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Running in the Family
by Michael Ondaatje

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5941.Running_in_the_Family?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Running in the Family" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1165553808m/5941.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5941.Running_in_the_Family?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Running in the Family</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4030.Michael_Ondaatje">Michael Ondaatje</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/15842388?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 5 of 5 stars<br/>Ondaatje'quiet endeavor is that of repairing, in some rarefied way, the sacred relationship between parent and child. This universal impulse dissolves the need for him to fulfill a specific post-colonial agenda. The fact that the parent with which he seeks reparation is deceased makes this task even more painful. As the reader follows this author's nostalgic pilgrimage to his (sometimes) imaginary homeland it must be remembered that Ondaatje possesses only fragments of memories with which to assemble his family shrine. The results, however distorted, reveal a deep, abiding love of family and friends, irrepressible personalities we wish we knew, and an uncontainable lust for life. The bewitching menagerie of characters in Running in the Family comes to life through Ondaatje’s voluptuous vocabulary, stunning linguistic acrobatics, syntactic delicacies, and poetic generosity. 
<br/>
<br/>Ondaatje strategically places his (gorgeous)poems in the center of his book. They serve as an axis, to stabilize (and destabilize) the revolutions of his elliptical prose. 
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<br/>"If I were a cinnamon peeler/I would ride your bed/and leave the yellow bark dust/on your pillow/....Your breasts and shoulders would reek/you could never walk through markets/without the profession of my fingers floating over you" (95-97).
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/376804?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Lori's review
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bookshelves: historicalfictionnonfiction

Ondaatje'quiet endeavor is that of repairing, in some rarefied way, the sacred relationship between parent and child. This universal impulse dissolves the need for him to fulfill a specific post-colonial agenda. The fact that the parent with which he seeks reparation is deceased makes this task even more painful. As the reader follows this author's nostalgic pilgrimage to his (sometimes) imaginary homeland it must be remembered that Ondaatje possesses only fragments of memories with which to assemble his family shrine. The results, however distorted, reveal a deep, abiding love of family and friends, irrepressible personalities we wish we knew, and an uncontainable lust for life. The bewitching menagerie of characters in Running in the Family comes to life through Ondaatje’s voluptuous vocabulary, stunning linguistic acrobatics, syntactic delicacies, and poetic generosity.

Ondaatje strategically places his (gorgeous)poems in the center of his book. They serve as an axis, to stabi...more

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