This is a book which I definitely need to read a second time because as I went on, I realized there were things I didn’t catch the first time around. Michael Ondaajte is best known for “The English Patient” but the background of the story is the civil war in the author’s native Sri Lanka in the 80’s and 90’s and he does an excellent job of creating the paranoia of not knowing who to trust; there are three separate factions involved and any one of these can make you “disappear” for no reason at all. Who can you trust? No one. The protagonist, Anil, left Sri Lanka as a teen but now returns for the first time, for a human rights group in her capacity as a forensic anthropologist, determined to get to the truth and bring to accounts those responsible for the massacres. She’s teamed with an anthropologist who’s employed by the government but whose motives, loyalties and past life are unclear. Alternately, he is responsible for helping and reining in Anil but there are other characters who are similarly conflicted by past events and their part in current affairs, just as Anil is haunted by two previous relationships, and as these stories leak out, the story begins to take some shape. However, much of this takes the form of detours from the main story, or what seems to be the main story, the investigation of the remains of a body found in a government-controlled archaeological site but was obviously only five years or so old. Or is the main story the struggle to deal with the present among ghosts of the past? There are allusions in the book to events which happened in previous parts and may have slipped by unnoticed, subtexts to conversations, and unless you are prepared to go back and forth and reread all this passages, it can be confusing. It reminded me a bit of the Mel Gibson-Sigourney Weaver film, “The Year of Living Dangerously”, where you need to rewind a bit or just experience the whole thing again, somewhat wiser from the first time. Moreover, Michael Ondaatje’s talent as a poet shines through the text, another reason for a reread, and the story can be hypnotizing, which is one reason more for me to enjoy it again.

I first encountered Michael Ondaatje's writing through the English patient (via the film) and was so taken by his style that I sought out other books.

What captivates me is the incredibly pared down, minimal writing that manages to communicate so much. I find it breathtaking to read.

This is a brutal novel. I gather Shri Lanka is Ondaatje's country of origin, so it's hard not to see this book as having a eprsonal element. Anil is an expert at determining what people did in life by examnining their bodies. She hs a corpse of a man, and too many stories about those disappeared in dark political times. There are a lot of ghosts in this book, a lot of hard choices and troubled morals. Nothing is easy, or comfortable, or without consequence.

It is a heart breaking, awe inspiring piece of work. If you like finally crafted literature and aren't afraid to face the darkness that is very present in the world, read it.

An extremely disturbing account of the ravages of the civil war in Sri Lanka. Needs a great deal of editing to turn it from bits of info to a cohesive story.

ETA: Warning - you learn very few specifics about the civil war. I was up last night thinking about this and considering if I should remove a star. No, I am not removing one. Ondaatje has a special way of writing, and I like it very much. In the beginning of the book there is a statement that says the war continues but in another way! So I think, what way? Tell me! (He never does.) That irritated me then, just as so much else did in the beginning. I didn't get what I expected but what I got was very good. Still, a four star read.

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What to say? I am thinking. I know I really liked it by the end.....not in the beginning. In the beginning and even in the middle I was often confused. In the beginning all that lured me was learning about the horrors of the civil war raging in Sri Lanka at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s and facts about the country - physical and cultural. By the end I knew who was who. People are not simple, and this writer does not make it easy for you. You jump all over the place, from one place, time and person to another. By the end I was enchanted by the lines. By the end I cared for several of the characters. By the end I understood the message and agreed. Is it best to drive for truth and clarity, if this will just bring more suffering? And yet some people are who they are and have to behave as they do.

The narration by Alan Cumming also annoyed me in the beginning, but by the end it was just fine. In the beginning there was a questioning tone, a tempo, an inflection that bugged me, but that just disappeared by the end!

As good, in its own way, as The English Patient. So good, in fact, that I read it twice. Then went back and reread The English Patient because I felt bereft, not having anymore Ondaatje at hand.

This was not an easy read, but, after holidaying in Sri Lanka and identifying with the names of places we had visited it became a more powerful read.

My least favourite of the Ondaatje books I've read, but as usual, beautiful prose. I just never managed to get caught up in the story enough to make this more than "I liked it".

Anil is a forensic anthropologist who has returned to her native Sri Lanka as a representative of an international human rights organization. She works with archeologist Sarath as they attempt to identify a skeleton that they believe is a victim of atrocities committed by the government during the civil war. The storyline follows the pair’s journey toward identifying the victim, while flashing back to provide their personal histories. Sarath knows there is danger in pursuing identification, but Anil sees it as an opportunity to expose the truth to the world. They enlist help from Sarath’s brother, Gamini, a doctor who has treated civilians caught in the crossfire.

The writing is top rate. There are scenes of beauty as well as brutality. A number of storylines occur simultaneously, and they are seamlessly interwoven. We learn about archeology, forensic pathology, and medical practices used to treat victims of the civil war. We come to understand the different factions involved. Conflict is introduced in the interactions between Anil and Sarath. Anil does not entirely trust Sarath since he is a related to a government official. The tension builds in the second half, and the climactic scene is both unexpected and intense.

4.5

Anil's Ghost was acclaimed as the capstone of Michael Ondaatje's work when it was published in 2000 after seven years in the making.

Set in the mid-1980s, it combines elements of a thriller/mystery with an exploration of what happens to people when they are living through a violent civil war and who have to deal with omnipresence of death in their lives. The leading male characters retreat into their own worlds - Gamini the doctor effectively living in the hospital where he works; Sarnath the archaeologist and another former archaeologist who has retreated to live on an ancient archaeological site.

In an interview, Ondaatje said that this was the book he had found most difficult to write, and the most painful, as it deal with the ravages of war in a country he's very closed to (he grew up in Sri Lanka, leaving when he was 11, and has revisited often).

Anil, the forensic archeologist for whom the book is named, was also born in Sri Lanka but comes back to it with no knowledge of it - a very dangerous situation given that she aims to track down victims of the current government. Her directness and determination are ok in the west, but not in a country that runs on different rules, and especially not when it's actively in a state of civil war.

Ondaatje shows something of what is it like to live in a country where there is an apparently never-ending war, and ordinary people are murdered by all parties to a conflict. In a country of fear, he asks, how do you cope with a situation like this? Not all are victims; some can become heroic.

Although Sri Lanka is its focus and his primary concern, the universality of situations like this were part of Ondaatje's reason for telling the story as he has. Not only does a country fracture, but so do people's lives.

Alongside the tragedy and horror, Ondaatje wanted to show that Sri Lanka is a remarkable country, with a great history and culture. Using archaeology as a theme and archaeologists as characters enabled him to do this. Buddhist spiritual beliefs and practices are also significant in the overall story.

(6/10) I just have this thing with Michael Ondaatje. He's one of those authors that seems like they should be write up my alley -- great prose, vaguely postmodern trappings, interesting things to say about how history is written, and Candain on top of all that. But I just find myself not able to engage with his novels, despite being able to recognize their quality. For all the beauty in the passages of this book, I found my attention wandering. Such is life.

Which isn't to say that this book is flawless aside from my weird detachment. Anil's Ghost starts out promising, with one of Ondaatje's more focused plots, about a Sri Lankan archaeologist and a forensics specialist (returning to the country for the first time in over a decade) investigating a skeleton who may have been the victim of government death squads. Ondaatje does a good job conveying the horrors of his home country's long-lasting civil war. But about halfway through it becomes sidetracked by a number of less interesting diversions, most notably Sarath (the archeologist)'s doctor brother, and the main plot is almost abandoned. This is disappointing, especially as it seems like Ondaatje started out writing a very different type of novel than In the Skin of a Lion or The English Patient but eventually fell back on his old tricks.

The historiographic metafiction approach also falls a little flat here, in the face of the horrors of war. I'm big on the whole postmodernism thing, but this book (inadvertently, I think) made me question it: mystical sayings about the constructedness of truth seem like an inadequate response to the type of horrors that Ondaatje renders so well.

Looking back on the review I fixated on the negative a lot, but Anil's Ghost has a lot of strengths. The prose is, as above mentioned, excellent, and Anil is a strong lead character whose sense of justice is questioned at many points but never obliterated. This novel has a knack for taking characters who are doing heroic things and showing their unflattering sides, without diminishing their heroism. With that said, as a minor work of an author I'm lukewarm about, I can't really reccomend the book. Still, that could just be my Ondatje problem again.

There is "Smilla's Sense for Snow" and then there "Anil's Sense for Bones".
This is an interesting book, almost like a few novellas thrown together to describe some of the violence that occurred in Sri Lanka's wars of the 1980s. The book traces a number of characters - Anil the forensic scientist, Sarath the archaeologist, Sarath's brother a doctor, Saraths's old mentor now blind and living as an ascetic, and Ananda a drunk but former expert in painting eyes on Buddhas.
Anil, born in Sri Lanka but living in the US, is sent by a human rights organisation to investigate certain deaths that have occurred that may be linked to the Sri Lankan government. The investigation often takes a back seat to character's anecdotes and how the violence and deaths of the civil war have affected them, the nameless victims and the war where no one knows who or where their enemies are.

Devastating story of political turmoil in 1980s-1990s Sri Lanka. Death squads and excavations to identify victims using forensic pathology and archeology. Centers for Human Rights efforts portray the teams’ work with a small cast of characters. I read the book and listened to the audio for the amazing narration by Alan Cumming.
A startling snippet: The fate of the P&O Orient luxury ship Oronsay my husband sailed on in the mid-sixties when it traveled between Asia and England through the Suez Canal.