I wasn’t aware of it until I read Anil’s Ghost, but I have been waiting years for Michael Ondaatje to write another novel. The book is lovely, one where you are somewhat in thrall to the prose once you begin. It’s been long enough since I read The English Patient that I have only vague — but positive — memories of the narrative shimmering behind a veil protecting the reader from the outside world. I have much clearer — and equally positive — memories of Naveen Andrews in the film, but beyond that, I would be hard pressed to point to specifics that made that novel such a beauty.
To a certain degree, the same is true with Anil’s Ghost, despite having only finished it within the past couple of weeks. It is a wonderful book, one of the best I’ve read. The novel is poignant, both direct and concealing, stark and lush. Ondaatje strikes exactly the balance I most enjoy between politics and personal narrative, with the human stories moving through a place and time of incredibly interesting politics. In this sense it is reminiscent of The Farming of Bones, but I wouldn’t call it historical fiction in the same sense. The character, Anil, is of a place and time, and those are revealed through the telling of her story, unfolding in layered detail as the narrative progresses. In Danticat‘s work, the characters are also of a place and time, but it is the story of that place and that time that is being told through them, and any one of them can and do stand for many more.
Thankfully, I won’t have to wait another ten years to be drawn into Ondaatje’s prose: he has a(nother) new novel out this year, Dividadero. I feel another trip to the library coming on.
