Krishna
The story is classic Ondaatje, populated by unusual characters and sometimes weird conversations. If you liked his English Patient or Anil’s Ghost, then you will like this too. If you found those boring, give this one a wide berth as well.
The story prominently figures a man called Coop, an orphan working with a family which has two girls – identical twins – called Anna and Claire. The setting is n a remote village called Petaluma.
Anna falls in love with him and is discovered having sex on the attic of the barn and the infuriated father of Anna beats Coop to a pulp. Anna, upset and also terrified that Coop will die, stabs dad with a glass piece – wounds him but does not kill him. Coop disappears and Anna goes to France to forget everything. She meets a quiet man with a guitar called Rafael and now falls for him!
Coop learns card games and tricks from a man called Dunn who makes a living in card winnings. When he wants to become a good card sharp, Dunn sends him to go meet The Gentile.
Coop goes to Las Vegas and tries to be a card sharp and falls in with Dorn & wife Ruth and well dressed Dauphin and is in love with a whole pile of them. Then he goes to San Fransisco and lives with another woman (Bridget). After all these ‘Bold and the Beautiful’ style sleeping around, he is hurt when it turns out that Bridget sleeps around and has framed him! At the lowest point in his life, he meets Claire and lives with her.. Come on!
More weird things happen. After beating Coop to a pulp and leaving him alive, the gang comes searching after him? Why?
This book is also populated by Lucien Segarra, a writer in search of a house – he wants to buy the house he was in many years ago. He meets Lehard – a thief. He also meets Lehard’s wife and son Raphael.
Then Lucien’s childhood, his losing an eye to dog attack and his neighbor who is a young girl and Lucien reads stories with her. Also in the book is Lucien’s unhappy marriage, his daughter Lucette, her affair with poet Pierre Le Cras, his proposal to Lucette’s sister Therese to be near her. By this time, you have the feeling that you are reading multiple stories with no connection to each other and wonder where the author is going with all this.
Lucien’s own saving of Ramon’s wife Marcie-Niege by buying her house , whom he befriended when she was just 17 married to Ramon, taught her to read and read Musketeers with her and finally had sex with her
Lucien then goes into war and catching diphtheria and almost dies but recovers.
He comes back on furlough and has sex with Mary Niege. but goes back again. When war ended comes back to find Marcie_Niege is dead and overcome with grief, kills himself.
After you have thoroughly lost interest in the story, almost at the end, you learn that Lucien is the father of Anna and Claire. Just a hint. Oh hell! Whatever.
Except for Lucien, the story has no closure for anyone else – you do not know what happens to any other character. Even for Ondaatje, this one is weird, I’d say.
I can honestly give this only a 3/10
— Krishna