| The nature of Ondaatje's fiction is hybrid; it is never one thing at one time but instead multiple in its construction and appeal. The best way to approach an understanding of Ondaatje's work is to follow his lead offered in one of his two epigraphs that introduces In the Skin of a Lion . Ondaatje quotes John Berger insisting, “Never again will a single story be told as though it were the only one.” Ondaatje's narrativity necessitates the value of the individual, without priority, whether historical personage, fictionalized character, or even reader or writer, in the constant process of constructing “world” in a multiplicity of space and perspective.; In validating the individual perspective through a narrative structure derived from combined performative and gesture art, the traditional grip of a singular, linear perspective is lessened. From this perspective, one can easily make the claim that Ondaatje's narrativity mimics Cubism, operating simultaneously on many planes and perspectives, seeking out a continuous, supple response to language, image, and the elements of storytelling. Like Cubism, memory, imagination and event are not prioritized in Ondaatje's narrativity; one is not distinguished by authenticity over the other.; Cubism disturbs continuous, sequential space, though never destroying it totally; these same spatial configurations and relations mark Ondaatje's fiction. Space inside of Ondaatje's fiction, like Cubist space, offers a sense of relational, if not uniform composition and aims for a far more complex image of reality than previously offered by literature.; Ondaatje's Cubist style lends facility to defusing the phenomena of exotification because it necessitates reader involvement in the performance of the text. By investing his readers in the characters of his fiction, by necessitating the readers role in establishing momentary perspectives, by demanding reader participation in the performance of his fiction, Ondaatje effectively loosens the stranglehold of old world orders of power, position, and perspective and re-establishes a sort of neo-romantic relationship between the reader and the text. The Cubist narrative, so ecumenically constructed by Ondaatje, questions traditional paradigms of authority. Ondaatje convincingly argues for a re-consideration of the non-linear perspective that can at its very least make room for overlapping inconsistencies found within the human condition. |
