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In the Skin of a Lion
 
 
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In the Skin of a Lion (Paperback)

by Michael Ondaatje (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 21.00
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In the Skin of a Lion + What We All Long For + As for Me and My House
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Product Details

Product Description

Amazon.ca Canadian Essential

From the jazz obsessions of Buddy Bolden in Coming Through Slaughter to the ministrations of the physician Gamini in Anil's Ghost and the craftperson's shared curiosity in The Conversations, Michael Ondaatje has always been a poet of work as much as love, and never more so than in In the Skin of a Lion. In his story of four characters and their labours, as bridge builder, explosives expert, actress and revolutionary, and thief, Ondaatje rewrites the history of Toronto between the wars in his most Canadian novel.


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Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion uses its Toronto setting in the way that Martin Amis's London Fields uses London or Mordecai Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz uses Montreal. In Skin, Toronto is a main character, although it's a character few of us have seen before. Set in the 1920s and '30s, the novel replaces the official history of Toronto's industrial adolescence, a history of commissioned architecture and suited politicians with ceremonial shovels, with an immigrant's history of crushing labour, repressive laws, a new language gleaned from matinee plays, and crowded apartment buildings where "a bottle of fruit whiskey" could often be found on summer nights dangling on "a long piece of twine" from fire escape to fire escape for all to share.

A quartet of vibrant characters animates Ondaatje's reclaimed Toronto. Farm-boy Patrick Lewis relocates to Toronto with a dual inheritance: a habit of solitude and a marketable skill with dynamite. Nicholas Temelcoff is a daredevil builder on the Bloor St. Viaduct eager for the most dangerous and acrobatic jobs. Alice Gull transforms the dedication of an early vocation into the passions of an actress and a political revolutionary. Italian thief David Caravaggio robs "the mean rich, the soft rich" and (literally) paints his way out of prison.

Virtuosos in isolation, the characters are beset by forces beyond their control. Ondaatje's tale ends up questioning the very abilities that it so delights in depicting: might the "solitary" strength of a hero be a curse rather than a blessing? Rewriting as it does the history of a growing, multicultural metropolis, In the Skin of a Lion plays with public history and private passion to examine the very fabric of community. --Darryl Whetter

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Customer Reviews

48 Reviews
5 star:
 (26)
4 star:
 (9)
3 star:
 (4)
2 star:
 (5)
1 star:
 (4)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (48 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars all the beauty that surrounds us, April 7 2000
By Jonna (London, England) - See all my reviews
I am trapped by these words, I slow down on each one almost notwanting to know what comes next because I know it'll most certainly besomething that puts me in awe and leaves me hungry for more.

I thought The English Patient was a wonderful book, I walked in Libyan desert looking for Zerzura for weeks after reading that book. But In The Skin Of A Lion is something so much more. This book moves me so I'm left speechless. The continuance, the surprises, the beauty, the characters. If it was possible to choose to write like someone I would absolutely pick Michael Ondaatje. His work is simply beautiful.

I am amazed. Read this book, read all of them. Find the fine red line that ties all the stories together. END

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2.0 out of 5 stars Not to my taste at all, April 11 2004
By "thegrammarguy" (Navan, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This is supposed to be a classic, highly recommened to me by a literate friend. I agree that it is poetic, and has a gossimer feel to it. But, I found it a tedious read. It is in that somewhat detatched present tense that I do not relate well to. The story line is difficult to follow, the character hard to understand. I will not read any more of Ondaatje, I imagine.
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3.0 out of 5 stars Strange & unsatisfying, Sep 2 2002
By A Customer
The leading character never seems to think. He just follows his impulses without ever seeming to question whether the impulses are moral or immoral, sane or crazy. The descriptions of settings are interesting and memorable.
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 		 Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars "Trust me, this will take time..."
... but there is order here, very faint, very human." This should be the first sentence of every novel, the narrator reflects midway in Michael Ondaatje extraordinary novel. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Friederike Knabe

2.0 out of 5 stars Not to my taste at all
This is supposed to be a classic, highly recommened to me by a literate friend. I agree that it is poetic, and has a gossamer feel to it. But, I found it a tedious read. Read more
Published on April 11 2004 by thegrammarguy

4.0 out of 5 stars In the Skin of a Lion: a passionate Canadian story.
This is a wonderful novel, well worth a read. It is not quick work, as the reader becomes lost in Ondaatje's poetic prose. Read more
Published on May 16 2002 by Aron Neil Solomon

4.0 out of 5 stars Michael Ondaatje's Anti-Hero
As some of the reviewers have said, _In The Skin Of A Lion_ must be read slowly to be truly appreciated, otherwise much of the subtleties of this beautifully written, poetic, and... Read more
Published on April 15 2002 by IRA Ross

2.0 out of 5 stars Not the greatest book
I am a high school student, and I am reading this book for an English course. I had a list of books to choose from, and for some reason I chose this one. Read more
Published on Mar 21 2002 by blink_baby_00

5.0 out of 5 stars I can never say 'Shh' without a shiver now.
I will begin with the problem of the book. It reads initially slowly. This is, for many, a problem. It's dense prose, in fractured time. Read more
Published on Jan 21 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars if you onlyever read one ondaatje novel, this is the one
In 1987, Ondaatje wrote his chef d'ouevre, In the Skin of a Lion, which combines the best of his previous prose, poetry, and recent autobiography. Read more
Published on Feb 11 2001 by A. Gillingham

4.0 out of 5 stars Romantic, Cubist, Very Well Crafted
There is no more poetic and skillful an author on the scene today and this book is a fine illustration of his extraordinary talent. Read more
Published on Jan 6 2001 by beachillen

4.0 out of 5 stars Lyrical, soft prose, wonderful story-teller
Michael Ondaatje, the author of "The English Patient," tells the story of Patrick Lewis, a mid-western Canadian farmboy whose father was an explosions specialist who... Read more
Published on Aug 19 2000 by R. Peterson

5.0 out of 5 stars A Qustion about the title
I thought this was a mystical enchanting book. The descriptions of work were strong and powerful. Who can forget the images of dangeling from the bridge, dynamiting the log... Read more
Published on Jul 6 2000 by Nancy F. Halff

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