This Is Probably...So Far....His Best Book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                    I will be frank, dears; you know I always am!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                    Both the book and the film of "The English Patient" were absolute trash.  How they earned the praise they did is still incomprehensible to me.

                                      So, Michael Ondaatje tended to be a writer I always avoided.

                                      I refused to read "Anil's Ghost," when it came out, and, in some book group I was in, had to read "Divisadero."  As Linda Richmond would say, "No big whoop!"

                                       But the word on the street was that "Warlight" was good.  I had my suspicions, because Ondaatje is one of those authors who lands himself on The New York Times year end list, no matter what.

                                       Still, it had been awhile.  So, I decided to give it a try.

                                       It will probably land on that Times list.  I am not saying it should or shouldn't, but I will say this--of the few book of his I have read, I found this to be the most moving and engaging.

                                        This is almost a re-imagining of Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend," set in World War II England.  Two children, Nathan and Rachel, are abandoned by their parents, raised by a Dickensian figure called The Darter, who has an equally Dickensian collection of friends and cohorts, without knowing what it is their parents are actually doing, though it has something to do with wartime matters.

                                          Nathan, in adulthood, who, by now, is estranged from his sister, Rachel, who has gone into theater--well, when one wants to escape, darlings, what better place to go???-- sets out to find the secrets of his past.  What he discovers is not altogether pleasant or comforting.  But it is realistic.

                                            This was as absorbing a book that I have read, coming from Ondaatje.  The non-linear structure works, the Dickensian influences are unmistakable, and help, and the book turns out to be far more engaging than I could have imagined from this writer.  It is not a contender for my Ten Best, but for those who admire this author, those readers will not be disappointed.  As for those, like myself, who do not, a surprise is in store.

                                                I pictured the whole thing as a black-and-white, Forties noir movie. If only those Forties noir actors were still around, this would have made quite a movie.

                                                 It's worth a try, girls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!