Customer Reviews: Read 24 more reviews...
 Irritating January 2, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Ondaatje seems to be trying too hard. The language is overly flowery and the plot is often lost beneath the mound of words. It does have a few good moments, some funny, some touching. But in general, I spent most of this book irritated by the grandois manner of the author, as if by writing in a vague and pretty-fied manner, his words will sound important and deep.
Maybe it's just me, but I find that vague does NOT equal meaningful.
 Remembering Family December 8, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I read this book for a Canadian fiction class and really liked it. The language was so interesting and different from anything I had read before. It is a wonderful story about a wacky family. There are good times, bad times, funny stories, tragic stories, and just plain wacky events. It really makes you want to take a look into your own family and find out all of the "juicy" details. I really liked the book and I would recommend it to anyone looking for an interesting story.
 hit and miss. October 23, 2006
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
fans of michael ondaatje's poetry will no doubt like this book; however, do to the hit and miss nature of each chapter, i doubt that this book would win him many new fans. an impressionistic collage of place & family members, this book is closer to the ethic of poetry, forsaking narrative structure for short pieces that jump here and there to paint a family in an exotic place and time. plenty of good prose, but lots of the pieces are too random and are just not interesting. worthwhile, but not highly recommended.
Pictures of yesterday March 8, 2004
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Considering that this is in fact an autobiograpy, one can not judge it's contents. After all, you can not judge ones life, either you like it or not in a sense of discussing literature. But, what you can discuss is the manner in which that biography is written. Ondaatje present's life of his family trough generations who lived on Ceilon (Shri Lanka), in a series of random images, which are more like picture, than prose. Many times he stops to grasp certain individual and present his little history, his life, which than influenced the rest of the family in some perverse way. When reading this book, experienced reader will find such compositions that corresponds in that what crtics call 'modern', others will find interesting and compelling story, which never grows in boredom, with fluent narrative style that keeps ones eyes fixed on pages long after the lights went out.
Comparing the Ondaatje with other authors of the modern world,
Ondaatje lacks the one thing that he "must" have when presenting himself in a way he does. By focusing himself merely on a problems of his own, of a personal character in every (which, of course, includes this one)book, he voluntarily forgets that there is other life, other world going around him. When tending to write intelectual prose, one should, at least in one way, give some focus on that matter too.
But, when all this comes to conclusion, if you like (auto)biograhies - buy this one, if you don't, skip it. It's simple as that...
 What a family! March 19, 2002
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
This book was just so enjoyable and hilarious but yet so beautifully written. From the beginning till the end Ondaatje opens up to the reader (in a journal entry) this magical and beautiful world. Onddatje's adroitness to include the reader right there in the conversations he has with various family member will bring you to tears. His captivating sytle takes the reader back in time with him trhough such tear jerking and amusing experiences.This memoir will give you a deatiled verbalization of each city and place in Ceylon, so that the reader has a clear picture of what it was like to actually be there. His simple structure of setting things up, will make you feel the temperature and jungle like atmosphere by his entailed descriptions. Ondaatje reminds me of Stein in certain passages because of how he holds nothing back from the reader. It's as though he's sitting down and talking to you while showing photographs and stories of his exuberant and loud family.
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