Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The word “warlight” suggests a murky shrouded light that serves to only partially and poorly illuminate a tableau, and indeed, this is an apt title for Michael Ondaatje’s latest book. Our narrator is a teenage boy, Nathaniel Williams, who is left, with his slightly older sister Rachel “in the care of two men who may have been criminals.” Their mother, Rose, disappears from their lives in 1945, purportedly to engage in some sort of undercover or espionage actions. As a result, they spend their teenage years surrounded by Dickensian characters: a man they refer to as The Moth, a greyhound racer and bon vivant called the Darter, and others who flitter in and out of their lives. It is only in part two, a decade or more later, that a little bit of light is shed. The book, as one might expect from Mr. Ondaatje, is elegantly and lyrically crafted. It’s a pure pleasure to read prose this assured. An ambiance is set that keeps the reader on edge and off balance. Michael Ondaatje takes the all-too-common coming-of-age trope and turns it on its ear, as if he’s a magician pulling mesmerizing scenes out of his hat. But. Something changed for me in the second half of this novel. I am typically a big fan of novels that are non-linear and that switch from one point of view to another. But in this case, I found the switch to be distancing. I believe the author’s theme can be encapsulated in this line: “We never know more than the surface of any relationship after a certain stage, just as those layers of chalk, built from the efforts of infinitesimal creatures, work in almost limitless time.” If my interpretation is correct, then Michael Ondaatje delivers on what he sets out to do. Yet still, I couldn’t help but feel dissatisfied, as I do sometimes when I meet a self-professed “private person” who keeps me at arm’s length. Like Nathaniel, I kept trying to make my way to a core place called “home” – and maybe that’s precisely the point.