Fascinating literature by the Ondaatje brothers

Miran Perera

The Ondaatje brothers Michael and Sir Christopher are perhaps the first Sri Lankans to achieve world acclaim as prolific authors from Asia. Michael Ondaatje is a renowned novelist and poet, the author of the world famous book ‘The English Patient’. His latest accomplishment is ‘Divisadero’. Michael does judge a book or even a magazine by its cover, not to mention its type face, paper weight, binding, glyphs, punctuation and spelling preferences. Michael hates to have an ugly book as he thinks it is an insult.

Michael’s brother Christopher (now Sir Christopher being Knighted by the Queen) on retiring from the high pressure world of finance, one might expect a millionaire businessman to settle into a gentle routine of golf, gardening, and the odd gin and tonic.

But when Sir Christopher Ondaatje turned his back on the boardroom he wasn’t tempted by the quiet life. Instead he longed for adventure and knew that the best way to find it was to track down the love of his life - leopards.

In Sri Lanka where Michael was born the spoken word was more valued than the written word. A teller of tall tales was prized above all. In England where Michael attended boarding school an already written and formidable cannon seemed to discourage newcomers.

But when he arrived in Canada at 19 at the urging of his brother Christopher, Michael Ondaatje found a culture that was beginning to blossom still unspoken and unwritten in some ways. Leopards have become a fascination to Sir Christopher and it really started in 1946 when he was 12 years old, in what was then South East of Ceylon.

Sir Christopher was with his father in the Yala game reserve when he saw the first leopard. Anybody who has seen a leopard will remember the first time quite apart from its spectacular beauty the leopard is a stealthy thing and it sorts of creeps in to your line of vision and out again. It is a dangerous cat and it has a real aura of danger about it. In the two decades that have passed since Sir Christopher sold his multi billion dollar business, leopards have become a muse like presence in his life and his work.

Unlike Christopher his brother Michael acquired at least some of his gifts internationally and cross culturally. A map of Michael’s imagination would have to include the jungles of Sri Lanka.

The ruins of post war Europe, the lawless wild west and the rolling hills of Northern California. Michael’s pen is dipped in all these places and their histories. But one can blame Canada forgiving Michael his talents their full expression. Michael thinks that he would not have become a writer if he had not come to Canada. Christopher has written books about leopards and he has got a leopard in every single book he has written. In his first autobiography he uses a leopard as a metaphor for his tyrannical father.

They are a part of the world he lived in since he chucked the gruesome world of finance. Sir Christopher’s latest book ‘The Glenthorne Cat’ is an anthology of fictional and true stories which he was inspired to compile by his tune on the trail of leopards.

In it Christopher recounts his own experiences of hunting for leopards alongside stories of man eaters that terrorised villages across India and Africa plus mythical accounts of beautiful if sometimes deadly creatures.

Michael Ondaatje’s novels and poems have imagined the life of Billy the Kid depicted the scarred and burned victims of World War II explored the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka plunged into the world of immigrant workers at the Toronta Waterworks and channelled jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden. For Michael books need to have their feet on the earth in some way. They begin with a reality of a place or a time or a situation and then gradually becomes fiction.

Having tracked leopards in Sri Lanka, India and africa and written about them Sir Christopher is under no illusion about the nature of the beasts. A cornered leopard is the most dangerous beast in the world.

Having said that it’s also beautiful and also in books but its beauty has caused it to be ruthlessly murdered for its hide. In Africa, in India, and in Sri Lanka they still poach leopards and they do still sell hides. Leopards have been so far the life of Sir Christopher and his books too are about them.

Michael Ondaatje’s most recent work after ‘The English Patient’ and ‘Handwriting’ is ‘Divisadero’ which has its feet on the hills of ‘Petaluma’ where Michael set up shop at a friend’s farm in 2001 after a stint at Stanford University.

The fresh landscape and a story he heard of a local woman’s horse going berserk in the barn were the match strikes for a new novel. ‘Divisadero’ set in 1970s California features a makeshift family born of pain and loss.

There is Anna whose mother died during childbirth. Her adopted sister Claire whose mother died in childbirth on the same day and their foster brother Coop who was taken in by the girls’ father after his family was murdered on a neighbouring farm.

The sisters fight for their fathers, each others and Coops attentions, a tension packed dynamic that builds towards an unforgettable and shocking act of violence.

From there the story moves to Vegas where Coop becomes a card sharp and France where Anna robbed permanently of her own family history immerses herself in writing the biography of a forgotten writer.

Sir Christopher Ondaatje was born in Sri lanka in 1933 and was educated in England before emigrating to Canada in 1956 with only a few Pounds in his pocket. But his talent for business saw him set up the publishing house Pagurian Press which eventually became the enormously successful Pagurian Corporation.

However while his wealth allowed him to make generous philanthropic gestures donating $ 60 million to a variety of causes in his 40-year career, his heart lay far away from the board room. Of their father Michael writes; yet he still one of those books we long to read whose pages remain uncut.

The Ondaatjes Michael and Sir Christopher will build on whatever stories remaining in their blood. No story is ever told just once. Whether a memory or a funny hideous scandal the Ondaatjes will return to it an honour later and retell the story with additions and this time a few judgements thrown in.

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