Rating: 
Summary: Bad audiobook
Review: Anil's ghost was probably a great book. Cerntatinly the authors prose is very poetic and the descriptions of Sri Lanka are wonderful. But, if you listen to the audiobook, you will have NO IDEA who is saying what as the reader does nothing what-so-ever to distinguish the voices. It was extremely frustrating.Buy the book, skip the audiobook.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: It is as if two different people wrote the book. The main character and the supporting characters are too fragmented. Not until the end does the prose come to life in the introduction of a minor character Gamini. The story of Sailor gets lost in the presentation of various characters who appear to do little to advance the plot. All of the characters are drawn in broad strokes inspiring little interst with the exception of Gamini. Could this have been a manuscript that the author started years ago & went back to finish? The English Patient was near perfect as any novel could be...I expected his poetic prose to fill the pages with the fire of The English Patient... Very 'unfinished'...
Rating: 
Summary: Juxtaposition, to great effect
Review: Much has been said about the book, I wonder if there's anything left unsaid... I loved it. It is a story painted with vague, hazy strokes in a starkly coloured surroundings; a story where images of beauty and serenity were juxtaposed with those of gore and calamity, to great effect. Upon finishing the book, I was confused--and worse, frustrated. But later, hours later, the beauty of the montage filtered in. The after-taste was lovely.
Rating: 
Summary: Implausible Plot
Review: Judging from the acknowledgements, Ondaatje went to a lot of trouble to research this book. Somehow, though, he still comes up short in trying to craft a plausible storyline. The plot is primarily a vehicle to flesh out the characters. There's nothing wrong with that -- especially for those of us more interested in character development than suspense -- but I couldn't help but pause several times at the implausibility of the story line. I lived in Sri Lanka during the period covered in the book and reported on the political violence. What the heck his female protagonist was doing I never could figure out. She is a forensic pathologist sent by a foreign human rights organization but somehow has no one looking over her shoulder, checking on her progress or safety, either locally or from headquarters. And, though I am not an expert in the field, the reconstruction of "Sailor's" identity from his dried bones struck me as an incredible (i.e. "not credible") flight of fancy. Worth a read but most probably a disappointment to those expecting something akin to The English Patient.
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Book
Review: Odaatje is a poet. And this is a beautiful book which reflects the ironies of our lives in the prizm of a story about the intimacy and beauty and absolute death and devastation of war. War brings out the subtle ironies. As in "A Bridge Over the River Quai" (spelling?) there are those who get to shine during a war and thrive on it -- civilian life does not afford them this opportunity. Ondaatje describes the surgeons in the field hospitals whose immersion in their work brings about a certain singular sense of purpose. Says one surgeon, "The thing is to be be in a place or in a situation where you must use your sixth sense all of the time." And then there is the strange intimacy of war which Ondaatje identifies. When a prisoner must put his arm around the neck of his captor in an embrace to keep from falling off a bicycle. When a kidnapped doctor is forced to work in a rebel field hospital but rejoices in a daily swim with those who hold him hostage. The theme that resounds in the book is the importance of a person's work. Anil, the main character loves her work as a forensic anthropologist. She like the other characters in the book is most happy immersed in discovery and creation. I suspect, as a poet and writer, Ondaatje is most happy using his sixth sense when he can articulate how strange, horrible, wonderful, and lonely it is to be human by weaving a wonderful, magical story.
Rating:
Summary: THE TEDIOUSNESS OF IT ALL
Review: If you're looking for something the replace your evening sleeping pill, then you've found it! How boring can you get: the author's previous book was already quite overbearing in its approach, using a style and type of narrative that left you at times perplexed and often dissatisfied. Now he has increased all that, while descreasing the actual storyline content, which is too localised, too cold, too uneven. Where are the good, universal writers? Do we now have to rely on tedious ethnic backgrounds in order to find some new writing material?
Rating:
Summary: Mesmerising
Review: This brilliant, stimulating novel reminded me a great deal of 'The Color Purple', especially regarding the theme of subjectivity. Some of the critics of Walker's book said that for Celie to desire to become her own person, to express her subjectivity was wrong, since it was the overbearing subjectivity of the White European male which had created the tradition of slavery that still coloured Celie's life decades after its abolition Ondaatje's landscape is similar. Okay, so Ondaatje's intention is to supply fictional biography (as opposed to Celie's fictional autobiography), but the same issue of subjectivity resounds. 'Anil's Ghost' is at heart a novel about language. A novel about meaning. Ondaatje promotes the very sound notion that language is all around us: there is the language of touch (the personal way Ananda touches Anil in the novel), the language of noise (the ancient culture centred around music, the drumming that awaits identification of the head that Ananda fabricates), the language of sight (Anil sees Palipana at one point as an 'idea'). The author reminds us of that primeval language, of a time before written symbols, and recites a humorous, but significant tale of what a certain order of monks used to do to graven images. It's probably no accident that Anil's favourite rock star is Prince, or 'The Artist Formerly Known As...'. I never had much sympathy for Prince before I read Ondaatje's novel and put down his decision to change his name to a symbol as typical showbiz eccentricity. But now I feel disappointed that the symbol has reverted to 'Prince', a gesture that resounds with the coincidence of this novel. Anil, the female forensic brought in by the UN to examine alleged human rights' abuses in Sri Lanka, is the one character that seems determined to project her subjectivity in this way. She demands to define herself, to name herself. As a young woman growing up in Sri Lanka, she won a swimming contest. As she returns to her homeland, she finds that the fame of her sporting exploits has reached everyone she works with, even although it was one event decades before. Anil brushes such labels aside, "I'm not a swimmer" she declares. Even although, in a previous life, her 'fame' as a swimmer had helped to break her shyness at parties. Now that she has defined herself as 'forensic scientist', she is no longer a swimmer; no longer needs to be a swimmer. But even labelled by her occupation, she seems to be guided by simplicity, and her instinct is to create order out of chaos, to find her truth. Anil's antagonist in the swimming debate is Sarath, an archaeologist employed by the government, who much prefers complexity and silence. For him, the 'truth' is a dangerous concept, which should never be discussed when there are recording devices around. Anil is suspicious of him, for he works for, and has relatives in, the government, which seems to be very much involved in the killings. Doubt resounds within Anil because Sarath seems to be a decent man, and pupil of the great Palipana. Here Ondaatje seems to be dealing with the ancient binary opposition of the West as rational and the East as irrational, with Anil embodying the values of the West, and Sarath embodying those of the East. Yet there's also a binary opposition, which has the West as powerful male and the East as cowering female. Ondaatje seems to have swapped the genders here, since Anil is most assuredly female (she claims she longs for the privacy of the West, but delights bathing in open air showers). It is tempting to think that Ondaatje's treading the ground of neutrality here as Sarath seems to (there's no mention of 'Tamil' along with 'Tiger'), but both appear rather to opt for complexity over simplicity (I was surprised to learn that there were two factions fighting the government in Sri Lanka). 'Truth is mere opinion' is the belief uttered here, with the suggestion that there's always a large dosing of fiction mixed with any fact. Palipana's reputation as an archaeologist is damaged when he insists on seeing a truth, which lies beyond the 'facts' (just as his physical sight deteriorates). Ondaatje doesn't give us a tedious list of 'rights' and 'wrongs' in the Sri Lankan context, but merely conveys that everyone has lost someone, and carry with them a ghost. Lots of people have disappeared without explanation, without context in the conflict - the survivors too scared to ask for clarity in case they're next (and without context, you cannot create meaning, as Anil's friend Leaf discovers). Instead, they invent the histories of the lost ones, who are signified by any remaining talisman, such as a sarong. Anil sees that she and Sarath can do something, for they have evidence in the form of the body of one of the 'disappeared', a corpse that they have called 'Sailor' (from the rhyme 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor'). But such is the dominance of Western popular novels on Sri Lankan bookshelves, with each Agatha Christie a reminder of colonialism, that one can't help but think of Sailor as 'Spy': that Death as well as the stars looks over the characters in this novel. Here, Ondaatje has produced a startling book, which is extremely topical (note the impotent UN). There is also a lot of humour (Anil's letter to John Boorman concerning Lee Marvin's gunshot wound in the opening of 'Point Blank'). But mostly this is a treatise on subjectivity: a force used for ill by all those murdering in their bid to create subjects (where 'subjects' = 'objects', the silent mass to be multiplied by fear), and as a force used for good. After all, it is Ananda, the artist, who breathes life into objects by painting their eyes.
Rating: 
Summary: This ghost doesn't haunt like a patient
Review: I enjoyed this novel exploring the internal and external revolutions caused by politics, however it didn't linger with me the way The English Patient did. Initially, the narrative focuses too exclusively on Anil, and I didn't find her as interesting as Sareth and his brother. That being said, this is still a far superior novel to most of those being published today. No one peels layers of identity like Ondaatje.
Rating:
Summary: Critique of audiobook version
Review: I just finished the audiobook version Anil's Ghost. There is virtually nothing to help the listener distinguish the different characters. At times it was almost hopelessly impossible to follow conversations between the main characters. Other than this, the book was excellent. Ondaatje's prose is really increadible. I am convinced that this book is better read than listened to.
Rating:
Summary: Human Geography
Review: Many have said they are disappointed with the book, but have hinted the writing is far subtler than in earlier books. That's exactly it. While there are a few pages of less-than-stellar prose (for a 300-page book, it is extremely tight), Ondaatje has pulled off some amazing things here. Foremost is his ability to link the landscape with the human. From diamond and plumbago mines to the ruins of palaces to the inscription filled caves that once housed ascetic monks, the author lets the geography and conflict of Sri Lanka reveal the geography and conflict of being. And just as the characters hoard individual inscriptions (Warning: WHEN IT RAINS, THESE STEPS ARE BEAUTIFUL or more brutually "In diagnosing a vascular injury, a high index of suspicion is necesary."), you'll come across sentences, paragraphs, pages you'll want to commit to memory. Finally, the experience of discovery, the delving and decryption involved in reading the book is so, well, lovingly mirrored in the character's investigations (of self, memory, identity) that you read with the sense that you are doing something important, that you are ferreting out a deep and wonderful secret about the human experience. That you, like the artists and doctors in the story, are revealing pain only to heal it, figuring the dead only to honor and remember them. Read, I implore you, this wonderful, horrible, beautiful book.
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