![]() Also crucial to the development of this theme is the way the novel’s conclusion ties into its prologue: All these stories lead back to the beginning of a story. In this novel set in early twentieth-century Canada, Michael Ondaatje chronicles the radicalization of a young working man, Patrick Lewis, which leads him to a path of domestic. Nicholas acknowledges this phenomenon when he is reminded of the episode with the nun on the bridge, as he discovers “the pleasure of recall. ![]() Single stories transform into history as they’re retold and contextualized within a broader narrative. But he flourished as a writer in Canada, land of newcomers. Drawing an analogy to the performance of a street-band, he notes how gratifying it is to arrive at “an ending full of embraces after the solos had made everyone stronger, more delineated” (144-45). Michael Ondaatje had a shattered childhood, torn first from his parents and then from his homeland, Sri Lanka. Most notably, as Patrick discovers Alice’s former identity as the unnamed nun who fell off the viaduct, he perceives that “his own life no longer a single story but part of a mural” (145). This narrative phenomenon is echoed by the characters themselves and in the individual plot lines. In the Skin of a Lion is a love story and an irresistible mystery set in the turbulent, muscular new world of Toronto in the 20s and 30s. The plot is developed in individual cells that are gradually pieced together to reveal a continuous whole. ![]() The most striking aspect of In the Skin of a Lion is its idiosyncratic, nonlinear, kaleidoscopic narrative style. ![]()
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