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In the Skin of a Lion

by Michael Ondaatje

3.87 · rating details · 3,878 ratings · 340 reviews

Bristling with intelligence and shimmering with romance, this novel tests the boundary between history and myth. Patrick Lewis arrives in Toronto in the 1920s and earns his living searching for a vanished millionaire and tunneling beneath Lake Ontario. In the course of his adventures, Patrick's life intersects with those of characters who reappear in Ondaatje's Booker Priz...more

Paperback, 256 pages

Published April 6th 2011 by Vintage

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Aug 03, 2011

Teresa rated it

· review of another edition

A book full of sights and more, signifying much, including, and in a big way, one of my favorite themes -- that of the 'little' people, the ones 'behind the scenes' of history, the ones we'll never know.

After reading this book, I feel like I've been to Ontario and in particular Toronto during the early-20th century. Toronto is a teeming, vibrant multicultural community, so much so that the main character from backwoods Ontario feels like the outsider. Though to be completely accura...more

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Jul 10, 2009

Marie rated it

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction

In the middle of this novel, Ondaatje writes:

"The first sentence of every novel should be: "Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human.'"

And this seems to be Ondaatje's philosophy about his novels.

I read this book because we are headed to Toronto at the end of August, and this was described to me as the "quintessential Toronto novel." However, I found myself scanning pages and anxiously hoping that I...more

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Aug 03, 2011

Karen rated it

Shelves: canada, favourites

A full five star endorsement for a novel that has a mesmeric, hallucinatory quality. Images as powerful and poignant as a dream, narrative that slips and weaves and ducks between people, places and time, and an impressive sweep of invention that catches the breath. Ondaatje uncovers the story of those whose labour created Toronto landmarks in the early twentieth century, deftly knitting up truth and myth, revealing the lives of those who were forgotten in the official version of history.

...more

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Aug 21, 2008

April rated it

Shelves: canadiana

I finished reading this book several weeks ago just before an interview at the National Arts Centre with Michael Ondaatje. In face, I believe I finished it mere hours before seeing him speak.

I had never read an Ondaatje book, and felt that I should, given the fact that I was about to see an hour long interview with the man. I chose In the Skin of A Lion based on this thread on Ask Metafilter. Lion came up several times as the Quintessential Canadian Novel (something I find interesting,...more

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Dec 04, 2007

Andy rated it

The best book I've read in 5 years.

But everyone I recommend it to hates it.

The prose is poetry, and the genetic connection to Ondaatje's earlier prose-poem works like "Coming through Slaughter" is obvious. But the power of this book resides in his characterization - you come to be absolutely devoted to the individuals - and I choose that word deliberately - that populate this novel. Though sparingly described, they seem more familiar than the characters so exh...more

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Jun 07, 2007

graycastle rated it

Shelves: contemporary

This is my favourite of Ondaatje's novels, and I am quite the Ondaatje fan, so. This is pomo in ways that are by now familiar: interested in collage-style historical documentation, nonlinear, imagistic, in opposition to grand narratives, obsessed with artistic creation, etc. And I love that stuff, because it is awesome. But what really makes this work is Ondaatje's prose, which is lush and visceral and delicious - he invests all of his characters with a specific kind of depth resultant from t...more

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Jun 25, 2011

Katie Lynn rated it

Not impressed.

Change the pronoun and this sounds remarkable like someone I know intimately well:
"When he spoke of his own past he was not calm like her. He flashed over previous relationships, often in bad humour. He would disclose the truth of his past only if interrogated with a specific question. He defended himself for most of the time with a habit of vagueness."

This next part is so beautiful, albeit long for me to add here:
"He had wanted to know ...moreNot impressed.

Change the pronoun and this sounds remarkable like someone I know intimately well:
"When he spoke of his own past he was not calm like her. He flashed over previous relationships, often in bad humour. He would disclose the truth of his past only if interrogated with a specific question. He defended himself for most of the time with a habit of vagueness."

This next part is so beautiful, albeit long for me to add here:
"He had wanted to know her when she was old. At lunches she would argue her ideas against him, holding up her glass, "To impatience! To the evolving human!" while he was intent on her shoulder, romantic towards the dazzle of her hair. Her grin was always there when he spoke of growing old with her--as if she had made some other pact, as if there was another arrow of alliance. he couldn't wait to know her when, in years to come, they would be solvent, sexually calmer, less like wildlife. There was always, he thought, this pleasure ahead of him, an ace of joy up his sleeve so he could say you can do anything to me, take everything away, put me in prison, but I will know Alice Gull when we are old. Even if we cannot be lovers I will come each afternoon, come as if courting, and over lunch we will share our thoughts, laughing, so this talk will be love.
He had wanted that. And what had she wanted?
...
Now there is a moat around her he will never cross again. He will not even cup his hands to drink its waters. As if, having travelled all that distance to enter the castle in order to learn its wisdom for the grand cause, he now turns and walks away."

I also appreciated her thought in there that "You and I will never enter certain rooms together." Not just in considering male/female versus female/female relationships, but also in the limitations imposed upon other intimate relationships we experience in our lives typically because someone outside the bond has some fear or misunderstanding. So sad that we confuse ourselves and others so often and so much that we limit those we love.(less)

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Jun 20, 2011

David Lentz rated it

Michael Ondaatje writes with a rare, original and genuinely vivid clarity. That is, the images that he paints jump off the page, grab you by the lapels and shake you. While other writers have this talent, this writer has the soul of a poet and the net effect is that you are moved by what you read. It's impossible for his creative penchants for metaphor, simile, characterization and imagery not to get inside your head and fire your imagination. Some of the scenes are hauntingly beautiful, especia...more

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Feb 09, 2011

Marcelo rated it

· review of another edition

Astounding. One of the best novels I've ever read. Ondaatje does things with language that should be almost illegal, giving us scenes that can be at the same time lush and heartbreakingly stark, weaving in and out of different timeframes and contexts with the fluidity and free association of memory. His depictions of the hard work these characters undertake in early 20th Century Canada (bridge building, logging, tunnel drilling under Lake Ontario in order to build a water purification plant) hav...more

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Feb 01, 2011

Philippe rated it

It was quite a while since I had read something by Ondaatje. I read "The English Patient" twice, a few years ago. The first time I was enthralled. But my second reading disappointed me. With "In the Skin of a Lion" I retraced this emotional trajectory in the space of reading a single book.

I know Ondaatje doesn't want us to look for a polished, coherent story in his books. In "Skin" he warns the reader in a variety of ways for the inevitable disorder and mu...moreIt was quite a while since I had read something by Ondaatje. I read "The English Patient" twice, a few years ago. The first time I was enthralled. But my second reading disappointed me. With "In the Skin of a Lion" I retraced this emotional trajectory in the space of reading a single book.

I know Ondaatje doesn't want us to look for a polished, coherent story in his books. In "Skin" he warns the reader in a variety of ways for the inevitable disorder and multiplicity of his narrative universe. There's a motto (by John Berger) that prefaces the book: "Never again will a single story be told as though it were the only one." Then Ondaatje frames the whole novel as a story that is being told by a man to a girl, during a four hour nightly drive in a car: "She listens to the man as he picks up and brings together various corners of the story, attempting to carry it all in his arms. And he is tired, sometimes as elliptical as his concentration on the road, at time overexcited ..." And then halfway through the book, the author admonishes us again: "Trust me, this will take time, but there is order here, very faint, very human". And despite these warnings and caveats, after a while a feeling of dissatisfaction sets in. The problem is not really the fact that an Ondaatje novel is more a collection of vignettes than a clockwork literary edifice. The problem is that this fragmentation erodes his characters' psychology. In "The English Patient" all of the protagonists are shadowy, ephemeral and solipsistic figures, unable to reach beyond their own world. In this book they fare only slightly better. With Patrick Lewis, Ondaatje has arguably drawn an interesting character. Although Lewis is only marginally less solitary and enigmatic than the "Patient's" protagonist, something of the animal-like but appealing naiveté of this personality really shines through. On the other hand, Lewis is not a man of ideas nor really of purposeful action and his development into a wavering anarchist is sketchy and rather implausible. Also the female characters in "Skin" - Clara, Alice, Hana - remain two dimensional, more carriers of an idea or an ethos than real human beings.

Ondaatje's mastery of prose is ultimately what one keeps involved. His language is suggestive and brilliantly refined (although sometimes it spills over into the ridiculous: how on earth is the "flight of a post-coital bat" supposed to look like?). Apparently he started out writing poems and I think this, rather than novels, is his real trade. He spins his narrative out of hypnotic images, some of which come back in various guises across different novels. For example, the image of a person hanging from a rope in a deep void is iconic image in the "English Patient" and it plays an important role in "Skin" too. Likewise, I thought of Ondaatje's description of a deserted Naples in the former book when reading the final scenes that play out in the monumental, cavernous Toronto waterworks in "Skin of a Lion".

So it's mixed feelings again after finishing this book. I'd give it 3,5 stars. The next book by Ondaatje I pick up will be one of his early collections of poems.(less)

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Jun 26, 2010

Lisa rated it

In the Skin of a Lion is Michael Ondaatje’s second novel and the predecessor to The English Patient which won the Booker Prize and was made into a stunning film starring Ralph Fiennes. It’s an intriguing exposé of the immigrant dispossessed who built the city’s infrastructure in the 1920s. As the city is transformed by their labour so too must Ondaatje’s characters transform themselves and adapt to their new lives but they do this in unxpected ways. The book features disconnected narratives...more

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Jun 23, 2009

Shauna rated it

There were moments of beauty and visual acuity, but more often there were moments of muddlesome bemusement. Story arcs left hanging, dangling tantalizingly (a nun falling off a bridge to be caught in mid-air, but then what...?)--abandoned, but returned to eventually. Satisfying and unsatisfying at the same time. There is a quote in the book that seems to sum up my feelings of this book:

"Only the best art can order the chaotic tumble of events. Only the best can realign chaos to s

...more

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Sep 13, 2011

tarnishedtypist rated it

Ondaatje's writing is beyond reproach, I think anyone who reads this novel will see that. My review isn't so much based on the writing, which is precise and profound in places. It's the characters. And the timeline. And the structure. The male characters all felt very similar to me. There were only vague differences between the three of them, and honestly none of them were exactly fascinating. I got lost in the plot a few times because I couldn't recall who'd done what, even though I read it ove...more

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Aug 02, 2011

Tracy added it

This is a book that I read as part of a book club selection. The writing style was different than anything else I have read and did take a bit to get use to (for me). It is not a light read. You need to take your time and try to appreciate this unique "poetic" writing style.

Ondaatje's narrative story mainly surrounds the life of Patrick. The story follow Patrick ever changing life from a small boy in northern Ontario to digging tunnels for the Waterworks in Toronto. Throughout the sto...more

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Jun 06, 2009

Adele rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: adeles-5-star-shelf

This is probably the most beautiful book I've ever read, and I reread it at least once every couple of years. If my house was burning I would take this one book from my bookshelf.The language is like poetry and the narrative threads are complex and involved - you just have to read this book and let it wash over you, and in the end the author draws the threads of the many stories together with incredible skill. Passages from this book resonate through my art and work constantly.

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Feb 01, 2011

Nick Schroeder rated it

Recommended to Nick by: Book club pick

Shelves: to-be-reread

I gave this a "5" — "It was amazing" — something I don't often do because I feel a book has to live up to that evaluation and while many, many books are really, really good, few are amazing. This one was amazing. In the Skin of a Lion was a pick for a book club and having not read Ondaatje before I was looking forward to it. I am now looking forward to rereading it (and reading other works by him) in the near future. Ondaatje is a poet as well as a novelist, it shows. His lan...moreI gave this a "5" — "It was amazing" — something I don't often do because I feel a book has to live up to that evaluation and while many, many books are really, really good, few are amazing. This one was amazing. In the Skin of a Lion was a pick for a book club and having not read Ondaatje before I was looking forward to it. I am now looking forward to rereading it (and reading other works by him) in the near future. Ondaatje is a poet as well as a novelist, it shows. His language is wonderful. Often in a book that is well written I will find a sentence that sings. With In the Skin of a Lion I found paragraphs that did that. But often it wasn't just the arrangement of a few words but how the sentences in the paragraph fit together and moved you on in the story that Patrick tells. As I think about In the Skin of a Lion the term "magic realism" comes to mind. Not in the usual sense of the term but magic in the sense of magical, wonderful. There is a constant undercurrent (the reference to water here is intentional) of wonder on the part of Patrick despite the hard, difficult, mean, and demeaning circumstances in which he finds himself. His fascination with the moths on the screen and the men skating on the river at night with the torches when he's a boy are early examples of his sense of wonder and his appreciation of the sublime. When he is older he is a lover who not only enjoys his lovers on a sexual level but also finds a sense of wonder in their bodies, their minds and their mere existence. I could feel his sense of wonder at being privileged just to be present to watch the women sleep or watch their heart beat or watch them move across the room.

The realism comes, as more than a few reviewers have commented, from Ondaatje's intense, detailed and evocative descriptions of the real working world. The description of the building of the bridge, the water works, the work at that tannery. Somehow Ondaatje knows the circumstances of a tannery. I lived near a working tannery in Milwaukee for awhile and the smell is something you never forget. Working in one in that day and age when concern for the workers' health wasn't a concern must have been just as he described. How the smell would cling to the men. How could a woman live with a man who smelled like that much less make love to him?

Did Ondaatje growing up in Sri Lanka speaking and reading English before moving to Britain at age 10 or 11? Since Ceylon was a British colony until he was 4 or 5 years old I would imagine that English was at least his second language. The same as English was Joseph Conrad's second language. I also imagine that Ondaatje must have an affinity for Conrad, who like Ondaatje, immigrated to England and then wrote in English, his second language. Both Patrick and Alice appreciate Conrad (pp 133-134) and Alice remarks to Patrick, "have you read his letters." A telling remark in that it is only via letters to Alice from others that Patrick learns anything of Alice's past. Conrad is also an author with strong associations with water. In the Skin of a Lion strikes me as a book that bears rereading more than once. On my first reading I am amazed.
(less)

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Mar 04, 2008

Celeste rated it

Recommended to Celeste by: Book Club Selection

Overall, my thoughts are mixed... while this is a superbly written book and I enjoyed it, I didn't love. And I found the large breaks in time in the story confusing and a bit frustrating. The story is beautifully written. And I really enjoyed the historical aspects of the building of Toronto. However, I was frustrated by the lack of character development; just as you would get into a character's story, the character would be dropped.

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Jan 09, 2012

Linn rated it

Recommended to Linn by: My English teacher

I read this book for school, and I really hoped I would like it since the school work would be really boring otherwise. In the beginning, I really didn't like it, and was annoyed by the use of language. I had to struggle to understand what was going on sometimes. Although this could have a lot to do with the fact that English is not my first language, I am fairly confident in my English skills being enough to read this book. After spending a couple of ours on a plane, reading the book non-stop, ...more

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Oct 13, 2011

Tony rated it

LIKES: Some of the scenes the author creates are dream- like in their beauty (the opening scene isa perfect example-- it's what drew me into the book). His view-from-the-dirt of Ontario in the early 1900s is captivating, and I particularly love how Patrick (an Ontario-born citizen) is a stranger among the immigrant population, feeling as much out of place and unfamiliar with the language(s) as the immigrants themselves feel in this young country. It is an ingenious way of conveying to threader t...moreLIKES: Some of the scenes the author creates are dream- like in their beauty (the opening scene isa perfect example-- it's what drew me into the book). His view-from-the-dirt of Ontario in the early 1900s is captivating, and I particularly love how Patrick (an Ontario-born citizen) is a stranger among the immigrant population, feeling as much out of place and unfamiliar with the language(s) as the immigrants themselves feel in this young country. It is an ingenious way of conveying to threader the immigrant experience of the period. I also love how Michael Ondaatje researches the shit out of seemingly inaccessible roles within history to allow us, the reader, to experience what it would be like to simply work at a job in the 1900s, whether it's dynamiting log jams, building a bridge in 1908, digging a tunnel under Lake Ontario in 1930, or being an immigrant worker in an abbatoir and tannery. The portrait of Nicholas Temelcoff as a laborer on the bridge was captivating in it's details. He does the same thin in The English Patient with the role of the sapper. Fascinating stuff.
DISLIKES: Michael Ondaatje is a writer's writer, which in itself is not something I dislike, but can sometimes make his style a little challenging, for better or for worse. For example, he loves to use metaphor, sometimes too much for my taste (two examples, to keep things brief: the simultaneous dream and prison beating of Caravaggio, and the death of Ambrose Small as a heron). Sometimes I felt disconnected from the narrative, and sometimes I felt the way certain characters expressed themselves at times didn't feel genuine, didn't feel as though this was how they would say what needed to be said. As though the author's narrative voice colored the voices of the characters in the same opaque film that blanketed the narrative for me at times. This is best illustrated in the letters Patrick writes to Clara. Is this really how Patrick, a labouror, would express himself? I guess maybe, but it didn't feel genuine to me at all.
In the end, I did thoroughly enjoy this book and I'm glad I read it. I wish I could give it 3.5 stars, as I feel 4 is too much and 3 too little (I'm not saying it isn't 4-star quality, in fact it is probably 5-star, but FOR ME it did not resonate as powerfully as other novels that I've rated 4-stars). The end is particularly satisfying with Patrick's failed attempt at being an anarchist being offset by the open-ended possibilities of his reconnection with Clara.(less)

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Jan 19, 2010

Rob rated it

Shelves: literature, school-reading, read-in-2010

It's hard to really describe what In the Skin of a Lion is about. Parts of this novel are about Macedonian workers in Torontos in the 30s, others are about a vanished millionaire, others are about the life and loves of Patrick Lewis. Thematically, Ondaatje here deals mainly with history, both in how it is created and how it is read. Patrick swims in history, both witnessing it being made and searching through it in hope for meaning.

While In the Skin of a Lion is undoubtedly well-c...more

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Jun 10, 2009

Istop4books rated it

Shelves: lit-and-fiction, rec-d-as-a-rabck, to-be-read, damn-that-was-bad

I'm still scratching my head over this book. It must be the first time since high school that I read a book, finish it, and look back and go, huh? I didn't understand it, wasn't blown away by the writing, and even though I tried really hard to find the beauty in his writing, I couldn't. No memorable quotes or passages that I found, hard to follow, I had no idea what happened from chapter to chapter until at the end he somewhat wrapped things up in a very odd way.

I almost felt like ...more

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Dec 19, 2010

Katie rated it

This was a book that found me, rather than me finding it. Someone recommended it to me once, but I don't remember who, or when. I scribbled it on one of my many to-read lists, and then one year at Christmastime, it made it onto my wish-list. I don't remember who gave it to me. I don't know why, after all these years on my shelf, I chose now as the moment to read it. This history, shrouded in vagueness and unremembered detail, is fitting for this book in which connections and motivations are alwa...moreThis was a book that found me, rather than me finding it. Someone recommended it to me once, but I don't remember who, or when. I scribbled it on one of my many to-read lists, and then one year at Christmastime, it made it onto my wish-list. I don't remember who gave it to me. I don't know why, after all these years on my shelf, I chose now as the moment to read it. This history, shrouded in vagueness and unremembered detail, is fitting for this book in which connections and motivations are always veiled, and the forces that operate in the lives of the characters are not ours to see.

In the Skin of a Lion is mainly about Patrick Lewis--the other characters come into the story through their relationships with him. There is Clara Dickens, a beautiful actress with whom Patrick has a torrid affair; Alice Gull, another actress, best friend of Clara, and, later, lover of Patrick; and Caravaggio, a thief who serves time in prison with Patrick. Although Patrick is at the center of the web that binds these characters together, we know him least of all of them. He seeks anonymity and thwarts connection, choosing to live and work surrounded by immigrants whose languages he doesn't speak. Ondaatje shows us Patrick's actions, but only rarely lets us hear him speak or allows into his heart or mind. And so Patrick achieves with the readers the same sort of anonymous existence that he has in his Toronto neighborhood, in the midst of communities of Macedonians and Italians.

Sex and work are the two poles around which the book revolves. Ondaatje spends lots of time on both, but--perhaps contrary to expectation--his writing shines most when he lingers on the details of work. The work he is interested in is hard physical labor, and, in this book set in the 1930s, the world of work is a world of men. Ondaatje gives us bridge-builders, bakers, tanners, tunnel-diggers, and loggers, each described with meticulous attention to the details of the profession. Although rendered in plain prose, these descriptions sing. So much so that the writing about sex, which is always passionate and intense in this book, feels flat in comparison.

In my first post about this book, I described the experience of reading as like looking through a keyhole, and now that I've finished it, I can't find any description better than that. I spied on scenes of great intensity, but could not always link the images that I saw to the things that must have happened in other rooms, the conversations and intimacies that took place beyond my keyhole's purview. I think that the images of this book will stay with me after the plot has fallen away: men skating on a frozen river at night, holding flaming cattails over their heads to light their way; Clara and Alice coming with paper and glowing candles into Patrick's room, crouching on the floor to draw him while he sleeps.(less)

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Jul 22, 2010

Kaelee rated it

Honestly, I utterly despised this book. I had no end of people telling me that this was one of the most divine, perfectly written books EVER. What I saw when I read it was literary masturbation. I'll concede Ondaatje has an elegant way of stringing together lots of beautiful words and phrases and moments, but I don't think that that alone can make a book. Others have said they think the characters in this are so real as to make you utterly devoted to them. I struggled to sympathise with a single...more

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Oct 03, 2009

Lisa Maloney rated it

This book is the first pick of my new book group. Today was a rainy cool day so while the rest of my family watched hockey I quietly read this book and finished it.

On one hand it's a fast read, but then it's also filled with buried details and dream images that makes me want to start back on page 1 tomorrow.
The main character is Patrick Lewis, an immigrant who worked in Toronto in the 1920's. It chronicles the difficult and unsafe conditions that immigrants worked under wh...more

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Dec 20, 2008

Sarah rated it

First things first: I do not think Michael Ondaatje gets enough credit. I know that he wrote "The English Patient," which became an epic romantic film with Ralph Fiennes. But not only is "The English Patient" a wonderful book, but ALL of his books are beautiful. "In the Skin of a Lion" may be my favorite.

I have a great love affair with Ondaatje's prose, which gently lilts and probes and carefully illuminates the most telling truths about his characters. ...more

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Dec 14, 2011

Ensiform rated it

Shelves: fiction

A novel like a painting, not without plot but not exactly systematic either. Nicholas, a daredevil immigrant bridge worker, saves a nun from falling off. One Patrick Lewis, sometime explosive engineer, falls in love with the lover of a missing millionaire. Then he falls in love with her friend, Alice, who might be the ex-nun. Alice dies an unnatural death. Caravaggio, the thief, befriends Patrick. As the narrator says, “Trust me, this will take time, but there is order here, very faint, ve...more

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Jun 15, 2011

Brian Davis rated it

Ondaatje writes beautiful, simple, jewel-like sentences that read like poetry, but in this book he seems to let himself get bogged down in the preciousness of his language. The varied human and physical settings are all compelling. Early-twentieth century Toronto reminds me of a city like Milwaukee or Buffalo, a city bracing itself for the leap from a humble industrial past to the super-capitalism of the post-war present. The work the characters do -- mainly Patrick and Nicholas-- is fascinat...more

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Aug 02, 2011

Sheldon L added it · review of another edition

This book only got 3 stars from me more so because of a lack of a Deleuzean action plot. That is, it had no beginning, middle and end as most books introduce a main conflict and seek its resolution.
That being said, it was a wonderful exhibit of Ondaatje's gripping illustrative writing. He truly is a master at evoking emotions that connect you with the characters. In this regard the book is phenomenal. Perhaps there's something to be said about a new type of novel, one that refuses to produce th...more

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Dec 29, 2010

Kayla rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2010, standalone, 2-star-books, 553-book-challenge, canada-reads

IN THE SKIN OF A LION by Michael Ondaatje

The first half of this book was a bit confusing, but as it went on and the characters became connected the story greatly improved. After weaving a mildly interesting story the confusion popped back up near the end. I found myself wondering what this was all about, and was it even necessary in the story? I liked the intertwining characters aspect of the story, but the rest of it I thought was too muddled and just thrown together. It didn't have m...more

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Mar 03, 2010

Kate rated it

· review of another edition

Ondaatje writes beautifully. There is no way to deny that. It's gorgeous prose and I just want to wrap myself in it. That being said the beauty of the prose distracts you from, and even detracts from, the story. It said beautifully but I can't always sort out what is being said or the actual plot. Now I know that's not the point but I'd just like a bit more indication of important things to keep in mind of. Also a bit more insight into characters. We got passing glances at a bunch of peopl...more

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About Michael Ondaatje

He was born to a Burgher family of Dutch-Tamil-Sinhalese-Portuguese origin. He moved to England with his mother in 1954. After relocating to Canada in 1962, Ondaatje became a Canadian citizen. Ondaatje studied for a time at Bishops College School and Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec, but moved to Toronto and received his BA from the University of Toronto and his MA from Queen's Universit...more

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“Everyone has to scratch on walls somewhere or they go crazy” — 12 people liked it

“Before the real city could be seen it had to be imagined, the way rumours and tall tales were a kind of charting.” — 9 people liked it

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title link	preview: In the Skin of a Lion
avg rating	preview: In the Skin of a Lion Goodreads rating: 3.87 (3878 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5946.In_the_Skin_of_a_Lion?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320426334m/5946.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5946.In_the_Skin_of_a_Lion?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje[/url]

In the Skin of a Lion

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