Rating: 
Summary: Lush, evocative, and poetic!
Review: "Running in the Family" is an impressionistically written and reflective memoir of Michael Ondaatje's eccentric Ceylonese family. The book begins with a series of disjointed stories about Ondaatje's parents and grandparents. I found this part somewhat hard to get through as Ondaatje drops into the stories without providing the reader with the necessary information to understand who the players are and why they are important. However, since the book is highly impressionistic in style, perhaps this approach works. After all, most of us learn about our family history in bits and pieces; we don't pick up yarns and memory bites in chronological order. The third section, "Don't Talk to Me about Matisse" is a literary treasure! Ondaatje weaves a travel journal with childhood memories. Ondaatje's journey through Sri Lanka and memory land is depicted with great passion and reflection: "I witnessed everything. One morning I would wake and just smell things for the whole day, it was so rich I had to select senses. And still everything moved slowly with the assured fateful speed of a coconut falling on someone's head, like the Jaffna train, like the fan at low speed, like the necessary sleep in the afternoon with dreams blinded by toddy." Ondaatje generously included several of his poems in the middle of the book. "The Cinnamon Peeler", with its strong sensuality, serves as a fitting metaphor for the stories about romantic interludes in the author's family. "The Cinnamon Peeler" is so beautiful, I plan to commit it to memory. Ondaatje dwells on the salient qualities of his relatives and homeland. If this book were a painting, it would be a mostly green wash of color with bright, blood red splashes. The red splashes could represent the tragedy so inherent in Ondaatje's family history. Alcoholism and mental illness rule the house in this family. There are many humorous moments, however, and Ondaatje delivers them with great bravado: "Lalla's great claim to fame was that she was the first woman in Ceylon to have a mastectomy. ... She kept losing the contraption to servants who were mystified by it as well as to the dog, Chindit, who would be found gnawing at the foam as if it were tender chicken." These hilarious memories give the reader a reprieve from the underlying tragedy like a much-needed downpour during a drought. In the final sections, Ondaatje slowly reveals the many layers of his father's sad, but remarkable life. One chapter, called "Dialogues" merely consists of bits and pieces of conversations about his father. Whether Ondaatje imagined these conversations or actually heard them retold is not important. They give homage to his father in a unique and poignant way. If you're looking for a travel journal on Sri Lanka, don't look here. But, if you want unforgettable impressions of an exotic land and a remarkable family, if you yearn for a memoir rendered with the finest of literary care, "Running in the Family" will surely please.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written travelogue
Review: "Running in the family" has an extremely fluid and easy feel to it, much like "the english patient" and "in the skin of a lion." ondaatje's style is so understated, he involves you in a dialogue as he writes. though this is somewhat of a non-fiction work, it has the feel of a story. It is beautifully written with the abrupt, moody turns of phrase which give the book its readability.
Rating: 
Summary: Ondaatje's journey back to his beginnings...
Review: 'Running in the Family' is an outstandingly evocative autobiographical account of Michael Ondaatje's journey back to his beginnings in Sri Lanka. It is an attempt to trace his origin, record the history of his family and understand his father who was a mystery to him. In the process he also provides rare insights into his family and his growth and development such as the early exposure to literature etc. When I read his latest novel, Anil's Ghost' I discovered how a few locations, names and places he captured in this book has resurfaced in the novel. This is indeed an original piece of work. I enjoyed the book full of lyrical writing. But the audio version of the book is better. Ondaatje adds value to his original masterpiece when he reads to you with his soft and hypnotic voice. This is one of the rare opportunities of listening to a great writer of our time.
Rating:
Summary: The "other" books...
Review: After having the wildly successful "The English Patient" under his belt, this author and poet of Sri Lankan
heritage is wonderful to read. While this book is not really about travel, it is a collection of short montages and recollections wrought by two trips back to Sri Lanka (he now lives in
Toronto.) Very mellow and very dusky, and rich with characters and anecdotes that make families the exiting beasts that they are.
Rating:
Summary: As potent as perfume freshly applied to just bathed skin
Review: Although Coming through Slaughter, The English Patient, and In the skin, etc are all excellent, I find the balance of narrative, nonlinear poetic licence and the combination of seemingly perfectly place language combines into one of those rare moments of reading when You end up with a dog-earred tatter and torn copy of a book you had hoped would never end
Rating:
Summary: delicious
Review: both the style and the subject of this novel are easy and enjoyable to absorb. mostly a memoir including some letters and poems. it has a great sense of humor and is full of passionate, and most importantly interesting accounts of the definatly NOT run of the mill family history Ondaatje has.
Rating:
Summary: Pictures of yesterday
Review: 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...
Rating:
Summary: A water colour in the making!
Review: Don't just stop at The English Patient! Running In The Family is fun and quick reading. Mr. Ondaatje give us a water colour painting of travels with his family to the place of his birth. The book offers thoughtful and sometimes humorous look at his family members! The sights, sounds, smells, and people are so vivid one can almost see the sparkle in his eyes as he recants the memories!
--Gisele Hennings
Rating:
Summary: Hypnotic experience
Review: Having read Michael Ondaatje's work, I am a bit predisposed to enjoy it, but my anticipation did not prepare me for the luscious experience of listening to this work on tape. Mr. Ondaatje's voice, soft, lilting and hypnotic, was a fabulous presentation for his lyrical writing. I listened to this work on tape in the car, and had to pull off the side of the road, so that I could rewind and relisten to several parts.
Rating:
Summary: Hypnotic experience
Review: Having read Michael Ondaatje's work, I am a bit predisposed to enjoy it, but my anticipation did not prepare me for the luscious experience of listening to this work on tape. Mr. Ondaatje's voice, soft, lilting and hypnotic, was a fabulous presentation for his lyrical writing. I listened to this work on tape in the car, and had to pull off the side of the road, so that I could rewind and relisten to several parts.
| 
