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3.47 AVERAGE
3.47 AVERAGE
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
While Ondaatje's style completely wins me over - it makes you slow down and really appreciate it, while seeming to be completely simple and straight-forward - the experimentation with plot failed to keep me satisfied. Perhaps on a reread it would all make sense, or maybe if I'd read more closely. Still, the shift in the narrative partway through is jarring, intentionally or not, and I missed the characters from the first part. I'd recommend it to someone who feels patient and appreciative, but not to anyone reading for story.
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I felt compelled to write a more detailed review of this book, because I have such mixed feelings about it. There is some beautiful writing, although several descriptive lines where I'd re-read and just say, "huh"? What does he MEAN by that? I found the first half of the book more enjoyable than the last half, and I didn't find the ending satisfying. On the inside jacket cover, it says the book is "multilayered" - probably a little too multilayered for me, hence the two (and a half) stars.
Years ago I read the English Patient and came away regarding Ondaatje as a real craftsman with language. If memory serves, that story was also very engaging and complex with good character development. So I looked forward to Divisadero, but it was a very different experience.
In the end, I still think Ondaatje is an interesting writer, but I didn't appreciate so much his approach to Divisadero. For one thing, this book felt less like a novel and more like a thematic series of short stories about lonely human existence whose characters were woven together with very loose threads. I enjoyed the storytelling, but it's jarring when a storyline is abandoned and the characters you've just invested in are nowhere to be found.
It also didn't help that the story began very near my home in Northern California. It's really hard for me to believe that Ondaatje really spent much time here. The geographical references didn't fit together well. Someone who lives near Nicasio wouldn't frequent Glen Ellen. They are hardly neighboring towns. And in Northern California, we don't have sleet storms where people have to lash themselves to buildings for fear of being swept away. Just doesn't happen. Sleet? What's that? Maybe I'm picking a nit here, but it was really distracting.
** SPOILER ALERT **
As I read more of this book I realized that I hadn't really become attached to any of the characters. Perhaps because they were always disappearing. Or perhaps they just didn't warrant attachment. The exception was Marie-Neige: strong of character but very likeable. And finally there was some real tension between characters (Lucien and Marie-Neige). Their story is the most engaging one.
But then the ending is odd. Is Ondaatje trying to evoke the tragic drama of The English Patient? Set a woman in cold, dark, isolated surrounds and let her die a lonely death (real or imagined). It all felt very contrived. I remember closing the book and asking out loud, "What's up with that?"
So I'd give this a book a thumbs down... Even though his narrator is poetic (albeit geographically challenged), the structure of the story made the reading less enjoyable. Maybe I just don't "get" Ondaatje. Perhaps reading "Running in the Family" would shed some light on this rather enigmatic writer.
In the end, I still think Ondaatje is an interesting writer, but I didn't appreciate so much his approach to Divisadero. For one thing, this book felt less like a novel and more like a thematic series of short stories about lonely human existence whose characters were woven together with very loose threads. I enjoyed the storytelling, but it's jarring when a storyline is abandoned and the characters you've just invested in are nowhere to be found.
It also didn't help that the story began very near my home in Northern California. It's really hard for me to believe that Ondaatje really spent much time here. The geographical references didn't fit together well. Someone who lives near Nicasio wouldn't frequent Glen Ellen. They are hardly neighboring towns. And in Northern California, we don't have sleet storms where people have to lash themselves to buildings for fear of being swept away. Just doesn't happen. Sleet? What's that? Maybe I'm picking a nit here, but it was really distracting.
** SPOILER ALERT **
As I read more of this book I realized that I hadn't really become attached to any of the characters. Perhaps because they were always disappearing. Or perhaps they just didn't warrant attachment. The exception was Marie-Neige: strong of character but very likeable. And finally there was some real tension between characters (Lucien and Marie-Neige). Their story is the most engaging one.
But then the ending is odd. Is Ondaatje trying to evoke the tragic drama of The English Patient? Set a woman in cold, dark, isolated surrounds and let her die a lonely death (real or imagined). It all felt very contrived. I remember closing the book and asking out loud, "What's up with that?"
So I'd give this a book a thumbs down... Even though his narrator is poetic (albeit geographically challenged), the structure of the story made the reading less enjoyable. Maybe I just don't "get" Ondaatje. Perhaps reading "Running in the Family" would shed some light on this rather enigmatic writer.
Divisadero is a novel divided into two story lines, about a century apart and on different continents. The tenuous relationship between the two stories mirrors the tenuous human relationships in the novel. The first story takes place in rural Northern California in the 1970s, on the farm of a makeshift family: a father whose wife died in childbirth, his daughter Anna, an adopted daughter Claire (who was born and orphaned during the same week as Anna), and Coop, a young man from a neighboring farm who was taken in by this family as a young child after his parents were murdered. Anna and Claire are especially close, inseparable as most twins, and both view Coop as part of the family, a special sibling-like older friend. However, Anna and Coop develop an attaction and passion for each other, and when Anna's father eventually catches them together, the consequences are horrible and violent. Anna's father beats up Coop (who does not fight back), and Anna runs away, so that Claire, Coop, and Anna completely lose touch with each other. The family they had is gone.
The second story follows the life of a reclusive famous writer, Lucien Segura, whose work and biography the grown-up Anna is researching with fascination. I thought that Lucien Segura's story was every bit as compelling as the first, and there are parallels between Anna's and Lucien's lives and motifs that multiply in the reader's mind upon reflection. The stories are not told chronologically, since Ondaatje is really striving to express how certain events in our lives make us who we are and so never fade away with time.
I found this book beautifully written and captivating, and enjoyed all of it. It's true that not all the lives are resolved at the end, but as a young Lucien Segura once said to a friend, "Not knowing something essential makes you more involved." Ondaatje doesn't just give out the answers.
The second story follows the life of a reclusive famous writer, Lucien Segura, whose work and biography the grown-up Anna is researching with fascination. I thought that Lucien Segura's story was every bit as compelling as the first, and there are parallels between Anna's and Lucien's lives and motifs that multiply in the reader's mind upon reflection. The stories are not told chronologically, since Ondaatje is really striving to express how certain events in our lives make us who we are and so never fade away with time.
I found this book beautifully written and captivating, and enjoyed all of it. It's true that not all the lives are resolved at the end, but as a young Lucien Segura once said to a friend, "Not knowing something essential makes you more involved." Ondaatje doesn't just give out the answers.
The more Ondaatje I read, the more I think every word is perfectly placed. It is not a fast read, a novel of obvious plots. Reading Ondaatje is like reading a poem as if it were a novel, or is it reading a novel as if it were a poem? Both I think.
This is only the second work by Ondaatje I have read. It did not affect me nearly as much as The English Patient did, when I read it a year or two ago. I was always about to lose interest in this book, but a few pages later something would catch my interest again. The parallel stories seem a little too disjunctive to really say anything about each other, but Ondaatje is a wonderful writer, capable of a sustained sadness and twilight feeling without every being oppressive, boring or overly literary. Also, his books always have good details in them, quirks about books and reading mostly. The commonplace book, which is the heart of the English Patient, and using sprigs of herbs as book marks here, so a book smelled of absinthe or rosemary or thyme.
I'm not really sure where to start with this one. The first half centers on two sisters and a young man who works on their farm; they are torn apart and the novel follows their three divergent lives. Then suddenly it becomes the story of a writer one of the sisters is researching. Um, what? I kept waiting for it to get back to the main plotline, but it doesn't. In retrospect, the second half is stronger, but when you're waiting for the conclusion of some other story entirely, it's hard to get into it. B.