Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18337 in Books
• Published on: 1984-05-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 207 pages

Customer Reviews

A beautiful book exhuming a bygone era...
This is wonderful to read. Ondaatje manages to recreate Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in a wonderfully absorbing, highly readable style. The characters (his family!) are extremely eccentric and entertaining, though there is sadness as well as humour. He is a top-notch story teller and this kind of travelogue/biography is a joy to read.

Oh please!
I'm afraid I found this book rambling, boring and thoroughly self-indulgent. An avid reader, this is the only book I have ever read that I actually wanted to throw away without finishing, an act which I have never before contemplated.I think that says it all?

Exquisite prose interlaced with vividly beautiful poetry.
A fascinating insight into a time and place I knew nothing about. Ondaatje writes like a dream; not only is his style luminous and sensual but the stories themselves are a sheer delight. Like my fellow Londoner, I loved the story of Lala on the bus - but even more I loved the photograph of the author's parents. Certainly one of my favourite books. Highly recommended (although admittedly not to everyone's taste - if you prefer Jeffrey Archer to Jane Austen you may be disappointed).