The style is first person singular, the male protagonist writing for himself about his childhood and early adulthood and the people he was close to. The characters are written in depth and believable and complex. Like his novel The Cat’s Table he seems to understand how children seem to see the world compared to how they recall the same events and people when they are adults. 

 

Mr Ondaatje’s prose is very evocative of time and place. It also reflects on memories and how people are torn between duty and desire. Reading this novel was a joy.

I loved the first half. Hated the second. Really slow moving and confusing as to who was narrating the story. Feel like I wasted a week reading this book. The whole chapter about playing chess. Yikes! I get it the mothers life was a game of cat and mouse and like a game of chess. But do we really need to know how one game was played. No thanks