Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



My reading of Warlight was preceded by that of All the Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy. It kind of feels strange to be brooding over a few similarities that I experienced while reading these works. And no, these aren’t much alike except that both of these works dwell upon uncertainties brought about by wars and how they affect certain lives. Also, at the center is a protagonist abandoned by his mother (Nathaniel is 14 and Myshkin only 9 at the time).

In ALWNL, the mother is an artist whereas in Warlight, she is a spy. In that manner, the war doesn’t have the same bearing upon their lives apart from the void that their absence creates which isn’t easy either to fill or to transcend. And though it wouldn’t be fair to compare the experience of reading these works with each other, because of different stories and narrative styles, I find my mind working otherwise.

In ALWNL, Myshkin is continually in touch with his mother through the letters they write to each other. So, he is not looking for answers to some questions but is only longing for a reunion with his mother. In Warlight, Nathaniel and his sister Rachel have no idea about the whereabouts of their mother and right through the end we see Nathaniel trying to put together the pieces of their lives. Myshkin lives a protected life, surrounded by family and friends. Nathaniel is continuously confronted with strangers, trying to find a sense of belongingness. Myshkin never gets to see his mother ever again, but through her letters is able to understand her. Nathaniel, on the other hand, reunites with his mother, only to find a stranger in her.

When Rose returns to her children after war, she and Nathaniel relocate to her native place for she is afraid of the threat that looms over their lives as an aftermath of being a wartime spy.

In the author’s hand, we find a narrative that is poignant in the description of lives mired in the uncertainties of war, of their carefully guided secrets and of unfulfilled lives. It seems more like homage to the spies of war, whose existence is never acknowledged publicly and sometimes, may not reverberate with the commonly held notions of love and affection by the family. In the hazy war light, when rest of the country gets ready to shed the visage of gloom, even their shadows disappear mysteriously. One cannot help but wonder about the imperceptible magnitude of their sufferings and whether they ever get healed.

It is a notable work in wartime fiction. The only thing that did not go down well with me was the shift in narrative voice at certain places. At some places, where we are made privy to events in Rose’s childhood, the events which no one could have known, the shift from Nathaniel to an omniscient narrator is quite bewildering. Though Nathaniel says that he "knows how to fill in a story from a grain of sand" but the shift left the reader befuddled a bit as it evaded the sense of a much anticipated closure.

Since it was my first Ondaatje, I am not familiar with author's writing style. Perhaps reading of more of his works would let me understand how he works with memories.


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