In the skin of a lion door Michael Ondaatje

Title: IN THE SKIN OF A LION
Writer: MICHAEL ONDAATJE
Pages: 244

1.Time and place:

This story is situated in Toronto, Canada, of the 1930s. The story starts with the childhood of Patrick Lewis; to give the head character a background. Then the story goes further when Patrick is 21 years old. Between the chapters of the main story you have short stories that tell a complete other story, that you will need to understand the main story further on in the book. There are also many flashbacks. The story is actually a short version of almost the whole life of Patrick Lewis, the head character.

2.The characters:

-Patrick Lewis:
He’s born in North Ontario in Canada. As a young boy he helped his father with letting rocks and trees explode, but when his father dies, he goes to Toronto. He doesn’t really have an own opinion, but after his beloved dies he finally sees that government of Toronto has bad policy. He decides to revenge Alice and to come up for the rights of his fellow workers. He first falls in love with Clara Dickens, but when she leaves him for a millionaire he falls after a few years in love with Alice Gull.
-Clara Dickens:
She’s a radio actress and mistress of millionaire Ambrose Small. When Ambrose disappeared, Patrick offered her to find Ambrose. She accepted and a bit later she seduced him. They started a relationship but nevertheless she left him for Ambrose a few weeks later. She never stopped loving him.
-Alice Gull:
She‘s a theater actress and girlfriend of Patrick Lewis. She has one daughter, Hana, her father died while he came up for his rights. Alice comes up for the rights of foreign countrymen and workers. She’s the best friend of Clara and after Clara leaves Patrick, she becomes his lover. She dies at the cause of a bomb that exploded in her shopping bag.
-Ambrose Small:
He’s a millionaire of Toronto, who disappeared in 1919. Between 1910 and 1919 Ambrose Small had been the jackal of Toronto’s business world. He owned all the theaters of Ontario, 96 in total. He married Theresa Kormann and Clara Dickens was his lover. The police never found him, they thought he was dead, but actually he lived in Bellrock with Clara. In 1938 Ambrose died from a natural cause.
-Caravaggio:
He’s Toronto’s best thief. In prison he becomes friends with Patrick Lewis, who helps him escape. He’s married with Giannetta, who he met during his first theft. He also helped Patrick getting in the water facility.

3.Revue:

It’s not easy to tell the story in short, because the story makes a lot of time leaps, there are also lots of flashbacks and separated short stories that you make understand the further story.
The story is about the life of Patrick Lewis. The story begins with his childhood. Patrick lives his father Hazen Lewis in Bellrock, Ontario. He helps him with his job. One day a log that flung towards him during an explosion kills his father. At the age of 21 Patrick moves to Toronto. There he works as a ‘searcher’, that someone who searches missing persons. He searches for Ambrose Small and so he meets Clara Dickens, his lover. Together they try to find Ambrose and after a while they fall in love. A few months later she leaves him to rejoin Ambrose, who shelters in Bellrock. On the last two days together Patrick meets Alice Gull, Clara’s best friend. Afterwards Patrick works at the waterworks; there he lets rocks explode so they his fellow workers can dig a tunnel. Next to the main story, the storyteller also tells the story about how everyone went searching for the missing Ambrose, how Nicholas Temelcoff saved a, from a bridge, falling nun and later on he tells how Caravaggio escapes from prison. After a while Patrick meets Alice again at a theater play at the water works. They fall in love. After a few years he discovers that Alice was a nun, the nun who fall of a bridge and who was believed to be dead. Alice tries to convince Patrick that he has to come op for his rights, but she fails. Only after she dies, he becomes a rebel and tries to revenge the dead of his beloved. He lets a hotel exploded, but afterwards he’s captured and lands into jail. There he meets Caravaggio and helps him to escape from prison. When Patrick is released he decides to revenge Alice’s death. Together with Caravaggio he captures a yacht and sails to the water facility. At the water works (or later the water facility) he lost a lot of fellow workers and in the battle for their rights he lost his wife. There’s one reason for all those deaths and his name is Commissioner Harris. After many riots Harris lets the symbol of his power, the water facility, be strongly guarded. He self stays every night at his office at the facility with a gun at his side. Patrick manages to break in the facility and plants a few explosives in the facility. Afterwards he goes to the office of Harris. After a long talk with him, explaining why he does it, he falls wounded in sleep. Strangely enough Harris lets him go without punishment. A few days later Clara calls him and tells him that Ambrose is dead. She asks him to pick her up in Marmora. Together with Hana he drives to Clara and in the meanwhile he tells Hana his life story.

4.My thoughts:

In the beginning the story is quite difficult to understand what the story is about, because of the stories that have on first sight nothing to do with each other. Only in the second half of the book the puzzle is fitted together. So finally it becomes a quite good story. I think it is based on true facts of Toronto’s history. The book also focuses on the problems at the North American continent during the first half of the 20th century. Especially on the problems with foreign citizens, who barely spoke English. The book tells you how life was in Toronto in the beginning of the 20th century and that I liked very much.