BIBLIOTECA TECLA SALA November 16, 2017 Coming Through Slaughter Michael Ondaatje

“ But there was a discipline, it was just that we didn't understand. We thought he was formless, but I think now he was tormented by order, what was outside it. He tore apart the plot - see his music was immediately on top of his own life. Echoing. As if, when he was playing he was lost and hunting for the right accidental notes. Listening to him was like talking to Coleman. You were both changing direction Contents: Quote 1 with every sentence, sometimes in the Michael Ondaatje 2 middle, using each other as a springboard and his work through the dark. You were moving so fast Book of a lifetime 3 Old Jazz 4 it was unimportant to finish and clear Michael Ondaatje’s 5 everything. He would be describing jazz novel Notes about the 7 something in 27 ways. There was pain and book gentleness everything jammed into each Notes 8 number.”

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Michael Ondaatje and his work

Michael Ondaatje was born in Sri Partly due to the phenomenal brings together, within a single, Lanka on 12 September 1943. He success of his Booker prize episodic narrative, songs, moved to England in 1954, and in winning The English Patient (1992) photographs, poetry, prose, 1962 moved to Canada where he and, more recently, Anil's Ghost interviews, a play, as well as the has lived ever since. He was (2000), Ondaatje is best known white space of blank pages. educated at the University of today as a novelist. However, he Where the title of this text Toronto and Queen's University first achieved critical acclaim as a implies a 'complete' narrative of in Kingston, Ontario, and began poet with early collections. More its hero, the events of the text teaching at York University in recently he has returned to are ambiguous and fragmented. Toronto in 1971. He published a poetry with the publication of his Its protagonists, Billy and Pat volume of memoir, entitled long poem, The Story (2005). Garrett are the product of plural Running in the Family, in 1983. His Meditations on childhood, love perspectives, a combination of collections of poetry include The and mythology, these poems history and legend that ultimately Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left reveal a preoccupation with favours uncertainty in place of Handed Poems (1981), which won language and rhythm that is the whole story. the Canadian Governor General's pursued later in his typically Award in 1971; The Cinnamon economical, lyrical prose fiction. In his first novel, Coming Through Peeler: Selected Poems (1989); and During this period, Ondaatje also Slaughter (1976), Ondaatje Handwriting: Poems (1998). produced a book of criticism - continues his focus on folk Leonard Cohen (1970) - and the heroes, creating a fictionalised His first novel, Coming Through films Sons of Captain Poetry (1970) biography of Charles 'Buddy' Slaughter (1976), is a fictional about concrete poet bpNichol; Bolden (1876-1931), a legendary portrait of jazz musician Buddy Carry on Crime and Punishment jazz musician. Here Ondaatje Bolden. The English Patient (1992), (1972); and The Clinton Special develops the formal set in Italy at the end of the (1974). Ondaatje has also experimentation of The Collected Second World War, was joint compiled a book of interviews Works to produce a prose poem winner of the Booker Prize for with filmmaker Walter Murch that is also 'a parable of the Fiction and was made into an (responsible for The English twentieth century artist'. Like Academy Award-winning film in Patient among other things) Billy, Buddy exists outside 1996. Anil's Ghost (2000), set in Sri entitled The Conversations (2002). 'official' history and the narrative Lanka, tells the story of a young hints that this is a 'life' only female anthropologist investigating Ultimately, Ondaatje is perhaps available to us through music, war crimes for an international best understood not as poet stories and rumours. As if to human rights group. or novelist, but as an artist who highlight the blurred boundaries has drawn into question the very between real and fictional lives, Michael Ondaatje lives in Toronto limits of such genres. In his Ondaatje himself makes an with his wife, Linda Spalding, with playfully titled The Collected Works appearance as a character within whom he edits the literary journal of Billy the Kid (1981) we are the text. Life and art, biography Brick. His last novel treated to some of the formal and fiction are not polar is Divisadero (2007). exuberance and experimentation opposites in this text, but for which Ondaatje is critically mutually constitutive categories. Ondaatje is, along with Margaret respected. As its author has Atwood, one of Canada's most stated, the book is not [https:// important contemporary writers 'interested in the real Billy the literature.britishcouncil.org/ and one of the country's biggest Kid'. Often referred to as a writer/michael-ondaatje] cultural exports. 'collage', the 'collected works'

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Book of a lifetime, by Nikki Gemmell

My book of a lifetime? Easy. honesty; emotional truth. And fork over the years - very Coming Through Slaughter by beauty, always that. It's also different to my own writing, but Michael Ondaatje. I discovered it deliciously grubby and your book sets the bar for me in just as the cement was setting vulnerable and ultimately - what terms of energy and daring and around the idea of making the all great novels are - moving. risk-taking. All I need is a dream, writing, an actual career Heartbreaking, in fact. Don't all paragraph from its deliciously (to the horror of my coal-miner writers want to conjure up a audacious pages to get me in the father, who, when hearing of my book that wrenches the heart at mood, and I'm off and racing. vaultingly ridiculous ambition, some point? It's taught me responded - "waste of time, several lessons as a writer: the [http://www.independent.co.uk/ books".) Ondaatje's slim, early importance of a strong narrative arts-entertainment/books/ tome was introduced by a to propel the reader forward reviews/book-of-a-lifetime- university lecturer, a failed and and the need to evoke some coming-through-slaughter-by- depleted writer himself, and it kind of empathy with the michael-ondaatje-2373441.html] entered my world like a depth protaganist. Coming Through charge of possibility. I've carried Slaughter moves me deeply. my battered Picador paperback It's fearless, dangerous writing, around for decades; the pages, something I'm addicted to and now, are almost greasy from aspire to in my own work. Over being thumbed, flipped, dog- the years, I've recognised it in eared and scribbled upon. books by Anne Carson, Michel What is it? Not sure exactly, and Houellebecq, Marguerite Duras, that's what makes it so damned Dave Eggers and Ali Smith. It exciting. It's an account. Of the intrigues me, now, that this is an life of jazz musician Buddy early work by Ondaatje. There's Bolden, a cornet player in New something so youthful and Orleans in the early years of the captivating about the energy, 20th century. Not an area of when you're roaring through interest for me generally, but my life, addicted to the new, to risk. God, you're entranced by this I want to keep recapturing that world that Ondaatje creates. It's exhilarating, effortless feeling in a daring, audacious little book my own books, but it's so hard, that defies categorisation - as the years go on, as life closes experimenting with fiction and in around you and you have to non-fiction, photography, and think about mortgages and dramatic changes of tense and sellable books; about making a voice. Bolden was known for his living out of this crazy life. But dazzling improvisations and I've tried to go back to the there's something of that energy fundamentals of its audacious in it. energy with my new book, With My Body. This book has been like a prod over the years: to not So all I can say is thank you, Mr necessarily take the easiest path; Ondaatje, for this bewitching to write with energy and tome. It's been like my tuning

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Old Jazz, by Anatole Broyard

As Whitney Balliett remarked, description of the mattress [http://www.nytimes.com/ jazzmen are generally cool and whores of New Orleans is books/00/05/14/specials/ondaatje unsentimental characters, yet properly appalling. Their beds on -slaughter.html] novels about jazz tend to be their backs, their ankles broken mawkish. The jazz musician has by heavy the sticks of come to be regarded as a sort of monopolistic pimps, these ghosts existential minstrel. The black of prostitutes ply their trade on musician especially is the pavements, in the back alleys apostrophized as a man of mystic of shantytown. While the intuitions: his fingers are not only evocation of New Orleans is on the keys of his instrument, but rather thin, an occasional image on the cosmic pulse as well. comes through. Coming Through Slaughter, by Michael Ondaatje, is one of these Bolden finally went mad while inflations. leading a band through the streets in a parade. Mr. Ondaatje Based on the life of Buddy has embellished the occasion by Bolden, one of the originators of introducing, among the people New Orleans jazz, the book thronging the sidewalk, a girl jumbles actual history, interviews who dances to Bolden's with old jazzmen, snatches of improvisations, mysteriously local color, fictional anticipating his every impulse. reconstruction, three The scene is well done and not "sonographs" of dolphin sounds, uninteresting, but it ultimately primitive poetry and pretentious becomes self-conscious and arty. writing. Bolden's eventual insanity And whatever the relation is romanticized, as if he blew between Bolden's lust for life, his himself beyond coherence on his music and his insanity, it is too horn. Coming Through Slaughter is pat to imply that he blew his written in several voices, none of mind over an unknown girl. them is satisfactory. Too many sentences float between cliché When asked how he could see and bombast: "Swimming toward his sculptures in a block of stone, the sound of madness." "What he Michelangelo is alleged to have wanted was cruel, pure said that he simply chipped away relationship." "The music was his everything around the image dance in the auditorium of until it emerged. A novel like enemies." "In terror we lean in Coming Through Slaughter, made the direction that is most unlike up of shards of various us. Running past your own techniques, works in just the character into pain." "All suicides, opposite way. The author gives all acts of privacy are romantic." us all the broken pieces and leaves it to us to infer the final Now and then, when Mr. form. Ondaatje relaxes, Coming Through Slaughter warms up. The

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Michael Ondaatje’s jazz novel, by Ted Gioia

According to legend and hearsay, tried to write about Bolden had listens to the radio, talks with a Buddy Bolden invented jazz. And few facts to go on. But I feel friend for an hour on the perhaps he did. No one has a especially sorry for telephone, and drives a car— better claim to the honor. But no Mr. Ondaatje. He published his three activities I seriously doubt recordings exist to give credence Bolden novel Coming Through the cornetist had much to the scattered first-hand Slaughter in 1976, and clearly put opportunity to pursue, circa testimonies. Bolden himself didn't a lot of effort into learning 1905. There were only 8,000 stay on the scene long enough to all the stories and rumors about cars and 144 miles of paved road offer his own assessment of his the musician. But just two years in the entire United States back contributions to the music. He later, Donald Marquis proved then, and fewer than 10% of lived until 1931, but spent the last that most of these 'facts' were homes had a telephone. I've 24 years in a mental institution. plain wrong. Marquis's visited Bolden’s No music historian ever paid him pathbreaking book In Search of old neighborhood in New a visit or sent him a letter, and it's Buddy Bolden ranks among the Orleans, even walked up to the not clear he was in any state to most important works of jazz door of his house, and feel respond to such queries. scholarship from the last half- confident in stating that century, and even today remains Bell Telephone wasn't fastracking But others have jumped into the the starting-point for anyone phone lines for this street during breach to offer up their own who wants to know about the the Teddy Roosevelt versions of Buddy Bolden. Michael 'first man of jazz'. administration. Ondaatje is hardly the only novelist to transform the So don’t read Ondaatje's novel In other words, I hesitate to mysterious New Orleans in the hope of learning about call Coming Through Slaughter cornetist into a fictional character. Buddy Bolden. Despite what you a historical novel. In fact, it may Nicholas Christopher recently find in its pages (and not be a novel of any description. did the same in his book Tiger Rag, elsewhere— the half-life of Ondaatje's fractured Stefan Berg turned the jazz disproved historical claims is presentation—made up of musician's story into his graphic unsettlingly long when colorful juxtaposed pieces of text rather novel Let That Bad Air Out, and figures from the past are than conventional chapters— Peter J. Hecks teams up Bolden involved), Bolden was not a often veers closer to poetry than with Mark Twain in A Connecticut barber. He did not edit a prose. Yankee in Criminal Court. Sad to scandal sheet called The Cricket. say, even many non-fiction He did not get arrested because Here's an example: accounts of Bolden's life read like he went beserk during a 1906 fanciful folklore, for example Labor Day parade. In short, the He was obsessed with the magic of Danny Barker's Buddy Bolden and fictional Buddy Bolden presented air, those smells that turned neuter the Last Days of Storyville, which in Coming Through as they revolved in his lung then draws heavily on a single source Slaughter bears little spat out in the chosen key. The way (Dude Botley) who appears to resemblance to the man as we the side of his mouth would drag a have never existed, although know him today. net of air in and dress it in notes perhaps he was a composite of and make it last and last, yearning unnamed real individuals of Then again, how much did to leave it up there in the sky like dubious credibility. Ondaatje care about air transformed into cloud. He could historical accuracy? During the see the air, could tell where it was For many decades, those who course of this novel, Bolden freshest in the room by the colour.

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Realistic? Not in the least. I imposes on its practitioners. Yet So don’t read this novel to learn haven't met a single musician who Ondaatje loses these hard-won about Buddy Bolden or even could turn an air into cloud with gains when, later in the book, he about the spirit of early jazz. It a horn. Or even tried. But the decides to present much of the won’t tell you much, and most of description is vivid and evocative. narrative in Bolden's own voice. the facts it supplies are plain It showcases Ondaatje, a writer All of a sudden, the artist who wrong. Instead enjoy the known sometimes to try the earlier in the novel had audacity of a young author trying patience of his readers, at his impressed us with his daring and to shake things up, and who will best. unpredictable ways now comes take no prisoners. I imagine if across as neurotically cautious Buddy Bolden were around to Such horn pyrotechnics and ponderously self-reflective. read this book, he might not notwithstanding, very little of the Perhaps this shift is a necessary recognize himself in its pages, plot here is actually about music. prelude to the Bolden's later but he would recognize and Bolden gets involved in several mental breakdown—or, at least, applaud that spirit of different love triangles, which Ondaatje may believe such a transgressive discovery—since eventually preoccupy him so transformation is required to he made his mark on history much that he stops playing the propel his story onward —but with an almost identical attitude. cornet. He leaves town with one the dramatic change strikes me couple and manages to turn their as unconvincing and unrealistic. [http://fractiousfiction.com/ already less-than-satisfying Based on everything I know coming_through_slaughter.html] relationship into a queasy about this musician, Buddy threesome. Yet Bolden is less Bolden was aptly named: than pleased when an interloper boldness was his calling card, and tries out the same gambit with his his presentation in the second own wife Nora. And, almost half of Coming Through testing the reader's credulity, Slaughter as tentative and second Ondaatje also puts the real-life -guessing his every impulse just Bolden bandmate Willy Cornish doesn't ring true. into a third threesome with Nora and Buddy. In other words, the But there is someone very bold historical Buddy Bolden may have moving this book ahead towards led a sextet, but he is sticking to its tragic conclusion…namely trios in Ondaatje's account of his author Michael Ondaatje. At life. almost every turn of Coming Through Slaughter, he takes big Yet Ondaatje does a credible job chances. The fragmented of capturing the psychology of the structure, the deliberate jazz artist, that peculiar state of anachronisms, the prose turning mind that puts so much trust in into poetry, the intricate and spontaneity and resists cold ever-changing relationships calculation. The central role of between the characters—these improvisation in jazz attracts constantly surprise us, and the precisely this kind of attitude, and book as a whole anticipates the only a rare few can thrive amidst celebrated volumes still to come the demands that America's make in Ondaatje's career, most -it-happen-in-the-instant art form notably The English Patient.

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Notes about the book, by Camila Hamil

In this edition the pages are notebook and I found this WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE ABOUT strangely laid out, looking helped me to get into it. THIS BOOK cramped with narrow margins and The book is divided into three I have learnt that the strange text starting unusually close to the parts. structure of the book is intended top of each page. I have no idea if to replicate the syncopated and this was deliberate or not. There 1.- The first part starts with a disjointed rhythms of jazz music. I are no conventional chapters; section entitled ‘His geography‘ didn’t get that feeling at all. instead the book consists of and covers the background to segments of narrative divided into Buddy’s life. Although the dialogue is written sections, with each new section as naturalistic speech and is starting on a new page. Some 2.- The second part relates the clearly not standard English, I segments are lines of dialogue – circumstances around Buddy’s struggled to hear what I would written without speech marks. mysterious disappearance. consider to be the authentic tone Some sections simply contain the of the American deep south. The 3.- The final part talks about his lyrics to a song. Some segments author, Michael Ondaatje, was return and his subsequent are written in third person, some born in Sri Lanka and spent a few illness. in first person. years in Britain before moving to Canada. I did wonder if it was his The book opens with a 3rd The ‘through Slaughter‘ in the own multicultural background person narrator who is, I think, a title refers to the town of that prevented an accurate man called Webb – a police Slaughter through which the rendition of New Orleans detective and an old friend who train passed when Buddy made speech. Another explanation is searches for Buddy after his his final return home. that I simply didn’t ‘get’ the disappearance. Within the first WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THIS accent. few pages, the narrative slips into BOOK 1st person (Buddy’s voice) and It was a confusing read. At a then alternates between various Even though I considered the certain point, I gave up and just points of view. Some sections technical experiments (shifting went along with it, but I didn’t have a heading indicating the POVs) a failure, I like the idea of really care about it or the narrator or the topic, e.g. Parade using disjointedness to slowly characters. I would have (5th morning) or Frank Lewisor build up a character and story. preferred more signage to help Train Song. But this labeling is It’s like cubism in painting, which me navigate the book. This could inconsistent and some sections tries to represent moments in easily have been achieved by simply start with a flow of text time and space. In film you have consistently providing a heading and you have to work out where Terrence Malick who has been for each new section. you are and whose voice you are experimenting with the idea of listening to. fragmenting the action to form a representation of first person I was unsettled by the odd layout, singular, especially in his later the fluctuating point of view and work, starting with The New the way the narrative skips from World, and more so in The Tree one section to the other with of Life and Knight of Cups. little signposting and no linking text. Eventually, I decided to approach the text as if I was reading from a reporter’s

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