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    Divisadero: A Novel By The Author Of The English Patient
    Unavailable
    Divisadero: A Novel By The Author Of The English Patient
    Unavailable
    Divisadero: A Novel By The Author Of The English Patient
    Audiobook8 hours

    Divisadero: A Novel By The Author Of The English Patient

    Written by Michael Ondaatje

    Narrated by Hope Davis

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From the celebrated author of The English Patient and In the Skin of a Lion comes a remarkable new novel of intersecting lives that ranges across continents and time.

    In the 1970s in Northern California, near Gold Rush country, a father and his teenage daughters, Anna and Claire, work their farm with the help of Coop, an enigmatic young man who makes his home with them. Theirs is a makeshift family, until it is riven by an incident of violence—of both hand and heart—that sets fire to the rest of their lives.

    Divisadero takes us from the city of San Francisco to the raucous backrooms of Nevada’s casinos and eventually to the landscape of south-central France. It is here, outside a small rural village, that Anna becomes immersed in the life and the world of a writer from an earlier time—Lucien Segura. His compelling story, which has its beginnings at the turn of the century, circles around “the raw truth” of Anna’s own life, the one she’s left behind but can never truly leave. And as the narrative moves back and forth in time and place, we discover each of the characters managing to find some foothold in a present rough hewn from the past.

    Breathtakingly evoked and with unforgettable characters, Divisadero is a multilayered novel about passion, loss, and the unshakable past, about the often discordant demands of family, love, and memory. It is Michael Ondaatje’s most intimate and beautiful novel to date.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMay 29, 2007
    ISBN9780739343500
    Unavailable
    Divisadero: A Novel By The Author Of The English Patient
    Author

    Michael Ondaatje

    Michael Ondaatje was born in Sri Lanka and lives in Toronto.  The English Patient won the Booker Prize in 1992 and was made into an Oscar-winning film directed by Anthony Minghella.

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    Reviews for Divisadero

    3.5/5

    579 ratings44 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      His dreamily seductive writing will beguile and hold the reader. Occasionally, when Ondaatje comes down to earth, such as a mention of the Persian Gulf war, does he lose the spellbinding quality with a reminder that there is a real world out there. It's not that this is poetic in a flowery way, in fact there are some brutal scenes in this diverging (divisidero?) story yet they do not detract from its elegance. However, to take in the subtleties, Ondaatje's novels require the reader's attention, this one maybe more than any other. The strange thing about reading Ondaatje is that I can hear his velvet voice, in the same way I can hear my mother's voice when I read her letters.
    • 2/5
      You can't just shift to a different book in the middle of the story I'm reading and expect me to like it. To be honest, I wasn't that crazy about the story of Claire, Anna and Coop, but I was still confused and annoyed when they vanished from the book and my rating started shedding stars.
    • 4/5
      Four stars for the first two-thirds of the book. After that it went off on a tangent with someone who was previously a minor character. Three stars for that section.
    • 4/5
      This is the third novel I've read by Michael Ondaatje, he writes as a poet more then a novelist. This novel got better the deeper I got into it. Personally I liked Anil's Ghost better but I did like this novel very much at the end. The novel starts in the farm county of Northern California in the 1970s and ends up in the county side of France of pre-WW1 to the end of the war. Onaaatje explores love, family, writing, one of the main characters in a French poet, and our personal fate. The book looks at the mystery of life, what is often hidden.
    • 5/5
      Ondaatje, in his typical style, writes sensually beautiful prose in this novel. I particularly enjoyed the portions of the book that take place in California-- as a former Californian I felt he captured the essence of that landscape brilliantly.
    • 2/5
      I remember adding this novel to my wishlist when it first came out because I thought the book description sounded like something that would appeal to me. Having not read anything by Ondaatje before, I guess I was not prepared for his writing style. I'm reading all these other great reviews and frankly, I don't get them. I can appreciate the prose -- it's really well written and beautiful at times, but that's the best I can say. To me, this story went nowhere. Point of view was flip flopping back & forth from the first to third person, the time frame was back & forth in seemingly no logical order, and the transitions were really rough. The first one-third or so of the novel centered around the three main characters as described in the book description. But from then on the story went off on a tangent which, to me, had no real relativity to where the story began. I started losing interest at about that one-third mark, and despite reading on & hoping to see something come full circle, it never did, and I was disgusted with myself for having not given up when I was first inclined to. I haven't rated a book this low in quite a while, and I have to wonder if something's wrong with my interpretation, but this one just didn't do it for me. At all.
    • 5/5
      A beautiful book. Probably not for those who are not fond of intersecting plots picked up at seemingly random places, unclear beginnings, middles and endings, and lack of closures. But it's a beautifully written novel, very much character driven, about love and loss, longing and the strangely accidental yet interconnected paths of life. It reads almost like poetry- it's written in stunning and very atmospheric images.I probably liked it most of everything I have read by Ondaatje.
    • 5/5
      Beautifully written, heartbreaking and haunted. The story of the dynamic of a cobbled family and the errors that tear it asunder. Speaks of the growth and stunt of living through tragedy. One of the best books I've read in years.
    • 5/5
      In the 1970s in Northern California, near Gold Rush country, a father and his teenage daughters, Anna and Claire, work their farm with the help of Coop, an enigmatic young man who makes his home with them. Theirs is a makeshift family, until it is riven by an incident of violence-of both hand and heart-that sets fire to the rest of their lives.Divisadero takes us from the city of San Francisco to the raucous backrooms of Nevada's casinos and eventually to the landscape of south-central France. It is here that Anna becomes immersed in the life and the world of a writerr from an earlier time-Lucien Segura. His compelling story, which has its beginnings at the turn of the century, circles around the raw truth of Anna's own life, the one she's left behind, but can never truly leave.
    • 3/5
      Still enraptured by the echo of the book, its pluristic stories, its fragmented parallels, and intertwined chronologies. Each character is complex in his/her rudimentary need, hurt, distance, memory, and desire. Each story is a vocal cry of what remains hidden and painful; each history and scar, a viable window into the heart of human frailty, hopelessness, yearning, and courage. It's a potent book!
    • 4/5
      The blurb on the back cover really doesn't do justice to the poetry - or, indeed, much of the plot - of the actual novel. I was expecting some sort of rural farm-based kitchen sink drama, but the 'division' between the two sisters occurs early on, and then the story branches off into two completely different directions. Claire and Coop stay in America, meeting randomly in the midst of their separate lives, and Anna leaves for France to immerse herself in the work of a reclusive author, Lucien, and takes a lover called Rafael. We get a glimpse into the lives of every character, and the story ends with Lucien's ill-fated romance during the First World War. And Ondaatje's beautiful language is like another character in its own right - I kept getting caught up in his poetic turns of phrase, but never lost the threads of the story. A magical interlude.
    • 3/5
      Clearly a poetic masterpiece. I think if this book would have been around for the Modern Library top Novels it would have definitely been included.
    • 5/5
      I'm a huge Ondaatje fan, and I've been looking forward to reading this one for some time. Seeing as I'm living in San Francisco this summer, it only seemed appropriate that I should seize the day. I was not disappointed. The saga of Anna, Coop, and Claire was fascinating, and I only had two complaints about the whole book, one of which was that it wasn't long enough.The ending was a bit lacking in my opinion, as well, but I guess I can't have everything. That aside, this one still gets top marks from me.
    • 4/5
      Just as I finished this book and read the backflap, I was slightly surprised to discover that I've read ALL of Ondaatje's novels. Surprised only because I leave each one with the same feeling. He's told a great story, but he's told it as only a poet would. It seems funny to think of this as a liability, but I have to say that there are always moments, reading his words, when I can see his shadow behind them, labouring over every single perfect word, trying to make everything ring like music, paint the perfect picture, move my soul in just the right way. And there's often a little counter-response in my soul which says something like "C'mon fercrissake! Just say what you want to say and let's move on!"This book is a good one, though. Not for those disturbed by twisting, intersecting plotlines with some pretty disorienting transitions from one place and time to another, but definitely for those who've thought about loving who we shouldn't and either admitting or not admitting this to themselves. And who hasn't? Stunning cover art, by the way.
    • 5/5
      As with all Michael Ondaatje, this one is amazing. Satisfying and unsatisfying (depending on one's perspective) and recursive in its form.
    • 4/5
      I find this a confused novel. There seems to be a conflict in Ondaatje's approach to this book. He develops strong storylines that tend to peter out or stop suddenly while he explores timeshifts and a story within a story that veers toward a postmodernist style. It is as though the strong narrative lines do not allow him space to pour out his lyrical prose on which his reputation stands. The result is three of four interconnected stories that hang together precariously by dint of having familiar characters in each one, although a recurring theme is characters changing their names to sever connections with their past. They at times seem as confused as Ondaatje.There is of course much fine writing but it is slow to get going as Ondaatje concentrates on the narrative tale of two sisters Claire and Anne and the hired hand Coop growing up together on a North Californian farm. Anne's father stumbles on Anne and Coop making love: a violent scene ensues involving Clair which fractures the family and the remainder of the novel follows these characters who are all running from this cathartic event. Coop flees to Tahoe where he becomes a professional poker player and this is the least successful part of the novel as Ondaaje struggles to paint the glitzy underworld atmosphere of gambling halls and poker games. Claire runs into Coop in Tahoe where she saves his life for the second time and they are abandoned by Ondaatje, who is much more interested in telling Anne's story.The setting moves to South West France where Anne comes under the spell of Rafael a musician and traveller. Ondaatje is suddenly on safer ground, as he writes lyrically about love, desire and the beauty of the natural surroundings. Anne is researching the life of a fictional French writer; Lucien Segura. Ondaatje delves into the past of a war torn France to tell the back tale of Lucien and immediately the reader falls under the spell of some very fine writing. Ondaatje is describing a car journey through rural France:There was now not a single lit streetlamp in the villages we passed, just our headlights veering and sweeping along two lane roads. We were alone in the world, in nameless and unseen country. I love such journeying at night. You have most of your life strapped to your back. Music in the radio comes faint and intermittent. You are wordless at last. Your friend's hand on your knee to make sure you are not drifting away. The black hedges coax you on Ondaatje has written more books of poetry than novels and Divisidaro now slips into short episodic chapters that allows the author to demonstrate his wonderful poetic prose style. He tells of Lucien's fascination and love for Marie-Niege his brutal neighbours young wife, innocent and secret meetings, flowing water and repressed desire. We forgive Ondaatje for sometimes losing sight of his story because his writing is so fine. Lucien returns from the first world war and in a heartbreaking section cares for the ghost of Marie-Niege. Coop the gambler might just as well be in another world and possibly in another novel.Apparently this was Ondaatje's first novel after a seven year gap and the rustiness shows. He appears to have started off writing one novel and somewhere this has turned into someting quite different. Something quite better I would say, however the book as a whole does not quite work. There are echoes and themes running through the stories, but they seem to be forced. Ondaatje not at his very best.
    • 5/5
      Intimate and dream-like character exploration: Ondaatje at his best.
    • 5/5
      Ondaatje is truly an amazing writer; each book is a testament to his skill with language and imagery and this one is his finest. I hated for it to end; it was so beautiful to read and be memerized by his sentences. Reading this book makes you reflect on the fragility and mutability of identity and bonds. I plan to read it again.
    • 5/5
      Excellent narrator, lyrical prose
    • 2/5
      Confusing.
      There's the beginning plot, then it splinters, and from that another story and its backstory emerge. I really thought there would be a clearer tie in to the original story, of Clara and Ann and the boy, but it wasn't that strong. Maybe a re-read or proper study would help.
    • 3/5
      Exquisitely enigmatic tale told in inimitable loose-limbed style by Michael Ondaatje. Full of hazy connections and thwarted (as well as fulfilled) desire, the story meanders through France and the South-West US, jumps back and forth in time, and includes farmers, gamblers and writers among the cast of characters. Multi-layered to the point where some readers might have trouble digging themselves out from under all that significance. Still, Ondaatje is always worth a look.
    • 3/5
      It's very well written, but leaves the reader a little cold, thanks to an interesting narrative choice that takes the story from the present into the past rather abruptly.
    • 5/5
      Exquisite writing. A moving tail that weaves intricate patterns through loosley connected realtionships. The characters remain eternally isolated although, through brief encounters, they are allowed flighting moments of passionate, life changing connection.
    • 2/5
      It took the whole book before I felt I had anything like a handle on this book. The style does not sit comfortably. I couldn't grip or connect to the characters - I never did since the last quarter of the book is about different characters. As soon as I felt the book was getting somewhere, it changed. Ondaatje writes well, but seems to me, like so many men who 'write well', to be unable to connect with characters.
    • 3/5
      Somewhat disappointing book with a fair amount of literary dalliance; incomplete sentences, wrong tenses and no use of quotation marks. That being said there are some beautiful stretches and attention to detail when describing the characters' feelings and the lovely, or not, surroundings. The book is a little masculine for the subject and one loses connection with the protagonist about half way through the book. I believe there are better choices out there, sorry Kirkus!
    • 3/5
      about half way through. mo is a very good writer. enjoying it.
    • 4/5
      Michael Ondaatje is an amazing writer -- his use of language is beautiful. And, he tells a good story.This is the story of Anna, Claire and Cooper, living on a farm in the 1970s until an act of passion and violence rips the family apart forever. Anna leaves the family home, never to return. Yet, she finds herself immersed in a parallel life (that of author Lucien Segura and his family), proving that you can't ever get away from who you really are.The book is more like two intertwined stories rather than a novel. I came to care very much about Anna, Claire and Coop, and they pretty much disappeared from the book about half way through it. The story of Lucien Segura slowly grew on me, but it took a few hours after I'd finished reading the book to really appreciate how closely linked the two stories actually were.
    • 5/5
      Oh my god. Every once in a while and this happens like maybe once a year, I find, you read a book that is just the RIGHT BOOK at the right time. And this is it. Amazing. Gorgeous. It's hard to even say. Because there is also a roughness to it, to the characters that is almost gripping. That and, ta-dah it is so intricately structured. I love structures that I want to think about. And this is one. I want to just turn it over and read it again and again.It also makes me want to go back and read The History of Love which was that most perfect book about two years ago. Sigh. Now I have to read something very silly otherwise I will be sorely disappointed. Everyone who hasn't read this one must read it right away. You will be awed and amazed.
    • 5/5
      Although the plot lines are confusing at times, I really admire the resonance between the stories and the hopeful outlook for the strength of family connections without the explicit finality of happy endings.
    • 5/5
      I have now read three of Ondaatje's novels (The English Patient has had three readings at least) and this one was more convoluted than the others. I was going to describe it via the double helix, the side by side twisting of stories that intertwine. But that isn't quite right, because that vision is a little too symmetrical. The stories within Divisadero, while clearly related, don't have that symmetry going for them. The novel (pair of novellas? - some describe it this way) begins with three young people, Anna, Claire and Coop, who are brought up by the same man. Only one daughter is naturally his, the other two are raised by him due to varying circumstances; Claire brought home from the hospital after her birth (which took place where and when Anna was born) and Coop coming into their home when he was four.Neither one of them had made a move before the other. It felt as if one heart beat was at work. Anna - who used to leap around like a boy or a dog; the one who'd broken her wrist, which Coop had splinted up with willow before he drove her to a sawbones in Petaluma, and who dared her sister to walk across the highway by the reservoir blindfolded ('I'll pay you, Claire') and, when Claire didn't, did so herself; the one who read so constantly and carefully she always had a frown, as if gazing at a fly on the end of her nose - one day began walking up the east ridge to his cabin in sunlight, along the curving path the cows, and sometimes Alturas, took.As the near-siblings grow older, a closer and intimate relationship develops between two of them. Was what happened a sin or a natural act? You live within the crucible of a family long enough and you attach yourself to what you gaze on as a boy or a girl, some logic might say to explain what took place on that deck, in the silence where there was no hammering, a silence as if no other life was being lived.But tragedy hits when Anna's father finds them. The story picks up again years later and the once intertwined lives are now on different and very divergent paths. The raw truth of an incident never ends, and the story of Coop and the terrain of my sister's life are endless to me. They are the sudden possibility every time I pick up the telephone when it rings some late hour after midnight, and I wait for his voice, or the deep breath before Claire will announce herself. For I have taken myself away from who I was with them, and what I used to be. When my name was Anna.As in his previous novels, Mr. Ondaatje uses rich language and a circuitous path to tell the stories of these lives going back and forth in the telling to give it a multilayered texture that feels like a dance.