Details
Synopsis
Michael Ondaatje explores the aftermath of the civil war in Sri Lanka, his homeland, in this story of an anthropologist living in America. She returns to Sri Lanka to investigate a suspected mass murder, and becomes part of a team that unearths the bodies of the "disappeared." A large cast of characters shares the narrative, including a doctor kidnapped by rebel insurgents, a blind recluse, and an enigmatic archaeologist. This novel won the 2000 Canadian Governor General's Award for Fiction, and was a New York Times Notable Book for the year 2000.
| Details | | Series: | Vintage International Series |
| Size | | Length: | 311 pages | | Height: | 8.0 in | | Width: | 5.3 in | | Thickness: | 0.8 in | | Weight: | 8.8 oz |
Publisher's Notes
First Line: "When the team reached the site at five-thirty in the morning, one or two family members would be waiting for them. And they would be present all day while Anil and the others worked, never leaving; they spelled each other so someone always stayed, as if to ensure that the evidence would not be lost again. This vigil for the dead, for these half-revealed forms."
Industry Reviews
"Ondaatje's moral concerns are more central here than in his earlier works, and his politics more nuanced. [D]abblings in heavy-handed Third World solidarity are gone, replaced by a darker, deeper emotional bedrock: the hard-bitten, half-desperate solidarity of men and women who have been pushed to the breaking point by the dreadful things they have seen but who nevertheless refuse to stop fighting. Any book by Ondaatje is an event, and ANIL'S GHOST is an impressive achievement. Like all of his books, it is a work of high moral and aesthetic seriousness, suffused with a deep affection for and understanding of human beings and compassion for their lot. And there is, of course, exquisite writing. Ondaatje has set himself a daunting problem: to write a narrative about a matter of extreme moral gravity, keep it as clean and unsentimental and straightforward as the subject requires and also make it a poem, get it off the ground. He doesn't always succeed, but when he does, the liftoff is almost palpable."
Salon - Virginia Vitzthum (04/24/2000)
"The aftershocks of the recent bloody civil war in Sri Lanka...are explored with commanding poetic intensity....The reader becomes lost in thickets of speculation and reverie. Impressive and often fascinating, but not a success. There's ample evidence that Ondaatje worked diligently, and perhaps for several years, on ANIL'S GHOST. But he doesn't seem to have finished it."
Kirkus Reviews (03/15/2000)
"The novel begins well: Ondaatje creates tension, edginess and mystery....The structure of ANIL'S GHOST is a nightmare....It makes a demand on the reader that I found hard to meet. There are unacceptable longueurs, almost as if real time had to be observed in the novel. But that is not the overwhelming problem. I suddenly realised exactly why it is that I can't get on with Ondaatje. It is because almost everything he writes asks for awe in the reader, and I don't think awe is something that can be sustained."
Literary Review - Kate Kellaway (05/20/2000)
|
|
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
All rights reserved.
