens to the man as he picks up and brings together various corners of the story, attempting to carry it all in his arms. ... Driving the four hours to Marmora under six stars and a moon."

Building bridges, digging tunnels, baking bread and creeping through silent rooms this novel ties huge endeavors and tiny moments together into a single life. The writing is clear and descriptive, and beautiful at the same time. 

"They speak quietly, smoking cigarettes. Patrick sees them in the yellow spray of the station lamp. He strolls to the end of the platform where there is darkness. Bush. He feels transparent, minuscule. Civilization now, on this August night, is two men cleaning shoes as they sit on the steps of a train." -- p. 166

Numerous characters wander in and out of the story, but Ondaatje keeps them all straight for the reader and the weaving of one into another gives shape to the story as it moves back and forth in time and space. 

"The houses at this hour beautiful and large, stray lights within them, and he could see the faint interiors, their privacy an character revealed, each room a subplot." -- p. 243

This novel, which I want to reread after I read The English Patient, counts toward the Canadian Book Challenge.  

Review: The Cat's Table

The Cat's Table
by Michael Ondaatje
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The writing in this novel was spare and elegant and the depiction of life on a ship in the 1950s through the eyes of a young boy (now grown) was captivating. About three-quarters of the way thought Ondaatje shifts focus from the events on the ship to things that happen later in the boy's life. I didn't think this part of the novel worked as well. The voice of the boy was very familiar by that point and the more sophisticated/cynical view of the man was jarring to me.
There were some great lines in the novel:

"So we came to understand that small and important thing, that our lives could be large with interesting strangers who would pass us without any personal involvement." (p. 129)
"... we improved as well as damaged each other" (someone talking about their spouse, p. 138)

Ondaatje was born in Sri Lanka (the setting of his novel Anil's Ghost, which I loved) , but he lives in Toronto. There is also a tiny bit of this story that is set in British Columbia. I am counting this book toward the Canadian Book Challenge and it is one of the books from my pile for the 2014 TBR pile challenge.