“I want to sit down with someone and talk with utter directness, want to talk to all the lost history like that deserving lover”

“Love is often enough, towards your stadium of small things”.

This was my first time reading Mr Ondaatje’s masterful quasi-memoir and every time I read and open one of his books, something magical always happens. He writes about growing up in fragmented sentences, poetry, and lyrical lines that are dreamlike, surreal, and it feels like it he grew up in a hot and intoxicating world on Ceylon.

Reading this also gave me insight to the structure and deliberateness of how his novels are written, often brimming with themes of loss and a pang of sadness that never seems to go away.

Not rating - didn’t enjoy the topic. Odd cause I’ve appreciated all other books of his I’ve read.

Literary memoir is my thing, but I am not sure about this one. I like the flow of language, the mood swings, the jumping timelines and the shifting point of views, but I feel one major character is missing: his mother. Ondaatje installed himself into the mind of his father and grandmother, but why not his mother? Her life after divorce was little shown.

i've come to deeply love the lyricism of Michael Ondaatje's work, and it solidified with Running in the Family. a mix of travelog, memoir, poetry and essay-esque analysis of the histories we both have/inherit and have to fill in the blanks for, especially when your history is tied to a landscape that is home but not quite home.