Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Loved that the audiobook was narrated by the author! Really great and immersive story, and the end was so emotional!
adventurous
reflective
fast-paced
This was my first audio book. I really enjoyed the author's narration though I did miss being able to reread a few passages for clarification. The story draws you into a boy's journey from Sri Lanka to England via ship. You get to experience the adventures of the boy and his 2 young friends along withthe many interesting characters they meet along the way. The story is interspersed with snippets from the main character, Michael's, present life and things that have happened to him and the other travelers after their journey. Truth be told, I was kind of sad when the ship finally reached its destination and I had to say goodbye to the characters.
reflective
slow-paced
I had a really hard time getting into this one and almost gave up on it. I'm happy that I didn't. It reminded me a little bit of The Goldfinch and how you are reading about a young man's life and how one moment completely shaped him and changed him. It was also similar to The Goldfinch in the sense that the novel was written as a story by the main character. I read something that really stuck with me in this novel and I won't soon forget it
"That was a small lesson I learned on the journey. What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power. Nothing much of lasting value ever happens at the head table, held together by familiar rhetoric. Those who already have power continue to glide along the familiar rut they have made for themselves."
"That was a small lesson I learned on the journey. What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power. Nothing much of lasting value ever happens at the head table, held together by familiar rhetoric. Those who already have power continue to glide along the familiar rut they have made for themselves."
This was a pretty good book. Not as good as the English Patient but still good.
Acquiring wealth he has also acquired a complete faith in the advancements of Europe. Perhaps this would prove to be his fatal flaw.The last time I treated with a work such as this was in 2013 with Mr. Vertigo, back when my biggest concern was whether or not one could make a switch from a career in engineering to that in English after three-and-a-half years of study with maximum efficiency and a minimum of capital. I've moved on from that to today's worries about jobs and health insurance and moving out, as well as from general aspirations of crowd pleasing to a commitment to reading the authors who actually need the boost. It's made for a 60-70% drop in votes, but I can guarantee any reviewer would get a similar reaction if they made a similar choice. Lucky for me, I've returned to the pre-Goodreads mentality where I read for the sake of reading, the only differences now being that I am better able to word my reactions in front of a small but appreciatively loyal audience. If there's anything I'm glad hasn't changed, it's that people are still writing books for a younger audience that they would want to read themselves. I chalk this work's low rating up to those adults who have been trying to chop off their feet to appease others heads for so long, they can no longer recognize what's good for them on the basic levels of wonder and adventure and respect for those who are strange, impoverished, and all too often vulnerable.
Another reason for why those aged among us may shy away from literature for the young is that it is harder to crystallize hegemonic standards of normality when one cannot use rape and murder and slurs as plot devices or character development. One can try one's best when adapting a work for media, as is in the case of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children's white on white on white visual ensemble, but here in the writing of Ondaatje, you have words such as Arab and Sri Lanka and phrases that intimate at the hierarchy of colonization and wouldn't think for a second to justify it, all of which makes it much harder to 'normalize' for a white audience if one has any aspirations to respect the source material. I suppose this is why Peregrine has an adaptation and this one does not, although both were published in 2011 and have enough action and drama and aesthetic possibility to spare. In any case, if a movie is ever made ([b:The English Patient|11713|The English Patient|Michael Ondaatje|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320527907s/11713.jpg|3009869] in this quarter), I would hope that there would be an equal measure of so called adults and so called children in the audience. The world needs more of such works if there is any hope of a new generation of human being raised rather than cut and pressed and squeezed down the factory line of parents believing they own their offspring body and soul.
In a roundabout way, I'm saying that I liked this. The author could have made more of an effort in the character as plot development/women as plot device category, but there were enough unique cases on each side of the indoctrinated gender divide that, for once, I would believe someone if they were to say Ondaatje was expressing the impossibility of ever truly knowing another. That, and the story never firmly once and for all put a girlfriend in the refrigerator. Meta is something I've learned to love on a general level, but when put to a use like that, I can't help but put my stamp of approval on a narrative, in many ways, is more mature than anything an R or X rated film can muster.
Broken heart, you
timeless wonder.
What a small
place to be.
This is our book club pick for January, which I completely forgot about until this past Monday, but luckily it is a pretty fast read. The story is told by Michael (although you don't learn his name or his nickname Mynah until well into the second half of the book), and it covers his 21-day journey at the age of 11 from India to England. Michael was placed at the "worst" table in the dining room, named the Cat's Table from one of the other odd folk who were also seated there, and the book revolves around the events of the trip and those at the table. Michael spends most of his time with his two friends, interacts with his older cousin Emily, and submits to occasional questioning from a distant aunt.
The majority of the book is written from Michael's perspective as an eleven-year-old boy on quite the adventure, and is very interesting because of that. The three boys adventure throughout the ship, convincing people to show them things like a mural of pinup girls and the hidden kennels, watching the other folk on the ship including a roller-skating girl and a criminal, and generally illustrating a type of childhood episode that just does not happen anymore. As the book moves through the story, the adult Michael appears as it becomes apparent he is telling this story from his memory, and the adult's appearances become more frequent and longer as he muses over different meanings of what he saw as well as his life since that fateful voyage.
Overall I found the book very interesting and very well written. I did find the first appearances of the adult Michael jarring and surprising, although after the change in overall point of view was established they flowed along with the rest of the story. The individual stories told are fascinating, and the adult ramifications of what the child saw and did are interesting and reflect character growth. The overall purpose of the story is revealed at the end, and I found that to be very interesting - a bit of a mystery is solved, and the possible ramifications on the solution are explored. I really liked how the book was neatly bookended with the departure and arrival of young Michael on the ship, as that made a pleasing symmetry.
This is an interesting book and a good piece of fiction, I recommend it.
The majority of the book is written from Michael's perspective as an eleven-year-old boy on quite the adventure, and is very interesting because of that. The three boys adventure throughout the ship, convincing people to show them things like a mural of pinup girls and the hidden kennels, watching the other folk on the ship including a roller-skating girl and a criminal, and generally illustrating a type of childhood episode that just does not happen anymore. As the book moves through the story, the adult Michael appears as it becomes apparent he is telling this story from his memory, and the adult's appearances become more frequent and longer as he muses over different meanings of what he saw as well as his life since that fateful voyage.
Overall I found the book very interesting and very well written. I did find the first appearances of the adult Michael jarring and surprising, although after the change in overall point of view was established they flowed along with the rest of the story. The individual stories told are fascinating, and the adult ramifications of what the child saw and did are interesting and reflect character growth. The overall purpose of the story is revealed at the end, and I found that to be very interesting - a bit of a mystery is solved, and the possible ramifications on the solution are explored. I really liked how the book was neatly bookended with the departure and arrival of young Michael on the ship, as that made a pleasing symmetry.
This is an interesting book and a good piece of fiction, I recommend it.
Tre ragazzini in viaggio, da soli, nel meraviglioso mondo di un transatlantico che dalla natia Colombo li porterà in Inghilterra per diventare uomini. Un viaggio di tre settimane in cui i tre preadolescenti, diversissimi tra loro, si scambieranno pelle ed esperienze in un autentico rito di passaggio. Uno dei tre è la voce narrante del romanzo, quello che tesse la trama tra il passato del viaggio e il presente, rinnodando destini e ricordi, quello che prova nostalgia intravedendo i fili spezzati di futuri non avverati.
Dolcissimo e bellissimo.
Dolcissimo e bellissimo.
Abandoned the audiobook and shifted to Kindle edition. Much better now.