Ondaatje ∗coming Through∗ Slaughter - Hardcover

ONDAATJE, M

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393087654 ISBN 13: 9780393087659

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co., 1977

Synopsis

Many readers still claim this haunting, atmospheric novel of Michael Ondaatje's as their first love - a novel as sensual and erotic today as ever it was. At the turn of the century, the Storyville district of New Orleans had some 2000 prostitutes, 70 professional gamblers, and 30 piano players. But it had only one man who played the cornet like Buddy Bolden - he who cut hair by day at N. Joseph's Shaving Parlor, and at night played jazz, unleashing an unforgettable wildness and passion in crowded rooms. Self-destructively in love with two women, he embodied all the dire claims that music places on its acolytes. At the age of 31, Buddy Bolden went mad. From these sparse facts, Michael Ondaatje has created a story as beautiful and chilling as a New Orleans funeral procession, where even the mourners dance.

About this title

Review:

"Anybody who cares about good writing ... should get this book and luxuriate in it." -- "Minneapolis Tribune""One of the most innovative and liberating writers of our time." -- Geoff Dyer, "The Observer""A beautifully detailed story, perhaps the finest jazz novel ever written." -- "The Sunday Times"""Coming Through Slaughter" ... is so stuffed full of the dolour and lust that both buoys and blemishes a life, it reads like a story dying to be told." -- "Books in Canada"

From the Back Cover:

At the turn of the century, the Storyville district of New Orleans had some 2,000 prostitutes, 70 professional gamblers, and 30 piano players. It had only one man who played the cornet like Buddy Bolden. By day he cut hair and purveyed gossip at N. Joseph's Shaving Parlor. At night he played jazz as though unleashing wild animals in a crowded room. At the age of thirty-one, Buddy Bolden went mad. From these sparse facts Michael Ondaatje has created a haunting, lushly atmospheric novel about one of jazz's legendary pioneers and martyrs. Obsessed with death, addicted to whiskey, and self-destructively in love with two women, Buddy Bolden embodies all the dire claims that music places on its acolytes. And as told in Coming Through Slaughter, his story is as beautiful and chilling as a New Orleans funeral procession, where even the mourners dance.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.
• Publication date: 1977
• ISBN 10: 0393087654
• ISBN 13: 9780393087659
• Binding: Hardcover