Donald's review
Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje
Donald's review
rating:
recommended for: Lovers of Jazz/Blues/Lovers of Experimental Fiction
status: Read in November, 2007
rating:
recommended for: Lovers of Jazz/Blues/Lovers of Experimental Fiction
status: Read in November, 2007
Damn I loved this book. Everybody is big on `English Patient' and `Anil's Ghost' but I feel there is something more vital, less distant and more creative in his early work. This book captured the rhythmn of early 20th Century New Orleans, and the poorer denizens of the City. I particular it follows Buddy Bolden, unsurpassed coronet player, yellow journalist, family man and stone drunk. Like he did in `Collected Works of Billy The Kid', Ondaatje works in poetry, dreams, song lyrics and straight forward prose to delinate a mood in manner more effective in visceral than any traditionally structured novel. A wonderful, word drunk, compassionate, gorgeous book.
