Ah that is good news that Ondaatje is writing something new, and I'll look for
your book which I didn't know of, so I'm glad you blew your own horn, Doug!
And I can only agree with your comments about Ondaatje's work,
Best,
Rebecca
---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 12:26:09 -0700
>From: Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Novel writing
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>And he's apparently finally writing something new. We can but wait.
>
>I will blow my own horn a bit: Michael Ondaatje (Twayne 1993) covers
>most everything up to The English Patient (an afterward, so not much).
>
>He tends not to repeat himself, & yes, I think he works from image, &
>in fragments, so that the collage thereof (which began in Collected
>Works) is an important part of the 'writing.'
>
>A postmodern Romantic I think, but he brings it off brilliantly.
>
>Doug
>On 14-Jan-05, at 6:02 PM, Rebecca Seiferle wrote:
>
>>> I am in awe of Ondaatje's creative journey ... I've only recently
>>> read Billy
>>> the Kid and found it brilliant ... I've read everything else of his.
>>> A poet
>>> in novels like Coming through Slaughter and Skin of the Lion ... Ah,
>>> I would
>>> love my novel to be like Billy the Kid, but sadly it is turning into
>>> a plain
>>> ordinary chronological narrative.
>>
>> Not to chime in on your conversation with Alison, but I like Ondaatje
>> very much
>> too and was glad to see you mentioning _Billy the Kid_ Ondaatje's a
>> very good
>> poet, I read with him at the Key West Literary Seminar and would have
>> liked to
>> hear more. He doesn't talk a great deal about his work, he moves
>> around like a
>> restless lion, though he was quite patient in trying to have a
>> conversation with
>> Annie Proulx on stage at the seminar, she's very sparse of words, a
>> true
>> Wyomingite in that sense, and it was almost excruciating to watch him
>> try and
>> open the conversation and have her monosyllable it closed. Though I
>> remember
>> something about his beginning _The English Patient_ with an image in
>> his mind
>> of a plane crashing into the desert and horribly burned man within it
>> and
>> everything developed from his questions. He does seem a most poetic
>> novelist
>> in that the narrative always develops associatively,
>>
>> best,
>>
>> Rebecca
>>
>> ---- Original message ----
>>> Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 09:22:10 +0800
>>> From: Andrew Burke <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Subject: Novel writing
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>> Alison - I hit the 'delete' button instead of the reply button, and I
>>> would
>>> have replied b/c but I seem to have your email address under some
>>> mysterious
>>> combination ...
>>>
>>> So, I wanted to say I sympathise with you 100%, but would offer the
>>> virtual
>>> grapes and chocolate ... I need mouth food when I write, or at least a
>>> healthy willing woman afterwards ... Both is pleasant. In your case,
>>> you can
>>> change the healthy woman to a healthy man, if this be your pleasure.
>>>
>>> For some reason, writing poems is almost a secular version of a
>>> sacred act
>>> for me, and I go into a different state. That is why I have to banish
>>> such
>>> states while I am writing a novel. Do you find this? (Perhaps I see
>>> novel
>>> writing in a classical sense and poems in a romantic way - that'd
>>> explain
>>> it.)
>>>
>>> I am in awe of Ondaatje's creative journey ... I've only recently
>>> read Billy
>>> the Kid and found it brilliant ... I've read everything else of his.
>>> A poet
>>> in novels like Coming through Slaughter and Skin of the Lion ... Ah,
>>> I would
>>> love my novel to be like Billy the Kid, but sadly it is turning into
>>> a plain
>>> ordinary chronological narrative.
>>>
>>> More grapes! More chocolate! (Can you get decafeinated chocolate?)
>>>
>>> Andrew
>>
>>
>
>
>Douglas Barbour
>Department of English
>University of Alberta
>Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
>(780) 436 3320
>http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
>
>The poet is ecstatic, having dreamt of this visit for weeks.
>He takes Erato’s face, dribbling and wild, between his hands
>
>and kisses her gently as if she were a runaway teenager.
>
> Diana Hartog
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