In the Skin of a Lion

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There is great attention to detail here, especially when it comes to the construction of bridges and tunnels, but it is beautifully written and wildly realistic. In 1930, Patrick is working as a dynamiter on a tunnel under Lake Ontario, a project of Commissioner Rowland Harris. If I could do it over again, I would have read 'In the Skin of a Lion' before reading 'The English Patient'.

Then Arthur Goss, the city photographer, packs up his tripod and glass plates, unhooks the cord of lights that creates a vista of open tunnel behind the two men, walks with his equipment the fifty yards to the ladder, and climbs out into sunlight. As a regular visitor to Toronto, I found the description of the city decades ago to be really quite fascinating and the characterisation was good.Looking at it now, I can see - sort of - how he does it; interweaving various past tenses with the heroic present of Nicholas labouring on the bridge. Patrick's father, Hazen Lewis, becomes a dynamiter and is meticulous when washing his clothes each evening to remove remnants of explosives on his apparel.

The first chapter, "Little Seeds," describes the growing years of the main character, Patrick Lewis, providing causation for his subsequent actions in the novel. I was amazed at how political In the Skin of a Lion is, I had Ondaatje down in my mind as a somewhat artsy poetic type that uses a lot of words to skirt the ineffable. The structure of the book is sometimes described as "postmodern" - I don't know why, it seems entirely natural and chronological to me. When Alice joins them, Patrick is amazed by the friendship and complicity that exists between the two women.Caravaggio and his wife Gianetta help Patrick with a scheme to blow up the Waterworks building, to get revenge on the rich Commissioner Harris, who envisioned the extravagant project without regard to how many lives of the laborers it took. Ondaatje introduces several characters, some of which will appear again in his later novel, The English Patient.