"I Went to a Fight, and a Hockey Game Broke Out" or "Two Halves May Not Equal a Whole"

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	• Divisadero (Vintage International) Michael Ondaatje Vintage, 2008 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 64 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

What is divided?

A finely honed novel of epic proportions. It feels unfinished the way life does.

A well-written digression, but a digression none the less

I was planning to lambaste this book unmercifully for its seemingly inexcusable digression in the middle of the book, where it wanders away from its three main characters and becomes fixated on Lucien Segura, a French writer of an earlier era who seems only tangentially connected to the main narrative thread. But then at the very end I understood his significance as a parallel character to the father of the three main characters that form the focus of the book's beginning sections.

Nevertheless, this understanding only partly excuses the self-indulgent digression evident in this novel, which I feel would have been much stronger had Ondaatje stayed with the characters who dominate its opening pages. By comparison, the Segura section, for all its lyrical beauty, lacks the compelling power of the earlier sections. Why did Ondaatje betray the reader in this insouciant fashion? Had he run out of ideas for his main characters? His choice -- to abandon these characters in mid-narrative -- seems perverse and inexplicable. This novel is by no means a success.

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"I Went to a Fight, and a Hockey Game Broke Out" or "Two Halves May Not Equal a Whole"

Several reviewers have mistakenly asserted here that this book is "about" three children who grow up together on a ranch and then go their separate ways, but of course it's not. That's because after sketching out their story, the author drops it completely in favor of another, about a poet and novelist in France during the early part of the twentieth century.

Symbolism and parallelism often help to reinforce and illuminate themes raised by a novel's plot, but here the author thins out the plot until these elements stick out like the ribs on a starving child. While some readers may admire this device, others might prefer a little more meat on the bones.

I am giving this book three stars because the writing was elegant and lyrical enough to hold my interest to the end. I can't give it a higher rating, however, because when I got to the end my reaction was "Oh. That's it." I didn't even feel cheated that the author never took his original story farther, because by the time I got to the end I had almost forgotten those characters.

The same may be said of the whole book. Like a daydream, it holds one's interest while in progress, and then afterwards disappears without a trace. Don't expect to see an Oscar-winning movie made from this one.

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I was confused.

I am not completely sure of a three or four star rating. What saves this book is the section in France. The history of the writer and the Romany characters are fabulous as well as the story of Marie-Niege.

I was not ever sure of the connections in the story of the two "sisters" and Cliff. I dislike reading about drug use and needles and some of the story line in Tajo was just not interesting for me. But, when the story shifts to France and the study of the writer, I became involved enough to continue until the end.

Others may disagree and that is what reading is all about. The One Eyed Turtle

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reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

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