Michael Ondaatje's autobiographical novel, Running in the Family, is an imaginative reconstruction of the author's family history. A mixture of fact and fiction, the novel chronicles Ondaatje's attempt to gain insight into his own identity,
Fact and Fiction
Running in the Family Essay One
Michael Ondaatje's autobiographical novel, Running in the Family, is an imaginative reconstruction of the author's family history. A mixture of fact and fiction, the novel chronicles Ondaatje's attempt to gain insight into his own identity, by better understanding his parents and relatives. Through the stories of his family, Michael Ondaatje merges the lines of fact and fiction. “Gillian begins to describe to everyone present how I used to be bathed when I was five. She heard this story in detail from Yasmine Gooneratnem, who was a prefect with her at Bishop's College for Girls. (p.137)” During these family events, stories are told to and we, the reader learn more about Michael’s family.
Within the entire novel, blurs of the lines of fiction and fact occur. "My Grandmother died in the blue arms of a jacaranda tree. She could read thunder." It is impossible to die in a tree that is blue, since trees are not blue. Michael talks about how is grandmother, Lalla was a bit strange. She claimed to have been born outdoors. There is no evidence that this is true and Michael himself is not sure he believes her as well. Ondaatje offers diverse account of certain incidents and the retellings of isolated events, about which Michael couldn't logically witness these intimate details.
In the novel, Michael returns to Ceylon for the first time, since he was a child. He returned to Ceylon to meet relatives and hear what they have to share, in order to learn about his family. The novel consists of stories about Ondaatje's aristocratic family with their interspersed accounts of Michael’s families’ experiences, while he was visiting Ceylon. As the novel progresses, the reader learns that Ondaatje left Ceylon to live with his mother in England. During this time, his father, who remained in Ceylon, died in his absence. It becomes increasingly clear that Ondaatje's desire to understand his family is, ultimately a desire to know and understand his father. This hole of knowledge about his Michael’s father is an empty space in his identity and this emptiness haunts him throughout the novel. Thus this trip is a quest to fill that empty space.
