Page Twelve

Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje

If you want to be seduced by words, read Ondaatje. This was my introduction to him, and I was immediately reeled in by how beautifully he writes. The strong presence of a poet is embedded in each line.
The plot of the book is rather difficult to explain, however. From California to Nevada to France to alternating points of view, back and forth and further back, we become folded in the lives of Anna, Claire, Coop, and Lucien and yet their stories are left dangling, like loose threads and it's up to the reader to make sense of how they all fit together. This is one book that I think would need a second read to be fully understood, but only one read is needed to appreciate the voice of Ondaatje.
"[. . .] sometimes we enter art to hide within it. It is where we can go to save ourselves, where a third person voice protects us" (142).