Sab's review
Running in the Family
by Michael Ondaatje
Sab's review
Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje
Sab's review
rating:
bookshelves:
expat,
nonfiction,
travelogue
A lovely tease of a book. Part memoir and part atmospheric poetry, each chapter hints at an event or anecdote from Ontdaaje's ancestors' lives in Sri Lanka. Generations of expats and patriots come and go, shown to the reader in brief glimpses and short chapters of prose or poetry. The writing is, as always, lyrical, evokative, clever and beautiful, but at the end I found I wanted more. Gorgeous hints at abiding and neurotic family dynamics that skim across the surface of a deeper story. Sometimes I felt that the cleverness of the prose detracted from the substance of the story, and that in an effort to hint at too much Ontdaaje went into depth with too little.
