A review by loosegeese
In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje

4.0

The novel is set in the early 1900s in and around Toronto, the homeland of Ondaatje. Essentially, the work is a love poem to the manual labourers of America, who silently power the country and are constantly changed by their work - dyers shed the skins they stain, limbs and lives are lost, scars embedded in flesh. Language is a constant barrier and bridge, and the labourers of the country are often only linked by their work. The work is sprawling, with threads of lives knotted through one another, and treats both violence and love with the same tenderness. Only the wealthy are handled unkindly, understood to be inherently different from others. This was a prettily done novel, and I look forward to reading more Ondaatje.