You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.47 AVERAGE
3.47 AVERAGE
The narrative is fractured, but, to me, makes its own sense. The prose is simply stunning. There were sentences that demanded to be read aloud on every page.
I still don't know if I loved this book or hated it. I had to shut it off twice because it hurt my soul.
I have read some complaints about the book, because 2/3s of the way through Ondaatje abruptly abandons the characters from the first part of the book for a whole new narrative. I would just like to say that I think that's part of the divisadero...
I have read some complaints about the book, because 2/3s of the way through Ondaatje abruptly abandons the characters from the first part of the book for a whole new narrative. I would just like to say that I think that's part of the divisadero...
I was completely overwhelmed by the first half of this book - the two key set pieces (the storm and the card game) are astonishing. Ondaatje writes with precision and power about the way that small decisions reverberate across people's lives - it's majestic. The second half detours into a story-within-a-story that, while enjoyable on its own merits, sucked away a bit of the momentum for me. But after ignoring Ondaatje based on poorly remembered opinions about movie of The English Patient, this has set me off to read a bunch more.
Less a novel with a strong plot thrust, more an elegant collection of images, themes, and lives. So haunting and beautiful I read it as slowly as possible just to savor the images and feelings. Quite possibly one of the freshest and most unique books I've opened in a long time.
Confusing.
There's the beginning plot, then it splinters, and from that another story and its backstory emerge. I really thought there would be a clearer tie in to the original story, of Clara and Ann and the boy, but it wasn't that strong. Maybe a re-read or proper study would help.
There's the beginning plot, then it splinters, and from that another story and its backstory emerge. I really thought there would be a clearer tie in to the original story, of Clara and Ann and the boy, but it wasn't that strong. Maybe a re-read or proper study would help.
This book was kind of odd and disappointing. The writing is beautiful - he definitely has some amazing prose within him and there were a lot of sentences and passages that were just lovely. And some parts of the first 2/3 of the book were well-crafted. But the problem was they were just parts and often the ones I liked did not go on long enough, and the ones I didn't seemed to go on and on...and on. And then the whole weirdness of the last third of the book basically suddenly dropping all the main characters and turning into a different book. It felt so strange - nothing felt resolved at all and then you're reading about this other dude with only a tangential relationship to the earlier portion of the novel. And then very very briefly near the end one of the main characters pops up again. It just didn't work for me. I would not have minded a chapter or two about Lucien, but this felt like two books weirdly mushed into one, and neither being complete.
Some beautiful passages, details and writing; however, I enjoyed some of Ondaatje's other books more.
As I closed the back cover of Divisadero I was left teary-eyed and unsettled, aching to know what happens to at least 2 of the key characters.
It's a story within a story, starting in 1970's Petaluma, CA- this story carries through to the present and weaves into a second that takes place in pre and post WWI rural (southwestern) France. The contemporary story ends without a literary resolution, but there is a sense of moving on and moving forward by the narrator. It's like life- what stories, conflicts, dreams, pains are ever really resolved? You just keep moving forward and learn to accept, love, maybe to forgive and learn to live with your pain and anger.
But I do wish I knew what happened next....
What amazes me about Ondaatje is how he is able to do so much in so little space- in 273 pages you are given rich, fully developed characters in settings that are as different as Reno's seedy gambling dens and a farmhouse deep in the French countryside, from characters as varied as a heroin-addicted Lake Tahoe cabaret singer and a writer serving as a medic in the fields of Verdun. He can give you an understanding of the intrigues of a modern professional gambler and 50 pages later you are living the life of a young, illiterate bride at the turn of the 20th century on the run with your much older husband, sleeping in barns and eating field onions to stay alive.
At any rate, a worthy read, a story I couldn't put down and as it came to a close, one I was sad to see end...
It's a story within a story, starting in 1970's Petaluma, CA- this story carries through to the present and weaves into a second that takes place in pre and post WWI rural (southwestern) France. The contemporary story ends without a literary resolution, but there is a sense of moving on and moving forward by the narrator. It's like life- what stories, conflicts, dreams, pains are ever really resolved? You just keep moving forward and learn to accept, love, maybe to forgive and learn to live with your pain and anger.
But I do wish I knew what happened next....
What amazes me about Ondaatje is how he is able to do so much in so little space- in 273 pages you are given rich, fully developed characters in settings that are as different as Reno's seedy gambling dens and a farmhouse deep in the French countryside, from characters as varied as a heroin-addicted Lake Tahoe cabaret singer and a writer serving as a medic in the fields of Verdun. He can give you an understanding of the intrigues of a modern professional gambler and 50 pages later you are living the life of a young, illiterate bride at the turn of the 20th century on the run with your much older husband, sleeping in barns and eating field onions to stay alive.
At any rate, a worthy read, a story I couldn't put down and as it came to a close, one I was sad to see end...
Yikes. Finally caught up with this exquisite novel early in his career, already a master, but not for everyone. Circular, occasional confusing, novel if three lives intersected, separated, returned, their relationships, places, and the strange power of destiny. Such gorgeous prose.
Gorgeous and artistic but, ultimately, frustrating and disappointing. Ondaatje's prose, as always is brilliant, liquid (ambrosia), crystalline, but I just "didn't get it." Ondaatje set us a number of interesting characters and plot twist - I really enjoyed the first half of the book - and then, well, appeared to abandon them. Maybe this could have been two shorter books with related characters (like the English Patient and In the Skin of Lion), but I spent the last third of the book wondering what happened to the original story line. In the end, however, each page was a pleasure - indeed, a number of individual sentences and paragraphs were simply splendid, but the whole left me wanting, cold, and largely disinterested.