RUNNING IN THE FAMILY – ONDAATJE

            Running in the Family is a fictionalized memoir, written in post-modern style involving aspects of magic realism, by Michael Ondaatje. Running in the Family, published in 1982, is a memoir about his family in Sri Lanka which reaches back and forwards over several generations to tell a highly personal, yet historically and culturally fascinating story. It deals with his return to his native island of Sri Lanka, also called Ceylon, in the late 1970s. it also deals with his family. Much of the focus falls on his father Mervyn Ondaatje and his scandalous drunken antics. Michael’s grandmother Lalla is another family member that is explored in detail. Many themes are explored in the lives of his family, particularly luxurious frivolity (especially in the 1920s) and dipsomania.

           

The book often seems to blur the lines of fiction and history by offering diverse accounts of certain incidents and retelling of isolated events about which the author could not logically know so many intimate details. It is ultimately about a man’s quest to reconcile himself with the father he scarcely knew and come to terms with the loss of not knowing that man. Some important themes include: memory (its reliability, importance, and what makes it valuable), assumptions about others, the importance of family, and societal expectations. This book also contains many motifs including maps, nature and money.  It has all the hallmarks of a poet and imaginative novelist – wonderful imagery, incredible story-telling, atmosphere you can feel, emotion and humour.

            Ondaatje tells how he was drawn to travel to Sri Lanka to re-connect with his family and his roots by a “the bright bone of a dream I could hardly hold onto”. A special feature of this lyrical, explorative memoir is the story of Sri Lanka itself. The physical, cultural and historical background is beautifully, often humourously and graphically portrayed. One is constantly reminded of the physical surroundings – heat, rain, floods, cool shade, wonderful animal life, colonial architecture, spices, tea plantations, winding roads, jungle, plants, flowers, etc., In this sensual setting we hear equally wonderful stories about recent generation family members no longer alive. The recollections by friends and relatives of the authors father and maternal grandmother and both amazing and touching.

            The grandmother is depicted by relatives as an Aunty Mame character with a penchant for picking flowers from friends or public gardens and presenting them as gifts. Interwoven with the more fanciful, entertaining family stories is the authors visceral, dreamlike recollections, reconstructions and analyses of the family history going back some centuries but mostly looking back at two previous generations. There is one particular chapter “Don’t talk to me about Matisse” which delighted me with the literary references and feel for the place. In this chapter the author writes of an ancestor Dr. William Charles Ondaatje, a Tamil, who was a director of the Botanical Gardens in the mid 19^th century “who knew at least fifty-five specimens of poisons easily available to his countrymen” and wrote them up in journals. Running in the Family then is not the usual run-of-the-family memoir.

Character List:

·         Michael Ondaatje – the author of the memoir and thus the narrator. He was born in Sri Lanka and, at the time of the recounting, lives in Canada.

·         Mervyn Ondaatje – Michael’s father; a dipsomaniac. He was also in the Ceylon Light Infantry.

·         Lalla- Lalla is Michael’s maternal grandmother. She did not really blossom as a woman until her husband died. She does not really care what people think about her. She is ahead of her time and always trying the newest things. She is comfortable lying to people and she is unashamed even though she is poor. She loves the people who love her, she even hid a murderer and helped him escape because she believed he was a good man. She does not seem to have a very firm grasp on the concept of reality and what is appropriate. She loves playing practical jokes and messing around with people. As a young woman, she was very promiscuous. “she could read thunder”.

·         Billy- Lalla’s husband. Bought the “Palm Lodge” in the heart of Colombo and began a dairy. He died shortly thereafter, when Lally was not yet thirty.

·         Doris Gratiaen – Doris is Michael’s mother. She and Mervyn met because her brother was good friends with Mervyn. They were married for fourteen years. She later divorced Mervyn, and he remarried.

·         Philip – Philip is Michael’s grandmother. He owns the rock hill estate.

·         Gillian – Michael’s sister. She sometimes travels with him during his trips to Sri Lanka/Ceylon.

·         Rene de Saram – Lalla’s friend and next door neighbor. Both women “blossom” after their husbands’ deaths.

·         Noel Gratiaen – Doris’ brother, Lalla’s son.

·         Phyllis – one of Michael Ondaatje’s aunts.

·         Dolly – another aunt who smokes, and is half dead, half blind.

·         Aelian – Philip’s brother.

·         Dickie – Lalla’s sister.

Maureen – Mervyn’s second wife, mother of Jennifer and Susan. Mervyn was very different around his second family.

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