false 5942 31 In his Booker Prize-winning third novel, <I>The English Patient</I>, Michael Ondaatje explored the nature of love and betrayal in wartime. His fourth, <I>Anil's Ghost</I>, is also set during a war, but unlike in World War II, the enemy is difficult to identify in the bloody sectarian upheaval that ripped Sri Lanka apart in the 1980s and '90s. The protagonist, Anil Tissera, a native Sri Lankan, left her homeland at 18 and returns to it 15 years later only as part of an international human rights fact-finding mission. In the intervening years she has become a forensic anthropologist--a career that has landed her in the killing fields of Central America, digging up the victims of Guatemala's dirty war. Now she's come to Sri Lanka on a similar quest. But as she soon learns, there are fundamental differences between her previous assignment and this one: <blockquote> The bodies turn up weekly now. The height of the terror was 'eighty-eight and 'eighty-nine, but of course it was going on long before that. Every side was killing and hiding the evidence. <I>Every side</I>. This is an unofficial war, no one wants to alienate the foreign powers. So it's secret gangs and squads. Not like Central America. The government was not the only one doing the killing. </blockquote> In such a situation, it's difficult to know who to trust. Anil's colleague is one Sarath Diyasena, a Sri Lankan archaeologist whose political affiliations, if any, are murky. Together they uncover evidence of a government-sponsored murder in the shape of a skeleton they nickname Sailor. But as Anil begins her investigation into the events surrounding Sailor's death, she finds herself caught in a web of politics, paranoia, and tragedy. <p> Like its predecessor, the novel explores that territory where the personal and the political intersect in the fulcrum of war. Its style, though, is more straightforward, less densely poetical. While many of Ondaatje's literary trademarks are present--frequent shifts in time, almost hallucinatory imagery, the gradual interweaving of characters' pasts with the present--the prose here is more accessible. This is not to say that the author has forgotten his poetic roots; subtle, evocative images abound. Consider, for example, this description of Anil at the end of the day, standing in a pool of water, "her toes among the white petals, her arms folded as she undressed the day, removing layers of events and incidents so they would no longer be within her." In <I>Anil's Ghost</I> Michael Ondaatje has crafted both a brutal examination of internecine warfare and an enduring meditation on identity, loyalty, and the unbreakable hold the past exerts over the present. <I>--Alix Wilber</I> 832960 2000 Anil's Ghost: A Novel total:2617|5:399|4:909|3:908|2:321|1:80| 2617 9077 3466 288 5 3 false false Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 13 17:54:10 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 01 13:27:30 -0700 2008 The Ministry of Special Cases and "The Caretaker," a stor...more...]]> 2 2 false false Tue Jul 22 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 01 19:14:47 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 22 20:59:33 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 true false Wed Oct 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 29 21:54:57 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 29 21:59:24 -0700 2008 2 more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2002 Wed Jun 20 11:48:16 -0700 2007 Thu Jun 21 08:40:21 -0700 2007
"The mothers were always there. Sitting on stools, they rested their upper torso and head on their child's bed and slept holding the small hands. There were not too many fathers aroun...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Aug 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 13 04:47:06 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 13 04:47:22 -0700 2009
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"The time is our own time. The place Sri Lanka, the island nation off the southern tip of India, a country formerly known as Ceylon, which is steeped in centuries of cultural achievement ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Sep 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 29 08:21:59 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 05 14:55:45 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Dec 23 12:55:42 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 28 18:06:55 -0800 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Sun Jan 11 19:32:48 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 11 19:32:48 -0800 2009
The other 3 important characters are also ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue May 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat May 23 02:21:46 -0700 2009 Tue May 26 22:13:49 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Mar 07 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 19 21:16:36 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 10 07:43:41 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jan 22 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 15 17:03:09 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 22 12:44:28 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jun 21 20:39:55 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 25 08:13:40 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jan 08 10:07:38 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 08 10:19:12 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Feb 26 06:39:58 -0800 2009 Mon Jun 01 08:12:52 -0700 2009 Anil’s Ghost is a forensic anthropologist; she was born in Sri Lanka but having left to study and work, she is now returning after 15 years away to investigate allegations of political murders. Ondaatje was eleven when he left Sri Lanka, so Anil’s insider/outsider status is presumabl...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Mon Nov 24 16:01:59 -0800 2008 Fri Aug 21 06:29:33 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Wed Oct 29 08:25:06 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 29 08:25:24 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Aug 31 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 18 13:38:29 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 31 06:39:00 -0700 2008
The plot was fantastic, and well researched. I enjoyed the scientific side element of the story.

The characters were *almost*, very nearly, so incredibly close to being w...more...]]>