Running in the Family is a memoir in the truest sense of the word, as memory plays a central character in the story from the first paragraph to the last. Memories both recent and past of Ondaatje, but also the solicited memories of his eccentric family, usually given over a meal or while drinking – many conflicting – all laid bare for us as readers to hear and make our own judgments. Similar to Nabokov’s memoir, Ondaatje writes in a collage of vignettes arranged in somewhat chronological order, but jumping around as memory will – flitting from the present to the past. The story came at me almost like a dream. I first saw the characters through a haze, with them coming slowly into focus over time.Ondaatje began his memoir relating a dream-like experience as he daydreamed during a heatwave and struggled to even write a page. He was an adult in his early 40’s and after giving us a feel for the exotic land of his birth he began telling his story backwards. This was an original method that I haven’t seen a memoirist do and it immediately gave me a sense of time – it anchored me in the moment. I noticed throughout the book he used what I will call subtle “time anchors”. These would clue me in as a reader to where he was, whether a time of day, the season or a year – all though adding much more to the story than the words on the page. Examples of this include, “Drought since December” (17); “It was a new winter” (22); “2:15 in the afternoon” (24); “But I love the afternoon hours most” (26); “…while we slept on the verandah at 3 A.M.” (135); “And now, 40 years later, in early May” (165).There are many stylistic things I take way from my reading of Running in the Family. His use of poetic language and his amazing ability to craft the language to capture the look and feel of the land read almost like a travel narrative. He did this so well I told Emily that in 2016 we are making a trip to Ceylon, or modern day Sri Lanka. I want to experience this land of cinnamon and tea that I feel like I came to know.Similar to his capturing of the geography of the place, he also captured the history of the country and wove it into the story of his family. As an aspiring memoirist this is something I have not thought of doing before, but as a reader, it pulled me in and gave me a sense of place and time. Weaving his own memoirs between the anchors of Ceylonese history helped bring the history alive, while also showing how his family responded to the events around them.Ondaatje’s reference to his journals and the journals of other family members also was unique as a writing style. While I know many memoirists rely on their journals, he would mention them and at times share with us how one journal was different from another’s recollection and it would be up to us to ponder or accept one over the other or love both versions for being fantastic. In many cases he would give us a feel for what he was reading in the journals, while only giving us a sentence or two that would capture our imagination before moving on. “The journals delight in the beauty and the poisons; he invents ‘paper’ out of indigenous vegetables, he tests local medicines and poisons on dogs and rats.” (82)I think what I loved most was his descriptions of his family. His gin drinking, naked train hi-jacking father; his mother’s destroying of the gin bottles and her dancing and stories; and his eccentric grandparents, including grandmother Lalla, who was carried out to sea by a flood.“It seems that most of my relatives at some time were attracted to somebody they shouldn’t have been. Love affairs rainbowed over marriages and lasted forever – so it often seemed that marriage was the greater infidelity.” (53)“Most Ondaatjes liked liquor, sometimes to excess. Most of there were hot tempered – though they blamed diabetes for this whenever possible.” (57)Ondaatje also was able to capture the sounds of place throughout his memoir and this brought the exotic location to life. The best example of this was his short chapter, “Monsoon Notebook (ii)” (135-136), where he speaks about the sounds captured by his tape recorder in a manner that left me wanting to have a copy of the recording.The use of dialogue throughout was unique for a memoir, as so many memoirs rely on first person narrative that can become stiff and boring. These lack the surprise and delight we experience when listening to his siblings and aunts and uncles argue about what happened with one or the other of a relative or what caused a series of events to occur.This was a literary novel written in a poetic manner that skirted the line between fiction and memoir, but it did so in such a way that you never felt led along. As a reader you knew what was imagined and what was a memory of the author or a family member and you never felt as though he was making up a story. I loved it!Finally, his poetry is gorgeous and his weaving it into the story was perfect. He did this with separate chapter headings and would share a poem with no introduction, in a random sort of way that brought life to the place and joy to the reading. I just ordered a book of his poetry, as I am not ready to leave his world.
The style of this book is quite different from other memoirs. The cover of my book has a blurb by Maxine Hong Kingston which calls what is inside the book “a truly magical world.” Since Kingston created her own magical worlds in The Woman Warrior and China Men, she’s a good judge of that. But Ondaatje’s book is not as tied to narrative as books by Kingston. In fact, the book has a few poems threaded throughout–and much of the prose moves beyond the lyrical to the truly poetic.The book is very beautiful, and many readers have a very emotional response to the style of the book. When I began reading, I had the wrong mindset. I was expecting a narrative. Big mistake. What I should have done was prepare myself by understanding that I would be reading a collection of magic and poetry.The book is not tied to narrative or history. If a reader doesn’t know anything about Sri Lankan history or the racial structure of the country, she will miss a lot of what is going on–will, in fact, get the wrong idea about a lot in the book. But if the reader does know, what Ondaatje does so very well is to create the mood of a long gone time and place. In that way he is very Fitzgerald-ish.My favorite parts of the book are the magical realism story of his unique grandmother who walked into a flood and the poem “The Cinnamon Peeler.” Here is a little taste of Ondaatje’s style with his lovely descriptive abilities and his dysfunctional relatives:Only the mangosteen tree, which I practically lived in as a child during its season of fruit, was full and strong. At the back, the kitul tree still leaned against the kitchen–tall, with tiny yellow berries which the polecat used to love. Once a week it would climb up and spend the morning eating the berries and come down drunk, would stagger over the lawn pulling up flowers or come into the house to up-end drawers of cutlery and serviettes. Me and my polecat, my father said after one occasion when their drunks coincided, my father lapsing into his songs.
What do You think about Running In The Family (1993)?
rather than reviewing this book, i'll just transcribe a passage that should convince you pretty soundly:"you must get this book right," my brother tells me. "you can only write it once." but the book again is incomplete. in the end, all your children move among the scattered acts and memories with no more clues. not that we have ever thought we would be able to fully understand you. love is often enough, towards your stadium of small things. whatever brought you solace we would have applauded. whatever controlled the fear we all share we would have embraced. that could only be dealt with one day at a time--with that song we cannot translate, or the dusty green of the cactus you touch and turn carefully like a wounded child towards the sun, or the cigarettes you light.. . . during the monsoon, on my last morning, all this beethoven and rain.<3
—Ryan Faulkner
Just finished reading "Running in the Family" by Michael Ondaatje (author of The English Patient) which is a bit of a fictionalized memoir of his family's more recent ancestry. The genealogy is accurate but the anecdotes are embellished by countless retellings. As Ondaatje states, "in Sri Lanka a well-told lie is worth a thousand facts." Some of the sequencing was a bit jumbled but then our family history comes to us that way. The impetus behind writing this book was revealed in the statement: "I had slipped past a childhood I had ignored and not understood." His quest for truth leads him to comically portray his father as a young adult when the father constantly tried to solve his problems by creating another problem. In the end, though, his father became quite a tragic figure. Many in that generation "burned purposeless." Besides a tale of family history, the account shows some of the effects of colonialism in which Sri Lanka tried to mirror whichever colonial power came with a sword or a Bible. The imagery is vivid and the stories interesting so I would recommend this story as a very enjoyable read.
—Jo Ellen
This was my second time to read this memoir and travelogue by the Sri Lankan-born Ondaatje. The first time I read it was probably at least some 15 or 16 years ago, so I had forgotten many of the details though I recollected greatly enjoying it upon first reading it. At the center of these recollections are his portraits of his eccentric grandmother Lala and his alcoholic father. In turns comic and sad, it gives an interesting glimpse of Sri Lanka in the 1930s and 1940s, but it is really as much about family than it is about location.
—Andres Eguiguren
