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Dec 26, 2008

Trish rated it:

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 narr More...

2 comments like (10 people liked it)

Jul 04, 2008

Serenity rated it:

I just finished reading this book. I found it beautiful, haunting, and while at first I was dissatisfied with the loose and ultimately unresolved nature of the novel, I later decided to accept it and consequently appreciated it much more. Ondaatje is a poet as well as a novelist, and he lets poetry infuse his fiction richly. In this work, I feel that he has taken it one step further and stripped the events in the book to their essence, as in a poem. Read in that way, it no longer matters whet More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Sep 27, 2007

Mark rated it:

This book is full of the wisdom of a writer who is both a poet and a novelist. Divisadero: the divisions between our lives and the lives of others, and even between our most secret lives inside of us too secret to admit to ourselves. Divisadero: the connections between the divisions that cause us to yearn for the comfort of togetherness, of intimacy. On a palimpsest of a novel painted over by centuries of division and that longing for togetherness, Ondaatje brushes words that will stay with me More...

2 comments like (14 people liked it)

Jun 25, 2007

Ryan rated it:

This might bear more fruit on a second reading, but as it is right now I would consider this a lesser Ondaatje than the brilliance displayed in Anil's Ghost and Booker Prize winner The English Patient. The first two-thirds of the text spans the young lives of a mixed family in Northern California and Nevada--the trio of sisters Anna and Claire with adopted farmhand (and John Grady Cole archetype) Coop. There's a predictable/inevitable running through of paradise attained and lost for this fami More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Jul 17, 2009

Brad rated it:

Divisadero is not a story about the things that happened; it is a story about the things that were felt, and there is no living author better at telling a tale of feelings than Michael Ondaatje.

Ondaatje's prose is poetry, and for me, his poetry is lyrically sublime, in the romantic sense of the word. I am awed by what he does, and I long to do it in my own prose.

I don't care whether Anna and Coop and Claire ever find each other through the divisions of solitude they've e More...

13 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jun 12, 2008

Emily rated it:

For those who have not read an Ondaatje book before, "Divisadero" may not be a good first start. A newer reader may be expecting a plot that rises and crashes as much as the one developed in "The English Patient," which Ondaatje became known best for after the success of the film version. (And even if you haven't watched the movie 10 times over like some of us, you get it: War, lust, affair, secrets, heartbreak, the end.)

But for those who have eaten, lived and bre More...

2 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jul 30, 2008

David rated it:

There is not much I can write about Michael Ondaatje's Divisadero without echoing what all the other reviewers have already written: Ondaatje is a craftsman. His writing reveals decades of self-scrutiny, of each year wanting to say more with fewer words.

Divisadero is about love and the loss thereof. Love falls victim to the jealous wrath of a protective father, to drug addiction, to the minor details of our daily lives, and the greater mystery of the entropy of desire:

Luc More...

2 comments like (7 people liked it)

Feb 01, 2008

Mark rated it:

Maybe 4 +half—Ondaatje’s novels always seem somehow flawed, because they’re not like any other author’s novels. They leave me a little confused and not a little mystified—but a confusion stemming from awe and wonder. Ondaatje’s novels are poems—or, rather, collections of poems in prose of varied pace and pitch—and they can’t be read by the ‘normal’ rules of novel-reading. So, to call “Divisadero” a strange and beautiful concoction is just to say it’s a Michael Ondaatje novel. I say all this More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Aug 07, 2007

Sara rated it:

Another outstanding offering from one of my favorite authors. The narrative travels back and forth in time, forging links between the past and the present. Ondaatje gives clues in the content as to the critical themes. "All over the world there must be people like us. . .wounded in some way by falling in love--seemingly the most natural of acts." "We live permananetly in the reoccurence of our own stories, whatever story we tell." ". . .what is most untrustowrthy ab More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Aug 02, 2008

Charlaralotte rated it:

Well...When you've already written "The English Patient," it's hard to do much better. Unfortunately, it also seems to mean you don't get good editorial advice anymore.

This book has the makings of two good, separate books that would be tied together by a slim plot connection. As it is now, the two story lines are poorly integrated & feel forced.

I found the Cooper story dull, if only because I'm tired of Texas Hold 'Em poker & Las Vegas & America in general.
More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Feb 26, 2010

John rated it:

A very disappointing read. A book that started off with a bang and then just faded in the middle. This fairly recent book was available for sale at the inflated price of $30 in Singapore bookshops so when it popped up in the American Club Library, I figured it was a smart, cost-efficient move. It was since buying the book would have been a waste.
The man can write. His account of a tragic incidents in the lives of two young girls and an orphaned hired hand on a northern California farm cr More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 29, 2008

Miriam rated it:

Oh my god. Every once in a while and this happens like maybe once a year, I find, you read a book that is just the RIGHT BOOK at the right time. And this is it. Amazing. Gorgeous. It's hard to even say. Because there is also a roughness to it, to the characters that is almost gripping. That and, ta-dah it is so intricately structured. I love structures that I want to think about. And this is one. I want to just turn it over and read it again and again.

It also makes me want to go back More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 30, 2008

Pat rated it:

This book is beautifully written. It is three disconnected stories in a mosaic. Each beautiful and complete in itself. The stories are linked to each other through a common character. I loved all the characters and was sad to leave them behind as the book moved on to the next story. In this way, it seemed to me to be a more of a collection of short stories sharing characters (similar to Franny and Zooey) than a novel.

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Nov 15, 2008

Janice rated it:

I very much enjoyed this book. But it was a little confusing toward the end. so I think it may need a second read. I came away with beautiful imagery of how people, specifically all the main characters fragment themselves. I think that the format of the book is also a story/metaphor of this fragmentation.

I'm not saying that any of his other books has straight forward, linear, single protagonist narration, but this literally felt like the narration was shattering towards the end in More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 22, 2008

Laura rated it:

Beautifully written, and frustratingly unfulfilling...but I think that may be the author's point. The three storylines (filled with a multitude of engrossing characters) are divided by time and place but are supposed to intersect with one another symbolically, spiritually and metaphorically. Sound confusing? It is. it is also hard to articulate a cold hard opinion of this book; to do so lessens the effect of the book. Ondaatje's style is so lyrical, I'd find myself stopping and wanting to write More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 11, 2010

Teresa rated it:

To explain why I liked this book so much would be to give too much of its pleasures away. I will say, though, that the writing is beautiful and seems effortless. And that its themes are my favorites: memory, loss, connections that are made (but are too soon gone) and connections that are missed (in more than one sense of that word), never to be forgotten and seen everywhere.

10 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 13, 2011

Heather rated it:

I evidently haven't read a Work of Literature for a while. I want to talk about this book with someone who read it!! There was much I loved about each fragment of the story, but only the last part of the novel seemed "complete." I kept waiting to return to the original three characters, and was disappointed. I know this was deliberate on the author's part, but I want to figure out why!!!

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 03, 2011

Tiziana rated it:

A very interesting written book about love, loss and life. All I want to say about "Divisadero" is, read it. You won't be able to put it down.

0 comments like

Mar 09, 2008

b rated it:

as usual Ondaatje incorporates some beautiful imagery and there are some really outstanding sections of this book. However, on the whole, a disjointed piece with a whole lot of exposition and background description, but no sense of resolution to 2 out of 3 parts of the story. The good part, near the end, is just a back story about a character that is already dead and has almost nothing to do with the rest of the book at all. One of the very main characters is conveniently beaten to crap and has More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 12, 2009

Stephanie rated it:

MICHAEL Ondaatje is notorious for his non-linear – hence sometimes frustrating – narratives. Take his most commercially successful novel to date, The English Patient, which netted him the Booker Prize in 1992 and was made into an Oscar-winning movie in 1996.

Though the movie streamlined the plot, focusing on the love story of the titular character, the novel is actually more complex, interweaving the lives of four characters whose stories do not obviously relate to each other, while More...

0 comments like

Dec 30, 2008

Eric rated it:

It appears as if the last novel I'll complete this year has turned out to be the best one of the year. It used to be that my life would stop with the appearance of a new Kundera novel, but now that distinction belongs to Ondaatje. Divisadero is like another English Patient, but I mean this in the best sense: it's not a replica of that earlier novel, but a continuation and enlargement of its central themes (nomadism, personal and historical wounds, blurred boundaries between past and present and More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 22, 2008

Jeanne rated it:

I love to read Michael Ondaatje. The English Patient is one of my all time favorite reading experiences. Coming Through Slaughter made me see New Orleans through a new set of eyes. Anil's Ghost brought human rights to the fore in my mind for the first time. And Divisadero linked me to the region of France that gives me my Frenchness. I always enter another world and smell it as I inhale the words on each page. And this was how I felt for most of this book.

He divided his book in half More...

0 comments like

Nov 30, 2011

Noah rated it:

I recently had the chance to see Ondaatje live in conversation with Michael Chabon in San Francisco, and as a result became determined to read more of Ondaatje's work. The only other work by Ondaatje I had read was Running in the Family, which I greatly enjoyed. Also, having gained insight into Ondaatje's writing process through his conversation with Chabon, I became more and more determined to expand my Ondaatje reading.

I chose Divisadero as an entry point because it a) featured the More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 29, 2011

Laurie added it

Divisadero is a haunting, elusive book about several solitary people living in the aftermath of great loss and pain. A family is broken apart by a single unforgiveable event. A woman changes her identity. A man goes to prison, and then emerges only to become a soldier, where his violent temper is presumably an asset. The story is told by multiple narrators, with multiple points of view, and not in a linear order. The strongest portions tell of the life of a French writer, who is at times r More...

0 comments like

Jul 26, 2011

Juanita rated it:

I give this four stars for general literary excellence, but I could also have given three stars. If you wish to know why, read on.

Compelling; literate and meta-literate; elegant and sensuous; evocative and inventive. A good smooth read (swift but rich. Recognizably Ondaatje if you've read other novels of his: meticulously researched pieces of arcane history are linked by characters whose lives cross in varied ways, travels, and histories. There is no one main character; instead, t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 24, 2011

Jason rated it:

"Divisadero" is Michael Ondaatje's first novel in almost seven years and I've had the hardest time trying to write this review. I could go on about how good I think it is, or I could stand back and treat it like an extension of my master's thesis. Writing a summary of its intricate plot would be like trying to unweave individual threads from a Persian rug, so, I've given up trying to decide.[return][return]I've given up because I'm not sure anything I say can do justice to the book More...

0 comments like

Jun 08, 2011

Ernie rated it:

I love how he writes. The text is poetry. The stories are complex and rich. The characters are fascinating. This is the third book of Ondaatje that I have read and I have begun to anticipate the abrupt changes in point of view accompanied by the creation of a parallel story line. This book is set in California and describes places with which I am familiar. That added to the pleasure of reading.
I only gave the book three stars. I liked it. But I did get lost in the twists and turns. More...

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Apr 24, 2011

Cynthia rated it:

It is always fascinating to see how authors go about telling their stories. Will they use a lot of dialogue? Or will they confine themselves to prose?

Michael Ondaatje uses a lot of prose. Beautifully written, well-crafted prose, which narrates and summarizes events. And that is a problem, because if there is too much summary, the happenings in the novel won’t be grounded.

In DIVISADERO, a searing event happens about 30 pages into the book. Anna, the protagonist of the n More...

0 comments like

Feb 09, 2011

Anne rated it:

The bad lyrical parts of Ondaatje, without the snaps of character spark that sometimes redeem them. His location setting of No-cal (Petaluma and environs)/Pyrenees did not work for me. Seemed oddly stretched and too much like the tragic landscapes of earlier works, but this one is about people being blurry and remembering other blurry people, and did not hit the precision of tragedy that other people seem to find. A sample para:

"He was never fully certain as to what made him wri More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 04, 2010

Q rated it:

This is one of my favorite books. because of the power of the writing. It's so beautifully written. Have listened to it on books on cd, read it and enjoyed reading sections orally to others. Each way brought added richness and new found treasures to the story. there was something new each time read.

Many didn't like the book because it wasn't linear; or didn't fall into the image of what a book "should be"; and some like books where the end sums it all up into a little More...

1 comment like