Divisadero - Ondaatje
(It's a book review, Sis, you can skip this post!)
I picked up Divisadero at the library (along with several others I can't wait to get to) sight unseen. I will admit, I hated The English Patient, but I'm always willing to give an author a second chance.
Divisadero tells of unity and division. The violence that can tear a family apart in an instant. The underlying passion that burns forth in love as equally as hate, in fear as equally as security, of solitude as much as family.
The novel reads as two stories juxtaposed against each other, spanning across the years to tell of one tale. The characters are rich, complex, ordinary and yet remarkable. The landscape captivating, dramatic and yet every day simple. Two sisters and a brother, none related through blood, made family through desertion are divided for life from the violence affected by passion. As suggested by the title, their journeys are both divided and yet seem to overlook one another from afar; always relating back to what was before; intersecting later in ways real and imagined. Ondaatje also introduces us to a parallel story; tracing back the roots of an author and the moments of love and loss in his own life, his own writing.
There were times during this read that I felt the ever-familiar pang of "I'm not smart enough to get this book" but in the end I could see the parallels, and see how it all tied together. I felt at a loss for some of the characters that to me, were left without explanation, without resolve. I wanted more of them and less of the other.
And in all the pages, while they carried such a theme of connectedness and division, of separation and of unity, I still felt as though the novel was missing some sort of real 'kick'. Perhaps I just missed the literary punch.
A good read, all in all. Incredible descriptions and characters rich in true realistic human nature.
I picked up Divisadero at the library (along with several others I can't wait to get to) sight unseen. I will admit, I hated The English Patient, but I'm always willing to give an author a second chance.
Divisadero tells of unity and division. The violence that can tear a family apart in an instant. The underlying passion that burns forth in love as equally as hate, in fear as equally as security, of solitude as much as family.
The novel reads as two stories juxtaposed against each other, spanning across the years to tell of one tale. The characters are rich, complex, ordinary and yet remarkable. The landscape captivating, dramatic and yet every day simple. Two sisters and a brother, none related through blood, made family through desertion are divided for life from the violence affected by passion. As suggested by the title, their journeys are both divided and yet seem to overlook one another from afar; always relating back to what was before; intersecting later in ways real and imagined. Ondaatje also introduces us to a parallel story; tracing back the roots of an author and the moments of love and loss in his own life, his own writing.
There were times during this read that I felt the ever-familiar pang of "I'm not smart enough to get this book" but in the end I could see the parallels, and see how it all tied together. I felt at a loss for some of the characters that to me, were left without explanation, without resolve. I wanted more of them and less of the other.
And in all the pages, while they carried such a theme of connectedness and division, of separation and of unity, I still felt as though the novel was missing some sort of real 'kick'. Perhaps I just missed the literary punch.
A good read, all in all. Incredible descriptions and characters rich in true realistic human nature.
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