The story begins at a farm in Santa Rosa, CA with three children - Claire and Anna, raised as sisters and motherless and Coop, a boy who was left an orphan after a tragedy on his neighboring farm. The three of them grow up together and yet in one moment the lives they know become ripped apart through love and violence.
We follow Coop through a future of gambling and drifting. We find Anna in France writing about the life of a French poet whose story mirrors the truth of her own.
Ondaatje is a master of prose. I wanted to climb into his words like a hammock in order to be enveloped by their beauty. Lines like "lightning lit up the river like a path through history and she grabbed the boy to stop him from leaping into its brief beauty" and "the three of them, she had always believed, made up a three-panelled Japanese screen, each one self-sufficient, but revealing different qualities or tones when placed beside the others" affirm Ondaatje's magic with words.
Yet, the story left me wanting something more. Some more resolution with Coop, Claire and Anna. I am left with the story of Lucien through which I am supposed to read more deeply into to find the essence of Anna, Coop and Claire's story.
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