Michael Ondaatje Interview: We Can't Rely on One Voice
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Man Booker Prize winner Michael Ondaatje, widely known for the novel ‘The English Patient’, here contemplates how his novels always start with a landscape and end with a conversation. It’s through these different voices that his stories truly come alive.
“The lyric is a kind of small gift, and the fiction is more like putting on a theatrical production.” Ondaatje compares the distinction between sitting down to write a poem or a novel to that of choosing whether to go long-distance swimming or go for a sprint. Whereas novels are “a huge landscape you have to depict and cover and cross,” poetry is “very much like you whispering to somebody… about a small aspect of something.”
A vast amount of research goes into Ondaatje’s novels, and as a result he uncovers many new things and opinions. This element of discovery is not only one of the aspects of writing that gives him pleasure, but also what makes the story reliable, he argues, quoting from English poet John Berger’s novel ‘G’: “We can no longer rely on only one speaker. We can’t rely on only just one voice.” Through the conversation between his different characters and their dissimilar voices, Ondaatje thus explores a literary - and political - form and again cites John Berger to sum up: “Never again will a single story be told as though it were the only one.”
Michael Ondaatje (b. 1943) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet. He moved to England in 1954 when he was 11, and in 1962 moved to Canada where he has lived ever since. Among his novels and poetry collections are ‘Coming Through Slaughter’ (1976), ‘The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems’ (1981), ‘In the Skin of a Lion’ (1987), ‘The English Patient’ (1992) for which he won the Booker Prize and which was later adapted into a movie, ‘Handwriting: Poems’ (1998), ‘Anil’s Ghost’ (2000), ‘Divisadero’ (2007) and ‘The Cat’s Table’ (2011). In 1988 Ondaatje was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and in 2005 we has honoured with Sri Lanka Ratna, the highest honour given by the Government of Sri Lanka for foreign nationals.
Michael Ondaatje was interviewed by Tonny Vorm in connection to the Louisiana Literature festival at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in August 2014.
Camera: Klaus Elmer
Edited by: Sonja Strange
Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2015
Supported by Nordea-fonden
Пікірлер: 26
"a community as opposed to one voice" This one statement leaves us all with many lessons. Indeed a beautiful description of the writing process.
What a beautiful way to describe poetry as a little gift. As if you're whispering. I'm reading his work Coming Through Slaughter, it's fragmentally beautiful, all his words in this interview now make his work read that much brighter.
Very inspiring. And he seems to be a very lovely person! Thank you for sharing :)
Poetry is like whispering, to the soul or somebody. And all starts with an image. This is really inspiring. So glad I could watch this and am all set to start one more exciting reading.
04mscentrum I'd read all his books-some, many times over, to shreds. THE ENGISH PATIENT is a fav...glad I have the paperback edition with the Original illustration...not the movie photo.A brilliant author, who also seems quite thoughtful and kind, and not in love with himself.Primarily a poet, I still keenly identified with his fiction and poetry writing comments.Lovely talk!
You are a living legend of the world of creativity today. He must have been awarded with the Nobel Prize for Literature long ago but once again........
@peterkelnerxd7009
10 ай бұрын
Since Bob Dylan won it anyone who can write should get one
Thanks for uploading this video.
At 60 I know that it's so important that one is influenced by someone great in a person to person context...so that if that event never really takes place then one kinda manufactures or amplifies a set of surrogate experiences to take its place.
Great advice ! Proud of you .....
Proud to be a Sri Lankan
Happiness is getting a chance to study his works under diasporic studies#Anil's Ghost... Such a great man
Great advice, thanks! 🤔
I had never even heard of Michael Ondaatje until I heard him mentioned by John Irving when he was having a virtual interview about his own novel, The Last Chairlift.
I came here because I am reading running in the family for IB english, tryna get some ideas on how to write my essay here
@catherineluk2414
3 жыл бұрын
same, i honestly really like the book
@quanlai4823
3 жыл бұрын
@@catherineluk2414 not me 😂 my teacher spent 2 months on that book and we had to do different assignments for each chapter
@catherineluk2414
3 жыл бұрын
@@quanlai4823 WE SPENT ONE WEEK BECAUSE IF THE QUARTER SYSTEM AND ONLY DID 2 REFLECTIONS
Interesting style of interview, where we never see the interviewer or hear the questions. It doesn't cause any serious problems in this case, but I'm curious about it. Perhaps it's a reaction against exhibitionistic interviewers.
Who is the interviewer in this video? Thanks.
@frodolasimli
3 жыл бұрын
Tonny Vorm
i need someone to write me an essay about warlight
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