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3.47 AVERAGE
3.47 AVERAGE
God I did not like this book. Really, really did not like it. I read all the 4 and 5 star reviews, I get what people are saying, and I'm just not there. Why get us interested in characters and then abandon them? and why spend time telling us boring things about them (like a whole paragraph describing how she planted seeds in the field by scattering them instead of burying them) and then we find out about major dramatic events only in one passing sentence told as a part of someone else's narrative (like "------ was put in prison for nearly killing a man in a jealous rage"). This was like a bunch of pieces of stories. I get it - Divisadero. They're being divided. Lots and lots of divisions. And yes, we have a dark and stormy night, and bad things happen, and the snow comes down, and people are feeling upset - Isn't this a bit heavy handed? Never mind that setting a book in Northern California should prevent an ice storm from occurring (and no, it doesn't work for me to throw in a line later saying it was a rare event). And the last thing that drove me crazy was how the book just leaves out the How of things. There is no connection from one event to another - you are just supposed to leap. They know each other, and now they are sleeping together. We see no evidence of romance building, but boom there it is. So, it was not believable, and just felt like some clever writerly experiment. Which was not a pleasure to read.
Beautiful. Mesmerizing. In the book Ondaatje describes a church with a spiral steeple. The story sometimes follows the spine of the spiral and sometimes moves up and down along the edges, but always explores family and the transition from child to adult.
"we live with those retrievals from childhood that coalesce and echo throughout our lives"
"we live with those retrievals from childhood that coalesce and echo throughout our lives"
More lovely writing, and more compelling characters, but it still falls short of the crystalline beauty of the English Patient.
Gotraskhalana is a term in Sanskrit poetics for calling a loved one by the wrong name, and means, literally, "stumbling on the name."
Gotraskhalana is a term in Sanskrit poetics for calling a loved one by the wrong name, and means, literally, "stumbling on the name."
my first ondaatje. i "lost" him at the section where he is talking about the writer one of the main characters is studying in France.
This is the first book I've read by Michael Ondaatje. Wow! His writing is so lovely, his descriptions and word choices are fresh and surprising without seeming contrived. The book is like stepping through a doorway into the lives of a few superficially ordinary people in California and France. Once introduced to the characters, it was a reminder of how extraordinary every life story is; how unpredictable our lives are and how strongly our actions ripple through each others experiences. I listened to this book narrated by Hope Davis, she did an excellent reading. The material is deep, not plot driven, it is a novel that will stay with me for a long time.
Never thought I'd find the Ondaatje book that I didn't like, but here it is.
Maybe it's my general abhorrence of Americana fiction (which is really hard to describe - not just that it's set in America, but that it IS America).
In any case, didn't even finish it.
Maybe it's my general abhorrence of Americana fiction (which is really hard to describe - not just that it's set in America, but that it IS America).
In any case, didn't even finish it.
Such rich prose. This novel was very well done but for some reason the plot didn't grab me as I hoped. The imagery is very vivid.
i would give it 3.5 stars. This was my first Ondaatje and I will try more of his novels.
i would give it 3.5 stars. This was my first Ondaatje and I will try more of his novels.
There were several threads to this novel - one set in Petaluma, CA, one set in France, and one in SF/Tahoe. The story interweaved these locations, time frames and characters in a really unique way. Where it fell a little short for me is that some of the threads were more compelling than others. However, I loved the Petaluma setting!
It'd been awhile since I'd read Ondaatje, and his writing was just as evocative as I remembered. Masterful prose and captivating audiobook.