In the Skin of a Lion is an amazing, incredible book - though I knew this going in, as it was my second read. (I read it for the first time, circa 1999, on the urging of a boyfriend. He's long gone, but the gift of the novel has remained.) It's beautiful and strange at the same time, but not for everyone, unfortunately - in some places, Ondaatje doesn't use much detail, or explain what's going on, so you have to be willing to work it out for yourself. But I think that's the real genius of it - you have to feel it, you have to immerse youself in the language, to get it.
When I think back on the reading of it, several images linger in my mind: A nun falling off a bridge into the darkness, only to be caught by a construction worker hanging underneath; Finnish laborers ice skating at night on a pond, creating light trails with the torches they hold; a man staring out a train window, concentrating on the scenery so that grief will not destroy him.
I could never do justice to its poetry, so I'll end on one of my favorite passages instead, where Patrick is observing his actress-lover, Alice...
"His love of the theatre was that of an amateur. He picked up gossip, mementoes, handbills. He loved technique, to walk backstage and see Ophelia with her mad face half rubbed off. This was humanity in theatre, the scar - the old actor famous for playing whimsical judges, who rode the Queens streetcar east of the city and ate his dinner alone before joining his sleeping wife. Patrick liked that. He wanted to be fooled by the person he felt could not fool him, who stopped three yards past the side curtain and became somebody else."
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