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- Running in the Family is a fictionalized memoir, written in post-modern style involving aspects of magic realism, by Michael Ondaatje. It deals with his return to his native island of Sri Lanka, also called Ceylon, in the late 1970s. It also deals with his family. Much of the focus falls on his father Mervyn Ondaatje and his scandalous drunken antics. Michael's grandmother Lalla is another family member that is explored in detail. Many themes are explored in the lives of his family, particularly luxurious frivolity (especially in the 1920s) and dipsomania. The book often seems to blur the lines of fiction and history by offering diverse accounts of certain incidents and retellings of isolated events about which the author couldn't logically know so many intimate details. It is ultimately about a man's quest to reconcile himself with the father he scarcely knew and come to terms with the loss of not knowing that man. This narrative which locates the writer and his journey towards a father, who is no longer alive, but constantly present in the narrative, is also a story of individual identity and its intersections with a larger identity of a minority community in the country. Some important themes include: memory (its reliability, importance, and what makes it valuable), assumptions about others, the importance of family, and societal expectations. Another significant extension of the theme of memory is the blurred line between memory and history. History becomes anecdote, the past that is remembered: recollected and recounted, a negotiation with memory and its unreliability. This book also contains many motifs including maps, nature and money. Motifs also include the sensorial dynamics of memory: sounds, smells and colours. Ondaatje writes, "A literary work is a communal act. [...] I must confess that the book is not a history but a portrait or 'gesture'. [...] In Sri Lanka a well-told lie is worth a thousand facts." (en)
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- 5239 (xsd:nonNegativeInteger)
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- Running in the Family is a fictionalized memoir, written in post-modern style involving aspects of magic realism, by Michael Ondaatje. It deals with his return to his native island of Sri Lanka, also called Ceylon, in the late 1970s. Ondaatje writes, "A literary work is a communal act. [...] I must confess that the book is not a history but a portrait or 'gesture'. [...] In Sri Lanka a well-told lie is worth a thousand facts." (en)
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- Running in the Family (memoir) (en)
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