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79th out of 208 books
—
455 voters
Coming Through Slaughter
Bringing to life the fabulous, colorful panorama of New Orleans in the first flush of the jazz era, this book tells the story of Buddy Bolden, the first of the great trumpet players--some say the originator of jazz--who was, in any case, the genius, the guiding spirit, and the king of that time and place.
In this fictionalized meditation, Bolden, an unrecorded father of Ja...more
In this fictionalized meditation, Bolden, an unrecorded father of Ja...more
Paperback, 160 pages
Published
March 19th 1996
by Vintage
(first published 1976)
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Wow, what a book!
I haven't read Ondaatje before, or at least not much, and I don't know what I expected, but the level of lyricism from page to page, paragraph to paragraph was really stunning and made this a really rather incredible read.
There are places where I have issues with it, or at least think I do (what happens to Webb, or the fact that the insanity seems so, I don't know, underconsidered-- maybe it's just me, but the link between these romantic triangles Bolden found himself in and the...more
I haven't read Ondaatje before, or at least not much, and I don't know what I expected, but the level of lyricism from page to page, paragraph to paragraph was really stunning and made this a really rather incredible read.
There are places where I have issues with it, or at least think I do (what happens to Webb, or the fact that the insanity seems so, I don't know, underconsidered-- maybe it's just me, but the link between these romantic triangles Bolden found himself in and the...more
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There are few books that I say I will read again that I actually do (my opinion is that there are far too many books to re-read), and even fewer that I actually do read them again. This is one book that I believe will be one of those select few.
Often the heart is the one thing about poetry I actually understand. In this novel Ondatji's poetic heart comes through in a form I can relate to. Matters of genre-defining aside, this is truly a beautiful book of words and story.
I was moved and "in" fro...more
Often the heart is the one thing about poetry I actually understand. In this novel Ondatji's poetic heart comes through in a form I can relate to. Matters of genre-defining aside, this is truly a beautiful book of words and story.
I was moved and "in" fro...more
This a fictional story based on the rich, the tragic, and true life of the New Orleans Jazz Musician Buddy Bolden. A historical figure of whom we know very little, of whom there is only one extant photo, and no recordings. Yet we know he eventually goes mad.
Michael Ondaatje weaves a captivating story from only shreds of evidence through a form of prose that I have never quite seen before. The narrator is constantly shifting, as is the chronology, as is the word form. Parts of this read like his...more
Michael Ondaatje weaves a captivating story from only shreds of evidence through a form of prose that I have never quite seen before. The narrator is constantly shifting, as is the chronology, as is the word form. Parts of this read like his...more
3 likes · like · see review
Huh. There are some books that your brain thinks it should like and some books where your gut just says "fuck yeah!" My brain liked this book a lot more than my gut. Which was good, because at only 160 pages my gut didn't have enough time to put the thing aside forever
Although the last five pages were a slog. In bed, after midnight, forcing myself through extreme drowsiness to finish. Figured I'd gotten too far to give up just five pages to the end. Now I can recommend this in a pretentious voi...more
Although the last five pages were a slog. In bed, after midnight, forcing myself through extreme drowsiness to finish. Figured I'd gotten too far to give up just five pages to the end. Now I can recommend this in a pretentious voi...more
I read this in an attempt to understand a little more about New Orleans. I haven't been. And to read more of Ondaatje, who I love. And because I was 32, a year older than Buddy Bolden when he went insane.
Set in the Storyville district of New Orleans in the early days of the Jazz era, CTS unravels Bolden's life, (barber by day, cornet player by night) his sorted love life, madness, death-obsession, and jazz. Lyrical prose. Did I say lyrical? Sorry.
"And as told in Coming Through Slaughter, his sto...more
Set in the Storyville district of New Orleans in the early days of the Jazz era, CTS unravels Bolden's life, (barber by day, cornet player by night) his sorted love life, madness, death-obsession, and jazz. Lyrical prose. Did I say lyrical? Sorry.
"And as told in Coming Through Slaughter, his sto...more
This was recommended to me at a perfect time (just coming out of a Ken Burns Jazz phase). I wouldn't say that as a whole this book *blew me away*, but I would say that individual sections and single phrases absolutely did. I often found myself so dazzled by his language that I forgot to think about how that particular section fit into the overall story.
I have the utmost appreciation for Ondaatje's approach and play with form--the book itself reads kinda jazz-like (multi-tonal, multi-vocal, se...more
I have the utmost appreciation for Ondaatje's approach and play with form--the book itself reads kinda jazz-like (multi-tonal, multi-vocal, se...more
A Poetic Jigsaw Puzzle (2013)
Ondaatje, Michael (1996/1976). Coming Through Slaughter. New York: Vintage.
This is an experimental novel based loosely on the true story of Jazz musician Buddy Bolden, a giant of early New Orleans jazz, who disappeared for two years, then returned very briefly to glory, then went insane. Bolden flourished at the beginning of the 20th century, and was one of the inventors of jazz. The novel transmits the flavor of that time and place, but there is only one passage (a...more
Ondaatje, Michael (1996/1976). Coming Through Slaughter. New York: Vintage.
This is an experimental novel based loosely on the true story of Jazz musician Buddy Bolden, a giant of early New Orleans jazz, who disappeared for two years, then returned very briefly to glory, then went insane. Bolden flourished at the beginning of the 20th century, and was one of the inventors of jazz. The novel transmits the flavor of that time and place, but there is only one passage (a...more
I really wanted to love this book. I'm a sucker for books about musicians, and the real-world inspiration for the novel, Buddy Boldin, seems like a fascinating figure: a jazz pioneer about which not a whole hell of a lot is known, except that at the age of 31 he "went crazy during a parade" and was institutionalized, probably for schizophrenia.
I like the idea of using fiction to speculate about that real figure's internal life. My issue, I think, is with what Ondaatje plugs into that gap, which...more
I like the idea of using fiction to speculate about that real figure's internal life. My issue, I think, is with what Ondaatje plugs into that gap, which...more
There are phrases bouncing around the summary and reviews for this book that I think are a little wrong in tone. This book is highly concerned with documentary evidence (both its limitations and its necessity in memorializing the victims of crimes against humanity, in which category East Louisiana State Hospital surely falls), poetic and fragmentary, as concerned with honoring distance and difference as with creating intimacy. This is not so much a fictional recreation as a sequence of imaginati...more
Buddy Bolden was the greatest cornet player, the innovator, set the music free, the man who folks like Bunk Johnson and Louis Armstrong said started it all, beat the path for all other great jazzmen to follow.
Bolden lost his mind in a parade in a 1907 and spent the rest of his life in an asylum. He had blown out the vessels in his neck with the exertion of his playing. And he never made any recordings.
Ondaatje gathers every piece of information available on this legend, and engages in lurid fant...more
Bolden lost his mind in a parade in a 1907 and spent the rest of his life in an asylum. He had blown out the vessels in his neck with the exertion of his playing. And he never made any recordings.
Ondaatje gathers every piece of information available on this legend, and engages in lurid fant...more
I chose this book in one of my high school English classes as an independent study project. I think it's still the most difficult book I have ever read, a thorougly frustrating but ultimately satisfying experience! Ondaatje's poetry-pose was hard for me to absorb, and there are random pages in the book with unconnected lines or lists on them that have nothing to do with what you've been reading or with what's on the next page! But it all comes together beautifully at last, with most of the lefto...more
good book but i found it to be very emotional and difficult to read because at the time i was studying jazz piano intently. The subject of the book is Buddy Bolden, a jazz trumpeter before Louis Armstrong, who has a difficult time dealing with his creative side and has fantasies of cutting off his hands so he can no longer play, so he no longer has to live with the curse of being consumed by music.
I don't reccomend this book to anyone. Too dark. But it was well written.
I don't reccomend this book to anyone. Too dark. But it was well written.
I found this book absolutely haunting. As I've said before no other writer that I know of writes so damn... emotionally as Ondaatje. I was put inside the soul of jazz man Buddy Bolden - and his mind. This book is in turns maddeningly austere, and in others florid with intensity. Portions of this novel also have a pasted together feel, like overly humid newspaper clippings laid in collage upon a New Orleans light post. It lends itself well to a man who was said to have lost his mind.
2 likes · like · see review
The cornetist Buddy Bolden (1877-1931) is widely credited as being one of the creators of the music now known as jazz. He was born in New Orleans and formed a band in 1895, which was centered in the red light district known as Storyville and soon became one of the most popular ones in the city (Bolden is seen with his band, standing second from the left in this 1905 photograph). He was influenced by ragtime music, the blues and music from the church, and combined these elements into a unique for...more
This book, more of a long prose poem than a novel, is beautiful, haunting and fails to satisfy. Yup, I put down the slim volume and felt a little cheated. Still, it is good (four stars). If it were not about New Orleans just after the turn of last century, Buddy Bolden or Jazz, I would have given it five stars. If it were simply about the disintegration of a creative mind I think I would have enjoyed it more. But the mysterious life of Buddy Bolden, the inception of the great art form Jazz, the...more
I first heard about this from an extra feature on my DVD for Down By Law in which director Jim Jarmusch lists some of his favorite books. The title stuck with me and I found it at Houston's trusty Kaboom Books. This is an immediately engaging collage of the life of jazz progenitor Buddy Bolden and the turn of the century red light district New Orleans he grew up in. The fragmented writing style got me right away but as the book moved along I was a bit frustrated at how it also gets in the way of...more
for years people have told me i'd love this book because i love jazz and new orleans and historical fiction and poetic prose. buddy bolden was one of the seminal figures in jazz; a coronet man who introduced what marsalis calls "the big sound" that wound church and street and blues music into what became "jass" and led to king oliver and so on down the road. buddy bolden went insane and was committed to a mental hospital in 1907. the author makes a ton of hay showing through skewed prose and cho...more
I wanted to love this book, and I didn't, and that disappoints me! Because I'm on an Ondaatje kick right now, it makes me feel like that was my readerly failure rather than the novel's failure. One thing I found surprisingly disorienting (given my love of modernist fiction) was the fragmented, episodic structure, drifting from point of view to point of view. Ondaatje drops the reader in to different character's perspectives without necessarily marking the transitions (much like *The Waste Land*...more
This book kicked my ass. Maybe 'cause of personal experience, but at the time i read it, its fractured, perspective-by-creative-impulse structure spoke to me biggee timee. It's a beautiful example of intuitive composition, of poetry integrated with prose, a raw, guttural illustration of Ondaatje's imaginative response to an all-but-forgotten personal history. Occasional sentences that take your breath away. Read it when it's hot outside.
Disappointing --- Strange, maybe needs a little more thought than I gave it. It was the story of Buddy Bolden, or more accurately a recount of the last few months of his sanity and than his turn to a lunctic. I thought it was too disjointed and skipped around too much - perhaps the author's attempt to mimic what was happening in Buddy's head as he was going nuts. I didn't think it worked and in fact didn't pick up on it at first. To me it rambled in the wrong places. If the book were a little lo...more
I couldn't help wondering if this book influenced Jackie Kay's Trumpet? It covers so much of the same ground - at least it seems to to me - but from entirely different perspectives. And it's so transportive (is that a word?): it lifts you up and takes you into Buddy Bolden's world. Ondaatje seduced me with his mixture of memoir and interview and imaginary conversations and made me think of the way jazz seduces me with its individual but call-and-response intertwined melodies. Ondaatje is a poeti...more
Only after I'd finished this book did I find out the protagonist, Buddy Bolden, was a real person thought by some to be the father of Jazz. I like Jazz without knowing too much about it; I was drawn to the novel by the old band photo on the cover - I like old photos too, and, apparently, you can judge a book by its cover sometimes - and because it was written by the author of The English Patient.
The story isn't a biography, it's a fictional alternative assumption of a real life. I suppose it's l...more
The story isn't a biography, it's a fictional alternative assumption of a real life. I suppose it's l...more
Highly inventive but never tricksy, Coming Through Slaughter is a slim jazz novel telling the true story of legendary musician Buddy Bolden. Ondaatje's writing mirrors the music: there are riffs and refrains; sometimes a single image in words upon a page. The story has the air of something salvaged from the mud of history yet damaged by the time it spent submerged (the truth of a life being always made partly illegible by the passing of time). Ondaatje manages to convey this in such a way as to...more
Sometimes you read something by an author and it's very good, and you think back over their other stuff that you've read, and realise that it was all good, and some of it was even very good, or very, very good, and you see suddenly that this writer is actually one of your absolute favourites, you just never articulated the thought until now.
I haven't read anything in a while that made me wish I could write as much as this. Not to say it was perfect. It's an early work and you can see how his cr...more
I haven't read anything in a while that made me wish I could write as much as this. Not to say it was perfect. It's an early work and you can see how his cr...more
Jul 22, 2010
Nate D
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Nate D by:
Sonya
Shelves:
canada,
postwar-re-de-constructions
Buddy Bolden, barber, jazz coronet pioneer, or so they say, never recorded, apocryphal?, mad at age 31, "berserk at a parade", 1906, Storyville, New Orleans, home to 2000 prostitutes, 70 professional gamblers, 30 professional piano-players, various early jazz players, so they say.
Written in a constant patter of details like falling rain or notes from a cornet bell, the novel conveys mood first, just how the interviewees in the text describe the complex, deeply-felt playing of Buddy Bolden. Under...more
Written in a constant patter of details like falling rain or notes from a cornet bell, the novel conveys mood first, just how the interviewees in the text describe the complex, deeply-felt playing of Buddy Bolden. Under...more
Re-read this because I'm on a kind of early jazz reading jag. Buddy Bolden, a cornetist, is thought to be the first great figure in jazz -- "thought to be" because he went mad and stopped playing a full 10 years before the first jazz recording, so we only know him through others' memoirs and recollections. Ondjaatje's writing is lovely and evocative, but it's not clear what this re-imagining of Bolden's life adds up to; I'm sure it meant something highly personal to the author, but I don't feel...more
Reading Coming Through Slaughter felt like a punch in my heart. It's emotional, haunting, deep and honest. Takes place between 1900 and 1907, it unfolds true life of the New Orleans jazz progenitor Buddy Bolden, whose type is haughty and womanizing, yet happened to engage to be sympathetic.
I read this book twice. First was a couple years ago, when I just got the book, but didn't finish it. And during my spare time last week, I've finally made it. Not as smooth as reading Ondaatje's The English P...more
I read this book twice. First was a couple years ago, when I just got the book, but didn't finish it. And during my spare time last week, I've finally made it. Not as smooth as reading Ondaatje's The English P...more
This book tells the story of Buddy Bolden who has been credited with being one of the first (if not the first) Jazz musicians. He played the Cornet and very loudly. There are no recordings of his music, but much oral history exists and is used in this book, which takes place between about 1900 and 1907 in New Orleans. The book is written in stylistic prose that is almost like poetry. The flavor of early New Orleans with the parades, music, nightlife is vividly portrayed. Buddy was a womanizer an...more
Dec 29, 2008
Julene
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommended to Julene by:
Lesley Reed, friend not on goodreads
Shelves:
poetry
This is a poetic/fictional collage about a hard jazz & blues cornet player Buddy Bolden, a real person. Supposedly there is only one picture of him in a photo that was done by the photographer E.J. Bellocq who photographed the prostitutes of New Orleans. He was born in the late 1800's in an unsure year, possibly 1876, and died in 1931. He lived a rough life and spent time in asylum in a Louisiana state hospital. I loved the style of this book. I could not tell how much of the writing was acc...more
Feb 16, 2009
Emily-rose Guillebeau
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
poetry peeps
Shelves:
recently-read-and-really-reviewed
Ondaatje's other avant-garde "novel." Like The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Coming Through Slaughter is a mixture of interviews, poetry, prose, and photographs. The swirl of material centers around Billy Bolden, an early jazz pioneer who went insane during a public performance. I like overall effect of Billy the Kid better,but Slaughter has some wonderful moments. Ondattje's descriptions of his own travels in New Orleans, tracking the ghost of Billy, are wonderful. Also, the imaging of dolp...more
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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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“This last night we tear into each other, as if to wound, as if to find the key to everything before morning.”
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55 people liked it
“But there was a discipline, it was just that we didn't understand. We thought he was formless, but I think now he was tormented by order, what was outside it. He tore apart the plot - see his music was immediately on top of his own life. Echoing. As if, when he was playing he was lost and hunting for the right accidental notes. Listening to him was like talking to Coleman. You were both changing direction with every sentence, sometimes in the middle, using each other as a springboard through the dark. You were moving so fast it was unimportant to finish and clear everything. He would be describing something in 27 ways. There was pain and gentleness everything jammed into each number.”
—
8 people liked it
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