Michael Ondaatje: "Warlight"

There are times when one encounters a writer that captivates the reader and the reader (i.e. me) will read everything that author has written. I have many favorite authors and am delighted when they produce a new book that I can dig into. It's much like finding a perfect recipe for a delicious soup that I can enjoy a spoonful at a time. But even as I write that, I know the analogy is not correct: a bowl of soup lasts a few minutes, a new book takes hours to savor.

And then there are authors that are rather intimidating to me. They seem almost too good, too intelligent, and as I read them I always feel that there's a secret code about their writing that I do not knows, as if they are simply too smart for me.  Michael Ondaatje is one of those writers.

I just finished reading "Warlight" and it is a remarkable historical novel. An English woman leaves her children in the care of friends so that she can supposedly join her husband in the Far East while he begins a new career. But what has actually happened is that woman has taken up a new career herself, that of a spy of sorts, with a new identity and the murky underworld of espionage.  This all takes place in the late 1940's, after WW2, when there was so much intrigue between Communists and other political factions and the world of secret intelligence blossomed beneath the cover of post-war recovery and growth.

This is  not an easy book to read because Ondaatje makes you read every sentence. It is difficult to skip over passages because each one holds a link to the next and the prose demands to be read slowly. I am a fast reader and books like this frustrate me while, at the same time, intrigue me. This book took a couple of weeks to finish because it forced me to concentrate not just on the plot but on the writing as well.

Sentences demand to be read several times, such as this passage: She has never met him as an uncertain person: it is the remade man she knows. He has shown her over the years the great vistas she desired; but she thinks now that perhaps the truth of what is before you is clear only to those who lack certainty."  

On a cold, dark, rainy day being forced to slow down and read carefully is an almost guilty pleasure.  Perhaps "The English Patient" will be on my library list soon.