- Hardcover
- Publisher: Knopf; First American Edition edition (2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0375410538
- ISBN-13: 978-0375410536
- Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 14.7 x 4.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 567 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (136 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,179,943 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A masterpiece,
By
This review is from: Anil's Ghost (Paperback)
Ondaatje is a master of subtlety, of the ambiguity of life, of the grey that washes extreme situations. He is at his best in Anil's Ghost.The story itself is a simple one: a woman (Anil) searches for the identity of a skeleton she finds when on an international human rights mission in war ravaged Sri Lanka. But as with most stories Ondaatje tells, simplicity becomes weighted with the emotional enganglements of both political and personal history. There is a conversation beneath the dialogue, a narrative never told but eloquent in its silence. In some ways, I was reminded of Geoff Ryman's The King's Last Song. There is that same sense of a country unable to celebrate its vibrant history, left only with silent screams of those slaughtered on the altar of political expedience, and their ghosts. There is an eeriness in the environment Ondaatje creates. Deserving of it accolades, Anil's Ghost is a masterpiece.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful, yet detached.,
By
This review is from: Anil's Ghost (Paperback)
Michael Ondaatje is a special author. He gives us the opportunity to explore ideas and places that few modern authors are capable of. Anil's Ghost is a collage of images reflecting pain, joy and quite often dispair and hopelessness. However, this is not a novel for every reader.Ondaatje presents the reader with an unlikely collection of characters each of Sri Lankan origin and carrying their own unique baggage and pain. The story is set against the backdrop of the Sri Lankan civil war and incorporates a romanticised picture of ancient Sri Lankan history. It is history that Ondaatje has used to tie this entire story together. Each character's past is revealed to illustrate how they became who they are at the point the story takes place. This is purely a character based novel. Ondaatje makes no effort to explain or justify the war. It is only presented as the setting. We only see it in so much as it effects the main characters directly. As I read this novel I was capitivated by it's optimistic tone regardless of the misery that impacted and surrounded these people. Each of them maintained a beauty of character. That said, I felt left out as the reader. Much of this novel was like looking at a painting. Beautiful and moving but static and easy to walk away from. I was never drawn into any of the characters and at no point did I really empathize with any of them either. It's for this reason that I don't think this book is for everyone. If what I've said has made you curious by all means read Anil's Ghost. But don't grab it on a whim, you're likely to be disappointed.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Specters and Secrets,
By "novelolic" (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Anil's Ghost (Paperback)
I am an avid Ondaatje fan, and this book fulfilled my expectations. Once again, the author has created a haunting tale of loss and memory, a tale inhabited by living phantoms who each must come to grips with his or her own ghosts. Set against a background of mysterious disappearances and the violence of Sri Lankan conflicts, this novel touches both the personal and the political, yet remains intensely intimate as it explores the lives of its three central characters--an archeologist, a doctor, and a forensic specialist. Ondaatje's sparse and suggestive style adds a mystic dimension. One of the year's best reads.
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