FREE ESSAY ON LOOSENESS - "IN THE SKIN OF A LION" BY MICHAEL ONDAATJE

LOOSENESS - "IN THE SKIN OF A LION" BY MICHAEL ONDAATJE

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.
Melissa-Ann Chan
Bibliography
In the Skin Of A Lion- Michael Ondaatje