Ondaatje, Michael - Rachel Cusk (review date 8 May 2000)
Rachel Cusk (review date 8 May 2000)
SOURCE: Cusk, Rachel. “Sri Lankan Skeletons.” New Statesman 129, no. 4485 (8 May 2000): 55.
[In the following review, Cusk highlights the thematic significance of war and death in Anil's Ghost.]
Even when writing of corruption, death and decay, Michael Ondaatje's prose is the very opposite of unsavoury. “He loosened a new tungsten carbide needle from its plastic container and attached it to a hand pick and began cleaning the bones of the first skeleton, drilling free the fragments of dirt. Then he turned on a slim hose and let it hover over each bone, air nestling into the evidence of the trauma as if he were blowing cool breath from a pursed mouth on to a child's burn.” The refinement of Ondaatje's expression acts as a balm on his subject, nestling into the evidence of its trauma. He has a way with hurt bodies, hurt minds, with what is fragile. The professions of archaeology, medicine and...
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