In the Skin of a Lion

by Michael Ondaatje

Book Overview

Bristling with intelligence and shimmering with romance, this novel tests the boundary between history and myth. Patrick Lewis arrives in Toronto in the 1920s and earns his living searching for a vanished millionaire and tunneling beneath Lake Ontario. In the course of his adventures, Patrick's life intersects with those of characters who reappear in Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning The English Patient. 256 pp.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679772669
• ISBN13: 9780679772668
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Ondaatje's World

I read this novel five years ago in high school. At first, I found it incredibly difficult because I was use to the ease of modern paperback fiction. One of the drawbacks of this novel is that it takes concentration and a passion for unusual styles of writing. Ondaatje is situated somewhere between poetry and prose.The effort is well-rewarded because it will open your eyes to the best kind of literature. It does not underestimate the reader's intelligence and it invites you to open your mind's eye to the symbols that recur throughout the book. It is well-researched and thorough with wonderful insights into Canadian history.The novel essentially explores identity and industrialism. It asks reader to consider the importance of narrative and history. The plot (loosely but wonderfully held together by a nonlinear structure and well captured by other reviews already so I won't rehash it) is an addendum because it is the moments interpolated between that counts. Through all this, if you persevere, you will find that Ondaatje will awaken you to the beauty of ordinary events and exchanges between people, partly through his lyricism but mostly through his metaphors. Someone once said that a great novel is one that lingers with you and creates its own language so that you are filled with a different world for which, you are glad to have lived in for awhile. I can only think of three authors who have accomplished this: Salinger, Arundhati Roy... but the master for me is certainly Michael Ondaatje.

Moths and Mystery

When I get into a certain mood - usually late at night when I know most of my neighborhood is asleep - I take all my Michael Ondaatje books into my bedroom, turn on my bedside 1930's desk lamp, and read some of my favorite passages (of which there are many) from this and other Ondaatje books. Or, if you prefer, collections of words and thoughts wrapped together by a visonary intellect, and well-crafted story teller - marinated in mysticism.The reader who sticks to Ondaatje does more than merely finish a book. We observe people interrelating thorugh story telling, and if we're lucky we know ourselves a little better in the process. We realize how we are connected to disparate lines of people and stories that have come before us, and whose threads of existence are components of our own time and place. Mr. Ondaatje is a writer and an alchemist. Many scenes from "In The Skin of A Lion" stick with me, but I especially recall the passage where Patrick wanders into the Canadian night searching for fire flies he sees off in the wooded distance. What he finds is gorgeously, and vividly rendered. If you've "been wating to read this for a while", if you're just looking for something new and challenging, or if you want to discover a new favorite poet... read this book. If it seems like slow going, or if you're confused - don't be alarmed, it's normal. Keep going.

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. Here one will see fictional characters come to believable life, prose more sonorous than most poetry of the day, and learn more about the history and politics of Canada than one does at school (unless, of course, one is lucky enough to be Canadian.) Many feel (and I believe rightly so) that this is the book that should have won the prestigious Booker Prize--an honor later given to 1992's The English Patient. Certainly, this is the book that helped give birth to the latter. It is here that we meet Patrick Lewis, Caravaggio, and a much younger Hana. Lewis is the anti-hero of the story, so deftly written that we grow with him, we love with him, and we grieve with him. I somehow feel that Patrick is closer to Ondaatje's heart more so than any other character that he's written until the advent of Kip in The English Patient. The tale of Patrick's life in "Upper America" made me weep at each reading, as did the sheer beauty of Ondaatje's prose. In my humble opinion, it is his finest prose to date.

all the beauty that surrounds us

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

Exquisite imagery and a masterful plot

'In the Skin of a Lion' is quite possibly the best book I have ever read. The plot requires time, but when it does come, it comes easily and it shines through wonderfully. Ondaatje is a true master of imagery, and so it's best to read this book slowly: take time to devour each scene and try to picture what he writes. And the thematic interest in how history silences and darkens the ordinary people, and how it is precisely the ordinary, the regular, that give history and life their sparks of humanity, Ondaatje weaves all of this into the book unassumingly. Character-wise, Ondaatje introduces us to Caravaggio, who will later feature in 'The English Patient,' and yet is at his richest and most romantically intriguing here, and centres the story around Patrick, and two enigmatic females, Alice and Clara. And of course, there's Temelcoff, swinging through the dark blindly and yet with as much skill as Ondaatje recreates a little-known and yet fascinating taste of Toronto life. I love this book, and could easily read it over and over.