Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The first sentence intro I've seen in descriptions for this book - "In a narrative as mysterious as memory itself" - seems wholly appropriate.
The book is narrated by Nathaniel, starting when he is a teenager in London during the ending days of World War II. His mother and father leave him and his slightly older sister primarily in the care of two men who the kids don't really know. Eventually, Nathaniel and his sister, Rachel, learn their parents are not really where they thought, and the reader is slowly entwined with the unraveling of those details. They come about in Nathaniel's present tense observations at the time (in the first part of the novel), and then later as reflections on his childhood based on what he learned as an adult.
But, as suggested at the beginning, the true nature of what's going on remains mostly mysterious, with many gaps to be filled in by the reader. There are certain answers that the reader will never get; and many mysteries are only partially revealed.
My sense is that this is intentional, a meta-commentary of sorts on the reliability of memory and perception of our life's events. In this way, it flips the typical coming-of-age story on its head a bit, making you wonder how much you can trust the reflections and perceptions of your narrator, whose experiences seems substantially different than some of the other characters.
The fruition of the narrative or plot in the novel, though it feels secondary to the overall purpose of the book, is still intensely emotional at times. Such intensity speaks to the fact that regardless of the accuracy of our memories, our emotions generally ring authentic. That said, the general fog of "memory" made this book a bit difficult to follow at times; though, ultimately, it was still a decent read.
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