"Let me now re-emphasise the extreme looseness of the structure of all
objects" How Ondaatje makes use of "loosness" in the novel. In
“In The Skin Of A Lion” by Michael Ondaatje, “the extreme looseness of the
structure of all objects” is carried into the themes, characters and into the
nature of the novel itself. Ondaatje uses a “looseness” in the style of the
novel - post modernism, and “looseness of structure” in the way that people
are able to stretch and expand their boundaries: transform or mask themselves
into someone not typical of their social group. This novel was written in the
late 1980s and is classified as a post-modern work. Essentially, “In The Skin
Of A Lion” has many traits of a post-modern novel, it deals with chaos and
order, has multi-layered interpretations, provokes an ambiguous and mixed
reaction from the reader, and has varied approaches to the conventional
storyline; beginning, exposition, and closure. There are liberties taken with
the time structure of the narrative. The story itself is like a “mural, [the]
falling together of accomplices.” Ondaatje tells of ordinary people who’s
stories interlock and intersect, with many “fragments of human order”.
Ondaatje does not tell the stories loosely and scattered with no real purpose in
mind, he employs recurring images and motifs, for e.g. moths and insects,
feldspar. This is to provide continuity and relevance, and helps him to give a
view on the untold history of Toronto. An emphasis is placed on the story that
comes from different viewpoints and angles - the “chaos”, and then
structures it so that its order of history is “very faint, very human” as
opposed to official histories. It takes every single word from the first page to
the last, in order to make sense of the meanings, which “travel languorously
like messages in a bottle”. The novel’s storyline is not linear, it slides
from one character to the next, then slips and loses itself in the time that it
created, “five years earlier, or ten years into the future...” The prologue
only makes sense once the end is reached, and the bits in between all mingle and
melt into one another until most of the completed narrative is achieved. In
fact, it takes a few good readings to pick up the events and stitch them
together to create order, and only then are the meanings apparent. “Meander if
you want to get to town”. Even when the book is finished, there is no distinct
closure and finality of the narrative; the story itself is in the process of
being told. “This is a story a young girl gathers in a car…”, and in that
same way, it tells of how that car trip started, so the tale backs up on itself.
The novel constantly brings attention that it itself is a work of fiction. There
are constant references to art, music, drama, film, photography, and literature,
as well as devices used “You reach people through metaphor”. It implies that
it is a creation, “Only the best art can order the chaotic tumble of
events..” and even “The first sentence of every novel should be…”.
Authors, painters, singers and actors all feature highly in a book about
peoples’ creation of their lives and history. Ondaatje’s language in the
novel borders on poetry. Imagery, figurative language and emotive words abound
whenever he is being descriptive, or making a point. The second paragraph at the
beginning of “Caravaggio”, “by noon […] onto the blue metal”, has a
certain rhythm in the words and sentences, “Taking an innocent step/He would
fall through the air and die”, “joined by a rope - one on each slope”,
that somewhat mirrors lines in poetry. Poetic devices are in the scene of the
puppet-show. Similes “Machine locked in habit”, economic use of words
“exhausted statuary”, and repetition “There. There. There” effectively
convey a vivid image to the reader. There is not just flexibility in the
structure of the novel and how it is written, it is also carried into themes.
One of the issues deals with the looseness of boundaries, especially the
boundaries of stereotype and class, “Gestures, and work and bloodline are the
only currency”. This attitude is one that Ondaatje aims to challenge in the
novel. Boundaries could be physical, e.g. the bridge with the “lanterns
tracing outlines”. This kind is symbolical, the nun loses the boundaries and
falls over into a new existence. She takes on a new character and her past life
is obliterated, just by having stretched her boundaries. Boundaries could be
somewhat physical, in the mental sense. When Patrick sees the loggers skate
across ice holding fires, “his mind raced ahead of his body.” i.e. he has
been exposed to a realisation outside of his world. Language and people often
have barriers to cross, they “br[oke] through [their] chrysalis into
language” and by doing so, the structures of their world changes. Patrick
finally breaks through his isolation when he reaches out to communicate with
Elena and the Macedonians. He gained new friends, was admired and had to learn a
new culture. In this way Ondaatje expresses how life can change from extreme to
extreme, just by stretching and expanding boundaries. There is an insinuation
throughout the book of the superficiality of constraints. In many examples
through the book, Ondaatje lets us see how the “extreme looseness” is
carried into role playing. Alice is a mother, a political activist, a lover, and
an actress, all at once, and yet is the same being. The dyers “leapt into
different colours as if into different countries”, but the colour was disrobed
from them in a matter of minutes. Of course, the smell has permeated their body
eternally, perhaps symbolising that once a role is played, it remains with you
forever. When first becoming a ‘searcher’, the experience remained with
Patrick, “a searcher gazing into the darkness of his own country”, searching
for how to relate to the people around him and what his place was in his
country. So there is the significance of how loose boundaries and social casting
can be, and how life can oscillate from extreme to extreme. Structures such as
bridges and waterways also have a “loose” quality, in that its significance
is past its physical state. In many instances in this novel, Toronto
infrastructure is symbolic of the work achieved by the builders, and how it
exists because of the sacrifice of immigrant workers. "In The Skin Of A
Lion" is not just a book based on "looseness". Although it
creates looseness by its poetic devices, the non-linear time structure and the
post-modern nature of the novel, there is nothing loose about Ondaatje's
story-telling. There are constant ties and recurrent images in the narrative,
and even if the sequence of the events are not in chronological order, there is
no doubt that every significant event has been covered and cross-referenced. All
these literary devices contribute to the effect of looseness in the way the
novel is written. This is reflective of the themes, in that history's
interpretation can be loosened. There is "extreme looseness" in the
meaning of events to the people who built Toronto in comparison to the official
histories, and the symbolic natures of the "structure of all objects"
in the novel.