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Divisadero (Vintage International)
by Michael Ondaatje
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Edition: Paperback
Publication Date: April 22, 2008
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307279324
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 9797
Average Customer Rating: 
List price: $13.95
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Showing page 1 of 15
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Reviews
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Murky Parallels, Marvellous Prose, November 14, 2008
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Divisadero consists of two separate stories connected by the slenderest of threads. The first story, told in the first half of the book, is about two sisters, Anna and Claire, raised by a widowed farmer in Northern California. Their father has also taken in Coop, the orphaned son of some neighbors. When the girls are sixteen and Coop nineteen, an event occurs that shatters the family into separate pieces. We follow Coop and Claire into their adult lives, where their stories simply peter out.
Anna becomes a scholar, and journeys to rural France to research the life of an obscure writer, Lucien Segura. There she meets Rafael, a gypsy who when he was a little boy knew Segura as an old man. Anna then fades into the background as the story reels backward, into Segura's youth, his experience during World War I, his period of fame and his flight from fame. The book ends with Segura's death, a beautifully wrought meditation on what part of a self is always with us, and what part is made by the ties we form with the outside world.
Why did the author put these two largely unrelated stories together in one novel? He gives us allusive symbols to discover and ponder - blue tables turn up in both stories, glass shards, damaged eyes. We get some tantalizing hints by examining the character's lives: that each life contains a storyline whose meaning we are constantly puzzling out or surprised by; that competence in our craft is our main defense against chaos; that a need to shape and inhabit our own narrative cuts across time and culture. The act of puzzling out what Ondaatje is getting at resonates with our own efforts to puzzle out the paradox of existing complete within our selves but incomplete without others.
All of the main characters are men and women of few words, so it is Ondaatje's authorial voice that creates the "vivid and continuous dream" necessary for captivating fiction. The style is rich, resonant and filled with marvelously observed details of the French and California countrysides. Even if this novel doesn't resolve its plot or yield up its meaning in the conventional way, the skill that went into its creation make the reading of it always engaging and often exhilarating.
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Misty but elegant, October 27, 2008
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To integrate Part two with what precedes it you can think that Anna had worked out Lucien's story to that extent or that it is a story by itself. But the fact remains that it does not flow from the story about Coop, Anna and Claire. "Suggestion", says a Sanscrit crtique of poetry, "is the mainstay of great poetry".Divisadero is poetic in places in that sense. Roman takes Marie-liege from behind while she holds on to a barrel of rain-water to support herself "and", Ondaatje writes, " in the nextwhile, whatever surprise there was, whatever pain, there was also the frantic moon in front of her shifting and breaking into pieces in the water".Accept it for its piquant though disjointed observations and it is great reading. For instance,"we differ in our own realities from the way we are seen by others", so observes a character. How true and don't we require that fact to be reiterated again and again?
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 Not Anywhere Near the "English Patient", October 17, 2008
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Like the definition of the title, a division or the marking off of some esoteric dividing point in ones life, the book leaves much to be desired. In many ways it follows the work of Annie, who is translating the works and journals of a little known nineteenth century french poet. It's all an academic exercise that serves no purpose except for those in the 'ivory tower' who spend the rest of their time trying to explain why Proust and Kerouac are so important.
The book is described as having Ondaatje's 'trademark seductive prose, quixotic characters and psychological intricacy' which is critic talk for we didn't understand it so it must be good. Like many a Russian writer, deep intuitive psycho-babble does not a great book make. What good is writing if no one truly understands the purpose of it. It reminds me of poetry class where the teacher tried to explain that what you thought the poem meant was not what the poet was trying to connote. So who's fault is that? Mine or the poets.
In the long run, what good is Proust or "Ulysses" if it is so complicated that no one ever reads it but only quotes what other people say about it? There is a reason why some people are unknown during their own lives, they have NO relevance to the people of the times they wrote about. Or maybe I'm just to shallow, or they're to deep (or thick). Anyway it gives literature teachers something to feel superior about.
Zeb Kantrowitz
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 Superb poetic storytelling, October 12, 2008
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This book represents some of the most sophisticated poetic storytelling around. As is often the case with Ondaatje, his images, language and development of relationships - particularly between Lucien Segura and Marie-Niege - are more interesting than the plot itself, although there is an elegant retention of a mild form of suspense throughout the novel. Ondaatje is a master of developing a memorable story by attention to the diminutive expressions of emotion that bind two people fatefully together. There is also a hint of romantic greatness in this novel, which in my view is derived from the synergy of refined, poetic language, strong emotional impact, and what Odaatje does better than any other writer that I know of: the creation of a dramatic universe unto itself, where suffering, loss, love, and death is ever present, and where the slightest event or emotion takes new meaning. A great book.
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Enraptured by Ondaatje's style, October 7, 2008
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I am one of those who thoroughly enjoys Ondaatje's writings. Though floaty and dreamlike, his stories always manage to be 'real' enough to me to keep me engaged from beginning to end. And Divisadero didn't disappoint - until I reached the end. I tend to be of the same opinion as some of the other reviewers who felt that Ondaatje ultimately left a little too much to the readers' imaginations. I did feel a wee bit cheated.
But, that said, I thoroughly did enjoy his typical poetic style, the surprising depth of character development and sympathy he managed to elicit with his unconventional sparseness. And, anytime I finish a book within 48 hours, it's been a worthwhile read.
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Reviews
