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3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
What an enchanting little book. Reading it was like gliding. Such clear and beautiful prose and such a story tucked into its pages.
This book was written by a master, but I thought that it seemed a bit uninspired. I tore through the first half, but found the second half a bit slow. Having said that, it is a beautiful account of childhood and choices.
In 1954 an eleven-year-old named Michael takes a 21-day sea voyage from Ceylon to England. He joins two other young boys, Cassius and Ramadhin, in exploring the ship.
For meals the three boys are seated at the cat's table, the least privileged place most opposite the captain's table, but "What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power" (75). From a position of obscurity, the lives of others can be observed: the boys "witness the fragmentary tableaux" (128) around them. By snooping and eavesdropping, the boys encounter the interesting and the important: "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" (129),
Aboard the ship, the boys are "for the first time by necessity in close quarters with adults" (27). They are befriended by a coterie of colourful, quirky characters who give them glimpses of the adult world and provide them with lessons in music, literature, biology, history, and life. The encounters with adults expose them to friendship, longing, dishonesty, secrecy, and sorrow.
The book is not just a memoir of a boyhood adventure. It is a coming-of-age story. The trip is a metaphor of Michael's rebirth; the Suez Canal which connects the west and the east can easily be seen as a birth canal between childhood and adulthood. Michael may be "startled, half formed" (84) but he tries "to understand and piece together the adult world, wondering what was going on there, and why" (27). Passing strangers help him in ways he does not fully understand until adulthood.
As a pre-adolescent on the sea voyage, Michael takes on the role of a careful observer. This role serves him well in his adult life and career; he becomes a writer
According to Ondaatje, "the novel sometimes uses the colouring and locations of memoir and autobiography" (267). It seems he has returned to his own sea voyage from Ceylon to England and has parlayed it into a book to convey themes about the benefits of the overlooked position and hindsight.
The problem is that Ondaatje's book left me unengaged. The vignettes were disjointed and left me feeling likewise. I've enjoyed this writer's other novels, but this one left me disagreeing with the book jacket's description that it was the work of "a novelist at the height of his powers."
Please check out my blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
For meals the three boys are seated at the cat's table, the least privileged place most opposite the captain's table, but "What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power" (75). From a position of obscurity, the lives of others can be observed: the boys "witness the fragmentary tableaux" (128) around them. By snooping and eavesdropping, the boys encounter the interesting and the important: "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" (129),
Aboard the ship, the boys are "for the first time by necessity in close quarters with adults" (27). They are befriended by a coterie of colourful, quirky characters who give them glimpses of the adult world and provide them with lessons in music, literature, biology, history, and life. The encounters with adults expose them to friendship, longing, dishonesty, secrecy, and sorrow.
The book is not just a memoir of a boyhood adventure. It is a coming-of-age story. The trip is a metaphor of Michael's rebirth; the Suez Canal which connects the west and the east can easily be seen as a birth canal between childhood and adulthood. Michael may be "startled, half formed" (84) but he tries "to understand and piece together the adult world, wondering what was going on there, and why" (27). Passing strangers help him in ways he does not fully understand until adulthood.
As a pre-adolescent on the sea voyage, Michael takes on the role of a careful observer. This role serves him well in his adult life and career; he becomes a writer
According to Ondaatje, "the novel sometimes uses the colouring and locations of memoir and autobiography" (267). It seems he has returned to his own sea voyage from Ceylon to England and has parlayed it into a book to convey themes about the benefits of the overlooked position and hindsight.
The problem is that Ondaatje's book left me unengaged. The vignettes were disjointed and left me feeling likewise. I've enjoyed this writer's other novels, but this one left me disagreeing with the book jacket's description that it was the work of "a novelist at the height of his powers."
Please check out my blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I seriosuly could not get into this book. I wanted to like it, but to no avail.
I have very little to say except to highlight that I thought this book was extremely boring and unstimulating to the point of being an unpleasant read. Flat characters, dry prose, no message or point to the whole exercise. I feel like from the synopsis I was promised something a little more intriguing as the main character meets other people on the ship and learns all their dark secrets from his vantage point at the cat's table, but that only works narratively when other people's lives and secrets are, you know, interesting to read about. The constant jumping back and forth between the past and the boy's future also messed up the pacing and it was hard to get invested in what you're reading (rather like watching a YouTube video with a bad internet connection and having to pause for it to buffer every five seconds. Might as well not bother.)
Side note: Many other reviews seem to praise Ondaatje's "beautiful prose." I usually make a point to write down any beautiful or intriguing quotes from books as I read them and I didn't highlight a single thing in this book. The writing was plain at best, trite at worst.
I think I should have started with another Ondaatje novel, since the other reviews seem to all recommend The English Patient.
Side note: Many other reviews seem to praise Ondaatje's "beautiful prose." I usually make a point to write down any beautiful or intriguing quotes from books as I read them and I didn't highlight a single thing in this book. The writing was plain at best, trite at worst.
I think I should have started with another Ondaatje novel, since the other reviews seem to all recommend The English Patient.
Of course, this is beautifully written. I didn't find it quite as engaging as some of his earlier works (The English Patient, for example), but it is lyrical and evocative of the place and time.
This was one of those books that I liked more once we discussed it in book club. I liked it about the same as The English patient, but not as much as Anil's Ghost (a book I don't even really remember anything about except that I loved it). The minor characters were somehow at once archetypal and fully fleshed out (or made mysterious). I recognize that this doesn't really make sense, but you'll see what I mean when you read it. It had that sad nostalgic tone I enjoy. I felt the action in the third act of the book might have been unnecessary, but I did like the uncertainty Emily introduced near the end.
Ondaatje writes with a beautiful formality that allows a little distance from the narrative, at least for me. And I need it - this is a story about a young boy being sent across the world alone on a ship, to be reunited with a mother he doesn't remember.