Product Description

"A Magical book. Michael Ondaatje defies the normal distinction between poet and novelist. His writing is consistently tuned to a visionary pitch" - Graham Swift. It is the 1920s, and Patrick Lewis has arrived in the bustling city of Toronto, leaving behind his Canadian wilderness home. He immerses himself in the lives of the people who surround him, learning, from their stories, the history of the city itself. And he has his own adventures: searching for a missing millionaire, tunnelling beneath Lake Ontario, falling in love. In the "Skin of a Lion" is Michael Ondaatje's sparkling predecessor to his Booker Prize-winning "The English Patient". It is here that we encounter, for the first time, Hana the orphaned girl and Caravaggio the thief, among a large cast of characters who are all lovingly and intimately portrayed. It is an exquiste and musical novel, a romance that challenges the boundary between history and myth. "Ondaatje writes in curves, in time-lapses, a sort of verbal cinema whose narrative is unfaltering". - "The Times" "A triumph...a powerful and revelatory accomplishment". - "Times Literary Supplement"

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67227 in Books
• Published on: 1988-08-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

The best book ever written?
Michael Ondaatje (best known for The English Patient) writes a faultless novel looking at ordinary people in a most extraordinary way. The myriad of characters in this novel bring together many aspects of human nature and in doing so show one shared characteristic, survival. They all all survive in one way or another, whether it be because of the birth of a child or because they are caught whilst falling from a bridge the (ordinary?) humans in this book survive. It is a book about learning, about dreaming and ultimately about life. Ondaatje brings all these aspects of human nature together bound in exquisite language and genuine feeling. Is this the best book ever written? I believe so.

Much better than the English Patient
This is the prequel to the rather more famous The English Patient, however despite the latter's success In the Skin of the Lion is the better book. It is based in Canada, when the country was still young and growing using as fuel the poor and migrants. This has to be close to one of the best I have ever read, indeed, I cannot say that I have enjoyed another more. The writing itself is exquisite, Ondaatje writes prose as if it were poetry (he is also an accomplished poet) - the beauty in the language itself is reason enough to enjoy it. But it is the book's overwhelming sense of humanity that makes this book what it is. This book is about people, their stories, their tragedies and their ability to love. It envelops you in its slightly dreamy, warm human haze while you read it and long after you've finished.

Poetic ode to labour and love
I read 'The English Patient' some years ago and enjoyed it immensely, prompting me to buy this earlier work. Regrettably, I buy more books than I get around to reading (I can't be the only culprit...), but I am so, so pleased that I've finally got around to reading this wonderful book...

In the Skin of a Lion is set in Canada, moving between rural Ontario and Toronto, and primarily charts the life of Patrick Lewis from the turn of the twentieth century to the late 1930s. However, the novel is not as structurally straight-forward as this suggests, as some of the chapters focus heavily on two of the three other main male characters. Nonetheless, Ondaatje hints within the novel that there is a structure, and indeed there is order and interconnectedness between the stories of these three mens' lives.

Ondaatje employs strong, physical descriptive language to honour the labours, particularly of migrant groups such as Macedonians, that shaped modern Canada - logging; dynamiting; cattle-herding; bridge-building and dam construction: the realistic and evocative writing on this range of human endeavours must have required a lot of research.

The novel also includes three intriguing, strong-willed female characters: radio actress and love of Patrick's life (despite many formidable hurdles) Clara Dickens; her best friend, Alice Gull, and Alice's daughter, Hana. Beautifully-crafted, poetic language describes the relationships that evolve over the years, and both the stories and language are a genuine delight for the reader to savour.