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"Divisadero" by Michael Ondaatje (Knopf, ISBN 9780307266354, $25.00)

"Divisadero" is Michael Ondaatje's first novel in almost seven years – and I've
had the hardest time trying to write this review. I could go on about how good I
think it is, or I could stand back and treat it like an extension of my master's
thesis. Writing a summary of its intricate plot would be like trying to unweave
individual threads from a Persian rug, so, I've given up trying to decide. 

I've given up because I'm not sure anything I say can do justice to the book
I've recently finished reading. I've tried speaking of addiction. I've tried
speaking of the combination of prose and poetry – drawing in quotes from writers
like David Malouf ("In every novel there are a hundred lost poems.") and Charles
Baudelaire ("Always be a poet, even in prose."). I've even tried being snobby.
None of it really works because, well, I'm conflicted. I wish everyone would
read "Divisadero" and the rest of Ondaatje's work. I wish everyone would love it
as much as I do. And yet, I want these books all to myself and a few select
people: an elitist secret.

Despite all of that, however, I am compelled preach the gospel of Ondaatje...
and make snooty references.

"Divisadero" begins in the late 1970's with a patchwork family in California.
Anna, Claire, and Cooper are being raised by Anna's father on his large farm.
Cooper is only a few years older than the two girls when he, after he moves into
a small cabin on another section of the farm, has a brief affair with Anna. When
Anna's father discovers them, the family is shattered by their startling,
violent confrontation. 

Afterwards, Anna runs away, never to see any of them again. Years later, she
travels to France where she falls in love with a man named Rafael (who, if my
guess is correct, is the son of David Caravaggio, the thief who has previously
been a central character in both "In the Skin of a Lion" and "The English
Patient"). Cooper runs away as well and later becomes a gambler in Reno where he brazenly scams a circle of dangerous crooks. Claire stays with her adoptive
father for a time before moving to San Francisco to work for a lawyer. Each of
these stories is juxtaposed with the story of Lucien Segura, a mysterious French
writer, whose life Anna is researching. In Segura's story, Anna begins to see
parallels to her own life, especially in regards to tragedy and violence and the
way such things separate people from feelings of belonging.

All of Ondaatje's novels contain characters who have been separated
geographically, chronologically, and emotionally. They are foreigners to the
locations, or times, in which they find themselves, and each one carries some
internal damage – a heartbreak, a betrayal, a knowledge of violence – for which
they desire redemption, and forgiveness.  This rocky geography of the
character's inner lives is usually set against some historical figure or event
(Billy the Kid, Buddy Bolden, Toronto's massive public works projects, World War
II, Sri Lanka's endless civil war). In this book, the five interwoven stories
use the entire 20th Century as the back-drop. In the hands of a traditional
novelist, this could have easily turned into a sprawling epic, thousands of
pages long, but Ondaatje is a poet first, who happens to write novels. Like all
poets, he expects his readers to be able to fill in the empty spaces with their
own imaginations, and then live with the characters there even after the last
page of the book.

That is one of the reasons why I adore his books. Reading Ondaatje is not at all
like reading anyone else: I don't simply look at the words on the page and
receive what has been put there. The mind has to interact with the words and
engage what one of my instructors would call its "native intelligence." That
same instructor once described her experience while reading Ondaatje's "The
English Patient" by saying it seemed as if she were imagining the next word, the
next sentence, the next image a split-second before she read it. I had a similar
experience, and have been addicted ever since. 

Review by Jason Malott, May 17, 2007

 

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