Short-sightedly overlooked by last year's Booker panel, Ondaatje's powerful political, and polemical, lament is far less impressionistic than The English Patient (1992). It triumphs through its inspired ambiguity and weary candour as it depicts the horrors tearing Sri Lanka apart. This calm, melancholic novel acts as a metaphor for many things, particularly human loss weighed against the enduring patience of nature. Although the narrative is driven more by situation than character, the characterisation convinces. Anil, once a local swim star, has returned home to Sri Lanka from the US where she has trained as a doctor and is now a forensic anthropologist. She is also representing an international human rights organisation. Still gnawing over a disastrous relationship, she is a real person not a campaigning heroine. She is assigned to work with Sarath, an archaeologist. The language is less lyrical than might be expected of Ondaatje the poet. But it is vivid, evoking a sense of the beautiful island landscape.
