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Title: Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje ISBN: 0-679-76785-1 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 19 March, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (12 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Voices Calling Out To Me From Fog
Comment: I am a writer, a poet, a singer and musician. I first read "Coming Through Slaughter" seven years ago, and it has haunted me since. I have read many, many books but none have stayed with me like this one. Ondaatje shows us how it is possible to weave a narrative with pieces of song, faded photographs, snatches of conversation. This is the way Buddy Bolden should be remembered, felt as a phantom stretching through history. Ondaatje conveys New Orleans, and its rightful place in time as the birthplace of jazz, precisely. I've passed this book on to many others and am secretly gleeful that The English Patient has gathered all the attention, because Coming Through Slaughter deserves much more careful consideration, is not for the masses but for lovers of poetry, music, and history
Rating: 5
Summary: Powerful Story of Decay
Comment: Michael Ondaatje wrote this semi-biographical story of legendary jazz musician Buddy Bolden long before writing "The English Patient" and "Anil's Ghost". Ondaatje only writes two novels per decade, so it is both interesting and relatively easy to track his progress as an author. "Coming Through Slaughter" draws heavily on Ondaatje's poetic roots, as rhythmic sections of smooth unself-conscious dialogue alternate with straight narrative and passages of syncopated poetry. It is far shorter and contains more poetry than his later works -and this works well in a book about jazz. In this, it is less mature than "The English Patient", more rooted in a young man's poetic freeform and less in the disciplined construction of a novel. Perspectives shift from Bolden to his New Orleans friends, prostitutes, and the musicians around him who literally created jazz. Ondaatje has a unique style of piecing a novel together from disparate pieces like a jigsaw puzzle, pieces that don't always meet at the edges -at least until the whole is complete and the details slowly merge into a profound and intricate mosaic. This style, in its early stages, is on display here. Characters and themes emerge slowly. Ondaatje is a challenging author. You may be two pages into a scene and still not know quite who is talking, or about what, or when. But finally the rush of understanding as the scene fits logically into another that comes pages later.
Buddy Bolden, New Orleans cornet player, early jazz genius who dropped out of sight for two years and then made a triumphant if short-lived return, before dying in an asylum. This is the source. The facts about Bolden remain murky, and Ondaatje has created a life around him. It is a story as much about jazz, New Orleans, and decay as it is about the sad life of a single horn player.
Rating: 5
Summary: Question
Comment: Hello - This isn't a review, but a solicitation for advice. My girlfriend is an infrequent reader, but she read this book as part of an English class assignment and absolutely loved it. Can anyone out there recommend anything similar in style and/or subject matter (not necessarily about Bolden, but perhaps New Orleans and/or Jazz, etc)? I've made my own suggestions to her but none could pique her interest quite as much as this book has. Any and all serious recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
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Title: Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje ISBN: 0679746692 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 30 November, 1993 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje ISBN: 0679772669 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 14 January, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje ISBN: 067976786X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 19 March, 1996 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: The Cinnamon Peeler : Selected Poems by Michael Ondaatje ISBN: 0679779132 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 28 January, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Handwriting : Poems by Michael Ondaatje ISBN: 0375705414 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 14 March, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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