I first read this book with my book club, shortly after the paperback was released. I remember really liking it. I recently decided to reread it before passing my copy along to someone else. It took me so long to get through it.

There were some pages of beautiful writing. I learned about history and a culture that was unfamiliar to me. It was interesting to read about the methods used to determine the identity of a skeleton.

But the story felt incomplete. I never really connected with Anil's character. I wanted to know more about other characters in the story. After finishing the book, I was left unsatisfied with many questions.

Added to my list of most favourite books. Exceptional.

Es dauert eine Weile, bis man sich an die eher kargen Charaktere und die Zeitsprünge gewöhnt hat aber dann führt einen Anils Geist auf hervorragende Weise in die traurige und von alltäglicher Gewalt strotzende Welt des - weder literarisch, noch in der Sri-Lankanischen Gesellschaft wirklich aufgearbeiteten - Bürgerkriegs in Sri Lanka ein.

Für mich waren zwei Dinge besonders eindrucksvoll: Die Beschreibung der antiken Stätten, die ich als Tourist kennengelernt habe, im Lichte des Bürgerkriegs als Ort der Inspiration für Terroranschläge, als Versteck für Leichen und Leitmotiv für einen mörderischen buddhistischen Nationalismus, sowie die Schilderung der Ärzte, die im Blut waten und so eine Identität gewinnen oder alles verlieren.

2.7

I read this book because, one way or another, I ended up on Amnesty International's bookclub mailing list thing and this was their book of the month a while ago... so I thought I'd try it out...

I'm so glad I did.

When I started reading it, I feared that the pace of the novel was far too slow and that I would soon lose interest, but eventually I came to see that the value of this book is not in its plot per se, or in the amount of action actually taking place throughout the narrative; the beauty of the book is in the imagery and in its capacity to reach the reader on an emotional level.

Anil's Ghost follows a Sri Lankan - American forensic archaeologist, Anil, as she journeys back to her homeland with the task of revealing the truth behind the political murders happening during the civil war in Sri Lanka.

One really incredible feature of the book is the way that Ondaatje brings the reader into the story expecting to view it all through the perspective of the main character, Anil, but, instead, he widens that view, dividing the novel into different sections (for each of the main characters) so that the reader can view the civil war and humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka through several of the most important characters' perspectives... So we end up getting incredible portraits of several of the characters. One of my favorite sections of the book, in fact, was the one that explored the emotionally-lost and weary doctor, Gamini... he starts off as a thin man on a hospital bench in a black trench coat and, through Ondaatje's descriptive powers, morphs into a dynamic character with a lonely childhood, tragic love story and eccentric and, ultimately lovable, personality.

I'd love to read more by Michael Ondaatje just because his writing is so beautiful and full of images and emotions.

Also, *SPOILER*, I liked that the title of the book itself is kind of a red herring. Not sure if it's just me, but, upon picking up the book, I assumed that the ghost referred to in the book's title ("Anil's ghost") was literally HER ghost... It's only once you reach the end of the narrative that you realize the ghost the title refers to is the 'ghost' of Sarath, the honest archaelogist Anil becomes quite close to throughout the book who is murdered as a result of protecting Anil...

Anil's Ghost
Michael Ondaatje

Anil Tissera is a forensic anthropologist, originally from Sri Lanka, educated in the UK and US, now back to Sri Lanka on behalf of a human rights organization. She will partner with Sarath Diyasena, a local government archaeologist. Their nominal purpose is to document war crimes. But they better be very careful with what they find.

Sri Lanka is torn by civil war. All three sides apparently have done bad deeds, many times. People disappear. Heads are put on stakes to line a walkway. Mutilation happens.

Just to exist in Sri Lanka is to put oneself in danger. To find bodies that incriminate anyone could be a capital offense. And yet they find one, name it Sailor, and go to great pains to uncover his story, covertly, of course.

But how does one get Sailor past all the exit control? How do Anil and Sarath minimize the risk to themselves?

The author does not attribute blame to any one faction. Most often, people simply go missing. There is no accountability.

While the quest of Anil and Sarath seems to occupy much of this story, it is practically impossible to not see the overall condemnation of war itself. Is what happened here significantly different than gas chambers, or machetes in the Congo, or atrocities from other wars?

Sadly, we have a long way to go.

I really wanted to like this book. At dinner parties I always try to blend with the wallpaper when somebody starts raving about how the English Patient was the greatest film of all time. I always cringe when I have to admit I thought it was complete rubbish. I'm obviously a uncultured philistine.

This book was going to be my redemption, my step up into the intellectual elite. I wanted to be able to tell all my ever-so-clever friends that while The English Patient didn't rock my world, Anil's Ghost was a masterpiece. FAIL.

The central theme of identifying the body nicknamed Sailor was relegated to the background and became lost in pages of disjointed ramblings which generally added nothing to the story. Characters were introduced and examined but they didn't fit in the context of the story. Anil's friend Leaf is an example of this. The section dealing with the friendship between the two women was interesting but there wasn't any point to it.

In the end it was a relief to finish this book. The main story fizzled out but the closing pages were beautifully written and were the highlight of the book. I was left with the impression that the author spent so much time trying to write beautiful prose that he forgot to write a story.

Meandering, confusing, and I loved it. All about a Sri Lankan civil war that I had no knowledge of before reading. I don't think I internalized a lot of facts about the war, but I got a sense of Sri Lanka that was beautiful and painful and unique. Would be worth rereading when I know more of the historical context.

Only when I got to the end did things start falling into place. Most of the story seemed disjointed, and I was confused as to the purpose of some characters in this book.

I listened to this as an audio book and I remember the experience was very unsatisfactory. Having since read Divisadero and the The Cat's Table, I know now that you have to read and reread sections of Ondaatje's writing to really appreciate it. And audio books are so coloured by the voice and intonation of the reader.

This is what we're here for, this is a goddamn goodread

Writing a classic war novel is never easy, of course, but consider the audience that awaited Stephen Crane's "Red Badge of Courage" in 1895. Every reader in America was still living in the shadow of the Civil War.

Similarly, when Erich Maria Remarque released "All Quiet on the Western Front" in 1929, there was a whole planet waiting to make sense of World War I.

Unfortunately, the West is not waiting for a novel about the civil war in Sri Lanka. But Michael Ondaatje is about to put this tragedy on the map of Western consciousness with "Anil's Ghost."

His last book, "The English Patient," won England's Booker Prize in 1992, and the interminable movie version won an Academy Award for best picture in 1997. On the strength of that success, millions of readers will pick up "Anil's Ghost" no matter what it's about.

They won't be disappointed.

The situation in Sri Lanka is a novelist's jungle. The conflict has been raging for 16 years, has claimed 60,000 lives, and has already decimated large parts of the island nation off the coast of India. Clashing politicians, rebel groups, and religious traditions could easily tangle this book in a thicket of details that only those well-versed in Sri Lankan politics could follow. But Ondaatje has not set out to record his homeland's modern history.

Instead, "Anil's Ghost" focuses on the emotional complexities of living in a country beset by political terror. The effect is at once gorgeous and ghastly.

Through the center of the book runs the gripping story of Anil Tissera, a forensic anthropologist who returns to Sri Lanka under the auspices of an international human rights group. When she left 15 years before, she was a bashful hero, lionized for her remarkable strength as a swimmer. On her return, she needs all that strength and more to traverse the waves of fear that have been crashing over her homeland.

As the invited guest of a regime widely suspected of carrying out mass murders and torture, Anil works in a precarious situation. Her government-appointed partner, a local archaeologist named Sarath Diyasena, gives her little reason to relax. The two of them retreat with the first selection of bodies to a makeshift laboratory in the dark cargo hold of an abandoned luxury liner. You'll have to remind yourself to keep breathing as you read this book.

There are any number of fresh subjects being unearthed daily, but they choose to concentrate on a skeleton that appears to have been reburied in a government-controlled area.

It's gruesome work - quixotic and suicidal - but both Anil and Sarath are determined to pursue the truth of this single, representative atrocity. Ondaatje's voice, alternately calm and impressionistic, is perfect for conveying such horrors in a relentless series of short chapters: "On this island, she realized she was moving with only one arm of language among uncertain laws and a fear that was everywhere. There was less to hold on to with that one arm. Truth bounced between gossip and vengeance. Rumour slipped into every car and barbershop."

Breaking through the culture of fear-enforced silence proves as difficult as determining a victim's identify from his burned remains. They seek assistance from an old man drunk on grief and alcohol who is one of the few artists entrusted to paint the eyes on statues of Buddha. This mystical act of bringing a god's eyes to life becomes a haunting symbol in a novel about hidden crimes.

Laced through this central detective story are anecdotes from the characters' pasts, scenes from elsewhere on the island, and random acts of violence. All these characters are quiet, desperate people, addicted to their work or their grief. Ondaatje is a master at portraying unconsummated desire - for love, truth, or peace.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2000/0504/p1...