Divisadero

By: Michael Ondaatje

Narrated by: Hope Davis

Length: 8 hrs

Publisher's summary

In the 1970s in Northern California, near Gold Rush country, a father and his teenage daughters, Anna and Claire, work their farm with the help of Coop, an enigmatic young man who makes his home with them. Theirs is a makeshift family, until it is riven by an incident of violence that sets fire to the rest of their lives.

Divisadero takes us from the city of San Francisco to the raucous backrooms of Nevada's casinos and eventually to the landscape of south-central France. As the narrative moves back and forth in time and place, we discover each of the characters managing to find some foothold in a present rough hewn from the past.

Breathtakingly evoked and with unforgettable characters, Divisadero is a multilayered novel about passion, loss, and the unshakable past, about the often discordant demands of family, love, and memory. It is Michael Ondaatje's most intimate and beautiful novel to date.

©2007 Michael Ondaatje (P)2007 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Ravishing and intricate . . . Few experiences in contemporary fiction are as sensual and absorbing as making one’s way through the pages of an Ondaatje novel. . . . Divisadero is an epic of intimate moments . . . The book is, among other things, a parable of contemporary America . . . When people call Ondaatje a poetic novelist, they are referring in part, of course, to his rare gift for language and observation. A scene of a boy on a runaway horse during an eclipse is as astonishing and hallucinatory as any such passage I can remember reading. Yet the deeper aspect of his poetic background is that his narratives proceed with the interlaced complexity of a long lyric poem . . . Each of the romances in the book is gorgeous and singular in its effects . . . Ondaatje’s ability to fashion scenes that are at once exact and suggestive accounts not only for the sensual tingle of the books, but also for their literary pleasures . . . Divisadero extends the liberating and original territory of that earlier triumph [The English Patient] so unforgettably that it’s hard, on finishing, not to turn back to the opening page and start all over.” (Pico Iyer, New York Review of Books)

“Exquisitely crafted and imbued with Ondaatje’s acutely sensitive intelligence, Divisadero pulls its readers inside the novelist’s craft like being inside an intricate pocket watch to learn its movements.” (Bob Hoover, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

“Ondaatje’s best books are kaleidoscopic meditations on memory, violence, time and sexuality are held together less by linearity than by rhyming action, thematic echoing and inspired juxtaposition . . . One doesn’t come to Ondaatje for resolution. One comes for the language, the discreet imagined moments, the exact metaphors, the turn of a phrase - and for the thrill of watching a writer attempting, and for the most part, succeeding, in his desire, through juxtaposition, to make the world more than it is.” (Ethan Rutherford, Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

I loved this

I loved this book. Ondaatje's writing is incandescent. The structure, as others have noted, is unconventional. It shifts around in time and points of view and the two halves tell stories that are almost unrelated but they explore similar emotional terrain. The reader is absolutely perfect--a beautiful voice, thoughtful in her pacing and emphasis, and the book's many French names are completely natural to her. This is a story about the deepest bonds possible between people and the way they shape our lives.

all around outstanding

This audiobook has the customary mellifluous writing style of Ondaatje, like reading prose from an outstanding poet, coupled with superb audio narration by Hope Davis. The book has 3 intertwined plots -- a typical stylistic approach by Ondaatje -- that range in space from California to France, and in time from the 1890s to the 1990s.

wish it had a resolution

I loved this book, even though it came to no real resolution or connected ending. I lived for many years in the area of Northern California that much of the story is set in, and so has the author it seems. The details were so exact and it made me feel like I had gone home. I can't speak for the area of France written about in the story, having never been there. The book is poetic (as one reviewer mentioned), mythic, beautiful writing with engaging and interesting characters. 5 stars if the story had come together and made a point, but I did love it nevertheless.

Rich and Rewarding

Who but Toni Morrison pack so much into a novel. Take your time and enjoy.

A shining gem.

Divisadero may well be Michael Ondaatje's finest work. As a writer, Ondaatje always challenges his readers to go beyond what he has written. Divisadero is no exception. In this exquisite, elusive novel, he tosses his readers onto the shimmering web of human experience. Divisadero is a shining gem that elevates our consciousness by sending us on a mythic journey across time and space. Through the lives of his characters, Ondaatje, with breathtaking, beautiful prose, encourages us to recognize, honor and ultimately release the pivotal, often painful, events that shape every human life. Only then, can we find redemption and grace within the myriad, precious connections that make us who we are.

Incredible “stories” within a “story” 😊

Incredible plot lines weaved throughout this fabulous book! I had been going through my bookshelves and looking through my books and I had found many books that I didn’t have time to get around to reading because I buy so many. I honestly didn’t remember several and this books and a few others I decided to buy on audiobook for convenience of reading (yeah, I know) and I listened to it over night and I fell in love with this book. At first I was intrigued with the book and its introduction and then I was drawn into the general story of the book. As the book progressed I did feel that it had taken on a depressing tone and it had somewhat been at the back of my mind throughout the rest of the book, however the last part of the book had my full I interest and I enjoyed every last second and the ending was portentous. The narrator was excellent and her voice fit the story perfectly and I am not French so I don’t speak with a proper accent nor pronunciation, but the narrator sounded good speaking the French words and phrases. This book is a trip through time and all comes together at the end

Baffling

While densely packed with beautiful, intense images and descriptive passages that show a deep connection to nature and to the human condition, it seemed to me this novel did not deliver a progressive, cohesive story line. The characters appeared to inhabit an non-organized dream world of fantasy that was at times disturbing and depressing. I felt I was caving, groping along dark passageways, shining my headlight on small areas but with no information about where I was going. If you like this sort of narrative style, then this book is for you. If you prefer a more linear method of fiction delivery, then I would steer clear.

However, the author never dissapoints in demonstrating his mastery of image and metaphor and there were some excellently constructed passages in what I would only loosely call a story. It's really poetry, presented in the envelope of prose.

trite or tripe?

I've lived in the setting all my life, more than 60 years - and the author has it comically wrong, sadly wrong, and that is but a forerunner to the poor research applied to creating this story. Actually, it is not much of a story - more of a political diatribe masquerading as entertainment. An interesting, but again poorly researched, venture into France should have produced an opportunity for character development - nope - shallow, but "heartfelt," explorations into soap opera situations only produced lame dialog, transparent motivation, and boredom. The disjointed, childish, and uninteresting plot didn't save the shallow characters. I would have given this a minus number but that was not an option. We all waste some credits at some time - this was mine.

Near waste of time

If Ondaatje were not a good writer. Divisadero would be an artful waste of time. This is a tale of two stories that have nearly nothing to do with one another, and to me end up detracting from one another. The story of Coop, Anna, et al. is slow starting but gets quite intersting. If only Ondaatje would let us know what happens once the family finds one another again. He doesn't. He just stops half way through the story to talk about the long route of destiny that Anna's new lover took to end up living in a deceaced writers house. And the story keeps going back in time, farther away from what the reader cares about (the plight of Coop), to mutiple generations in the past, to people so irrelevant, that the reader feels no bond for the newly introduced charaters. The stoty then just ends. And to me, ends in total disappointment. I do not recommend this book, unless you like frustration and and an artful waste of time.