Product Description

Based on the life of cornet player Buddy Bolden, one of the legendary jazz pioneers of turn-of-the-twentieth-century New Orleans, Coming Through Slaughter is an extraordinary recreation of a remarkable musical life and a tragic conclusion. Through a collage of memoirs, interviews, imaginary conversations and monologues, Ondaatje builds a picture of a man who would work by day at a barber shop and by night unleash his talent to wild audiences who had never experienced such playing. But Buddy was also playing the field with two women, and inside his head was a ticking time-bomb which he was unable to stop.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #164033 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Review
'A beautifully detailed story, perhaps the finest jazz novel ever written' Sunday Times 'The downtown world of bars, whores, streetlife bursting with music is evoked so vividly, so pungently you seem to breathe in the atmosphere I haven't been so excited by a new writer for a long time' Time Out 'Not only the best jazz novel ever written, but one of the best novels of any kind published in English in the last ten years' The Musician 'Michael Ondaatje is a novelist with the heart of a poet' Chicago Tribune

About the Author
Michael Ondaatje was born in Sri Lanka and lives in Toronto. The English Patient won the Booker Prize in 1992 and was made into an Oscar-winning film directed by Anthony Minghella.

Customer Reviews

writing that shimmers like wet chicory in the sun
Buddy Bolden is a near-mythic figure in the music world - claimed by many to have "invented" jazz near the turn of the (last) century. Here Ondaatje has taken the few facts known about the cornetist - there are no known recordings - and produces a superb novel that tells its story through song lyrics, poetry and breathtaking prose.

Bolden is portrayed in all his complexities and incongruities, lacking the necessary self-awareness or self-reflection to prevent his descent into madness. This is an emotionally brutal novel, contrasting against the beautiful and lyrical writing.

You don't have to be a jazz or even a music fan to enjoy this novel - in some ways the music is outside of the main narrative, which primarily focuses on the primal and divergent emotions of a man who carries a gift which is beyond the capacity of its vessel.

If you enjoyed this book, you'll probably also like Geoff Dyer's "But Beautiful", another gifted writer, who also can capture the transcendental quality of music and its creators.

Only very good indeed
This guy can really write. Do yourself a favour and turn off the wall-screen for a minute.

It's got jazz, too. It's about a guy went crazy inventing the solo. Maybe. Never recorded a note, but people like Ellington, Bechet and Dr John have songs about him.

I can't pronounce his name, but if I could, I'd say Ondaatje with similar reverence I reserve for Buddy Bolden.