Probably one of the best novels I ever read, better even than The English Patient. Here I am, reading it again ...

This isn’t so much a plot-based novel as an atmospheric and dreamlike weaving of many intersecting stories that are set in Toronto in the early part of the 20th century; a kind of magical fable about the workers who built the city - and, it seems, inspired by extensive photographs and newspaper articles about the construction of the Bloor viaduct and Toronto’s art-deco Waterworks.

Most of the characters are from immigrant communities – Italian, Finnish, Macedonian – although the book opens and closes with Patrick Lewis a Canadian, who is if anything, more isolated from his roots than the immigrants.

The entire story is in fact a tale that Patrick relates to Hana, a girl he has cared for since her mother -Patrick’s lover Alice – died, as they drive through the night to a northern Ontario town to rescue Clara, a former lover and sometime friend of Alice …
That story in turn involves Ambrose Small, a millionaire who disappeared, his lover Clara, and Patrick’s quest to track him down for a bounty, resulting in an attempt on Patrick’s life …
Alice was formerly a nun who fell off the viaduct (this actually happened) and is caught by Nicholas Temelcoff, a bridge construction worker of legendary ability; he later becomes a baker and is closely involved in Hana’s life …
Then there is Caravaggio the thief, painted blue to become invisible against the sky in a daring escape from prison; Patrick had saved his life in prison – and why was he there? Because he was caught after burning down an exclusive resort in the Muskokas, an act of rebellion in the class war that’s a subtext of this story …
And as part of that war, Caravaggio and Patrick, an expert dynamiter, hatch a plot to break into and blow up the Waterworks via the intake tunnel under Lake Ontario – a tunnel that Patrick helped build – but in the end Patrick is persuaded to abandon the plan …

It sounds disjointed written down like that but In the Skin of a Lion is truly hypnotic to experience. I first read this over 30 years ago, it’s been on my re-read shelf ever since and I would lovingly, greedily, read it again.

Best piece of fiction I've read this (crappy?) year (2020). The primary feeling this novel inspires is: Love isn't the most important thing in the world. The complexities of LIFE are more profound, sad, and... satisfying. This may be a revolutionary statement, a great hypothesis, and the novel is magic.
It has so much action and so much poetry: far-flung lovers (not an Ever After, but a Right Now [Since we are human, Connection is SO IMPORTANT! ...and we all get forgotten if not for history]); water tunnel explosions! human puppets on stage! nuns that jump from bridges! A prison escape in guise of a heavenly blue!; a live-or-die logging company...in Canada! In craft, the novel is like something out of PUIG (yes, Ill even mention the exact novel: Heartbreak Tango) in that it contains the poet's roving eye which captures a very democratic world for the protagonists (almost always a man and two women who inherently captivate him) in that the moment in history is finite, and so all people are worthy of having their stories told. Mr. Ondaatje is nothing if not a master storyteller. He is elemental, like Graham Greene, and speaks of action with such a precise use of his poetics (The English Patient is--gasp--a smaller pleasure, than this!) like a classic writer, a Joseph Conrad that extends his narrative in vast, electrifying always surprising ways! A must!

I read The English Patient many years ago and it took me a long time to get through it. I finished this book in three days. Ondaatje's writing is so peaceful and lyrical. It was so great. This story, to me, was about wealth, status, and love set in a soon to be thriving Toronto.

If somebody had told me at the beginning of this year that I was going to be enchanted by a novel by Michael Ondaatje, I would have been quite surprised by their prediction. It would have seemed totally improbable. If they added in that it would be the first novel of the year truly captured me, that it would be one of my favourites I've ever read, that I would come away trying to imagine what magical workings had made it possible, that it would convince that he was probably deserving of that great elusive Nobel Prize - I would have laughed at them.

I've read Mr. Ondaatje before, but in a worse version of himself - or perhaps at an age that or maturity where I wasn't yet ready to appreciate him. Who can imagine the improbable becoming true?

But that somebody who would have told was likely somebody like my friend who bought me the book one afternoon, while we were enjoying a stroll through a favourite used book store, and they quite rightly would have said something like "this book is the book of our people." In fact, that is what they said.

Exactly what they meant made sense to me in an instant. The two of us work in the labour movement together; our people are working people building the crutches for their survival and their resistance.

But without their recommendation I never would have given this magical book, this remarkable achievement a chance.

In it we see something of romance - which is a good thing - and something of history - which is a good thing - and then something about the human spirit - which is a miraculous thing, and a thing that is rare in literature. Mr. Ondaatje captured something of working people in this book. Something of their commitment to doing their job, something of their subjugation to danger, something of their desires to pursue and explore their own futures, something of their networks of support and reliance, and then, most importantly, something of their connection to the underground.

At times that underground is violent. At times it is turbulent. At times it is the source of joy and connection. At times it is the underground itself, by its very existence and the possibilities it produces, that grants us - as working people - our identity.

There is a scene which, if you read this book, might just make you stop and wonder at life a little bit longer. It produces a mystery, a curiosity around the choices that we as humans make; a question about revenge. I still think back on it and remember the daze it left me in after reading it. I couldn't pick up another book for days afterwards because, really, nothing was going to be quite that good.

This is exactly what literature should do, I think. Whatever this book is, it is exactly what literature should do.

It’s never a good sign when the first thing you do after finishing a book is to go to its Wikipedia page and scrutinize the plot summary for some hint of what happened.

For some reason, I always choose to read a complex or very “literary” type of novel on what turn out to be my busiest weeks. When I started In the Skin of a Lion, I was neck-deep in my unit planning for my English instruction course. (I developed a unit for Grade 9s studying A Wizard of Earthsea.) Even my impressive ability to find time to read was put to the test, and it didn’t help that Michael Ondaatje’s prose and narrative are both incredibly stylized and poetic. I’m starting to develop a guilty conscience for not liking books like this more, because there is nothing wrong with being stylized or poetic, so I can understand why Ondaatje’s writing appeals to some people. But my mood and the timing were such that my heart just wasn’t invested in this book, and that makes it very difficult for me to separate my apathy toward the act of reading it with any apathy I might feel as a result of the story itself.

I just didn’t pay attention to what was going on in this book. The narrative mostly follows one character, Patrick Lewis, son of an explosives expert. It jumps sometimes to a few other characters, such as Nicolas Temelcoff, with all of these characters related to Patrick’s narrative in some way. Ondaatje portrays the poor-to-abysmal quality of life of the lower class that laboured to construct some of Toronto’s greatest early twentieth-century achievements in city infrastructure. In the Skin of a Lion is a novel of blood, sweat, and tears of the immigrants who helped build one of the hubs of our nation. It’s ambitious, and in some sense I would agree that Ondaatje realizes his ambition.

Alas, I couldn’t quite stay along for the ride. Ondaatje plays fast and loose with flashbacks, and maybe this says something about my limitations as a reader, but I prefer a straightforward internal chronology. It would have helped if there were a single character to anchor me to the narrative, but they all feel interchangeable, even Patrick. There is no protagonist because there is no conflict, just the faceless shuffle against the background the inequity of life. Patrick seems to do things, once in a while, including some fairly risky actions with explosives, but I was too disengaged to be able to speak intelligently about why he might have done this.

The back cover bills this as a love story. A love story between whom? Patrick and Clara? Patrick and Alice? People and Toronto? There are times when it feels like one or all three of these … but those times are difficult to distinguish from each other. There is just an oppressive sense of bland sameness to every chapter of this novel such that even though I’m sure things happened, it never felt like they were happening. The present tense submerged the plot and did not let go until all its limbs had quite thrashing and, finally, went limp. And I never quite understood Patrick’s motivation—why was he so interested in digging into everyone’s past?

I am dissatisfied not with the book but with me. In my review of Napier’s Bones I talk about letting a book down, and now that sentiment has returned. It’s not a case of a book failing to live up to its hype; rather, I feel unable to judge effectively whether it did or didn’t do that. When I dislike a book, I want to be able to present cogent reasons why. I hate feeling like one of those people who just completely missed the point of the exercise. Yet the prospect of re-reading this book when my mind is less taxed does not particularly excite me.

Such is the ultimate refuge of subjectivity, I suppose: we readers are humans, not book-devouring robots. (I know, I know, hard to believe!) We have moods and phases, and sometimes a perfect storm of time and tasks and not-the-right-book combine to throw us off our groove. I can neither recommend this book nor caution others against it. It’s definitely beautiful, in its own way, and I can see why it has attracted acclaim. But it is not universally accessible: it demands a certain amount of stillness, to channel Yann Martel for a moment, that I couldn’t quite provide this time around.

I have another Ondaatje kicking around somewhere. Maybe the second book will be easier than the first. But that is for another week.

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This was actually not bad, but I didn't really enjoy it so I can't give it more than 2 stars.

the political angle of this book approaches becoming radical but never gets there.

it's fascinating how many "literary" novels are obsessed with all of the trappings of a romance novel, and sex lots of sex, but try to separate themselves from the romance genre by refusing to develop the female characters as people beyond sex objects and manic pixie dreams girls. it's like they think they're smart by gutting the story of egalitarian emotion between the partners.

4.5* rounded down to 4*.

Not the best book to read in audio. I re-read it immediately after finishing it because this is not a book where you can let your attention wander ever. And the prose is so wonderful that the reread was pure pleasure. This is Canadian history, specifically relating to Toronto. I enjoyed it immensely. The third reread will have to be in print.

Three men form the backbone of this novel - Patrick Lewis, Nicholas Temelcoff, and Caravaggio. Temelcoff and Caravaggio are immigrants. Temelcoff from Macedonia; Caravaggio from Italy. While Lewis is at the center, Temelcoff and Caravaggio have significant, and juicy, roles. Lewis is not an immigrant. He grows up poor in Eastern Ontario. His father is killed in a mine subsidence when Lewis is 15. From his father, Lewis learned how to blow things He eventually makes his way to the big city - Toronto.

By the time Lewis gets to Toronto, Temelcoff is well settled as a baker in the immigrant community. But, prior to having the funds to open a bakery, Temelcoff helped build the bridge. He was the guy who did the most dangerous work. On the night before the bridge opens, he rescues a young nun who is swept off the bridge. But no one but Temelcoff and his waiter friend know about the rescue. The rescue is story is amazing. And who is the young nun? Is she Alice? Lewis meets Temelcoff when he is adopted by the Macedonian immigrant community.

Caravaggio is a thief and a darn good one. He meets his wife while hiding in a mushroom farm after breaking an ankle during a robbery. The paths of Caravaggio and Lewis cross when they are in the same prison and Lewis warns Caravaggio that 3-men, with murder in their eyes, are coming to Caravaggio's cell and later helps Caravaggio to escape prison. Caravaggio's escape is another high point. And who was the woman in the cottage? Could it have been Clara?

One of Lewis' first jobs when he arrives in Toronto is as a searcher - looking for Ambrose Small. Clara was Small's mistress and Lewis interviews her, thinking she must know something useful. Through Clara, Lewis meets Alice, who is Clara's best friend. Clara and Alice are actresses. Clara leaves to join Small and tells Lewis not to follow. After a couple of years, he does and almost dies for his efforts. Clara stays with Small. Lewis eventually reconnects with Alice and they become close. Alice has had a daughter in the intervening years.

The stories of the three men are woven together and move backwards and forward across the years. Eventually, the connections are clear but it requires careful attention to catch the connections. This atmosphere of this book reminded me of Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. I very much enjoyed it.

Honestly, I utterly despised this book. I had no end of people telling me that this was one of the most divine, perfectly written books EVER. What I saw when I read it was literary masturbation. I'll concede Ondaatje has an elegant way of stringing together lots of beautiful words and phrases and moments, but I don't think that that alone can make a book. Others have said they think the characters in this are so real as to make you utterly devoted to them. I struggled to sympathise with a single one. This felt to me like Ondaatje had a lot of beautiful images in his head that he wanted to string together, but had no cohesive, workable story, so instead, he opted for the pastiche of past and present, from the perspectives of a dozen different people, so he could get them out but hide the fact that the story was weak.

I must say that this book was beautifully written and that Ondaatje is a master with words, but beautiful prose is not all that I need in a book. I want a fully developed plot and characters that I grow to love and/or am invested in what happens to them. This book did not have that for me. It was disjointed, disconnected, hard to follow and at times even confusing. Maybe the problem is that it was too erudite and intellectual for me. Usually I am a fast reader and once I am involved in a book, I do not want to put it down. I never got involved in this book because I was constantly putting it down.

It was basically about laborers in the early part of the 20th century that helped to build Toronto into a modern city. It does address important issues such as unsafe and unfair labor practices, abuse of immigrant labor, the depression, etc. But the story lacked any semblance of cohesion and the beautiful wording just did not save it for me.

I gave this a "5" — "It was amazing" — something I don't often do because I feel a book has to live up to that evaluation and while many, many books are really, really good, few are amazing. This one was amazing. In the Skin of a Lion was a pick for a book club and having not read Ondaatje before I was looking forward to it. I am now looking forward to rereading it (and reading other works by him) in the near future. Ondaatje is a poet as well as a novelist, it shows. His language is wonderful. Often in a book that is well written I will find a sentence that sings. With In the Skin of a Lion I found paragraphs that did that. But often it wasn't just the arrangement of a few words but how the sentences in the paragraph fit together and moved you on in the story that Patrick tells. As I think about In the Skin of a Lion the term "magic realism" comes to mind. Not in the usual sense of the term but magic in the sense of magical, wonderful. There is a constant undercurrent (the reference to water here is intentional) of wonder on the part of Patrick despite the hard, difficult, mean, and demeaning circumstances in which he finds himself. His fascination with the moths on the screen and the men skating on the river at night with the torches when he's a boy are early examples of his sense of wonder and his appreciation of the sublime. When he is older he is a lover who not only enjoys his lovers on a sexual level but also finds a sense of wonder in their bodies, their minds and their mere existence. I could feel his sense of wonder at being privileged just to be present to watch the women sleep or watch their heart beat or watch them move across the room.

The realism comes, as more than a few reviewers have commented, from Ondaatje's intense, detailed and evocative descriptions of the real working world. The description of the building of the bridge, the water works, the work at that tannery. Somehow Ondaatje knows the circumstances of a tannery. I lived near a working tannery in Milwaukee for awhile and the smell is something you never forget. Working in one in that day and age when concern for the workers' health wasn't a concern must have been just as he described. How the smell would cling to the men. How could a woman live with a man who smelled like that much less make love to him?

Did Ondaatje growing up in Sri Lanka speaking and reading English before moving to Britain at age 10 or 11? Since Ceylon was a British colony until he was 4 or 5 years old I would imagine that English was at least his second language. The same as English was Joseph Conrad's second language. I also imagine that Ondaatje must have an affinity for Conrad, who like Ondaatje, immigrated to England and then wrote in English, his second language. Both Patrick and Alice appreciate Conrad (pp 133-134) and Alice remarks to Patrick, "have you read his letters." A telling remark in that it is only via letters to Alice from others that Patrick learns anything of Alice's past. Conrad is also an author with strong associations with water. In the Skin of a Lion strikes me as a book that bears rereading more than once. On my first reading I am amazed.

Reread October 2014. Still wonderful.

I finished reading this book several weeks ago just before an interview at the National Arts Centre with Michael Ondaatje. In face, I believe I finished it mere hours before seeing him speak.

I had never read an Ondaatje book, and felt that I should, given the fact that I was about to see an hour long interview with the man. I chose In the Skin of A Lion based on this thread on Ask Metafilter. Lion came up several times as the Quintessential Canadian Novel (something I find interesting, given the fact that it’s written by a man who moved here from the UK at 18 or so).

While I would see it more as the Quintessential Toronto Novel, there’s something about the way Ondaatje writes these characters, especially Patrick, that make them as recognizable as the landscape. While you recognize the Bloor St. aqua ducts, Kingston Pen, and small town northern ontario, you also recognize Patrick and all the characters that thread in and out of his life.

Ondaatje doesn’t write this story in a truly linear fashion, so if you don’t like a little guess work this probably isn’t for you. But I highly recommend it.