Running in the Family (1998) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Characters/People edit see section history

• Gillian: Add a description of this character.
• Noel
• Lana
• Trevor
• John Kotelawala
• Ulla
• Francis
• Susan
• John Kotelawela
• Lalla
• Hilden
• Doris Gratiaen
• Dickie
• Arthur
• Maureen
• Rene
• Aelian
• Mervyn
• David Grenier
• Stephy
• Phyllis
• Latta
• Janet

Quotes edit see section history

• “The island seduced all of Europe. The Portuguese. The Dutch. The English. And so its name changed, as well as its shape,_Serendip, Ratnapida ("island of gems"), Taprobane, Zeloan, Zeilan, Seyllan, Ceilon, and Ceylon_ the wife of many marriages, courted by invaders who stepped ashore and claimed everything with the power of their sword or bible or language.”

• “Ajoutha -a card game that normally takes a least eight hours. I was a game the Portuguese had taught the Sinhalese in the 15th century to keep them quiet and preoccupied while they invaded the country.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• But nothing is said of the closeness between two people: how they grew in the shade of each other’s presence. No one speaks of that exchange of gift and character—the way a person took on and recognized in himself the smile of a lover.

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• Truth disappears with history and gossip tells us in the end nothing of personal relationships.

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• They could have almost drowned or fallen in love and their lives would have been totally changed during any one of those evenings.

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• To kneel on the floors of a church built in 1650 and see your name chiseled in large letters so that it stretches from your fingertips to your elbow in some strange way removes vanity, eliminates the personal. It makes your own story a lyric. So the sound which came immediately out of my mouth as I half-gasped and called my sister spoke all that excitement of smallness, of being overpowered by stone.

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• In Jane Austen’s Persuasion I had come across the lines, “she had been forced into prudence in her youth—she learned romance as she grew older—the natural sequence of an unnatural beginning.”

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• The island seduced all of Europe. The Portuguese. The Dutch. The English. And so its name changed, as well as its shape—Serendip, Ratnapida (“island of gems”), Taprobane, Zeloan, Zeilan, Seyllan, Ceilon, and Ceylon—the wife of many marriages, courted by invaders who stepped ashore and claimed everything with the power of their sword or bible or language.

  Highlighted by 6 Kindle customers

• No story is ever told just once. Whether a memory or funny hideous scandal, we will return to it an hour later and retell the story with additions and this time a few judgements thrown in. In this way history is organized.

  Highlighted by 5 Kindle customers

• I witnessed everything. One morning I would wake and just smell things for the whole day, it was so rich I had to select senses. And still everything moved slowly with the assured fateful speed of a coconut falling on someone’s head, like the Jaffna train, like the fan at low speed, like the necessary sleep in the afternoon with dreams blinded by toddy.

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• It was two and a half years later, after several modest letters about his successful academic career, that his parents discovered he had not even passed the entrance exam and was living off their money in England.

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• The doors are twenty feet high, as if awaiting the day when a family of acrobats will walk from room to room, sideways, without dismantling themselves from each other’s shoulders.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Colombo
• Ceylon
• England
• Kegalle
• Rock Hill
• Cambridge
• Kandy
• Nuwara Eliya
• Jaffna
• Trincomalee
• Canada
• Anuradhapura
• Asia
• Gasanawa
• Wilpattu

First Sentence edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Michael Ondaatje (Author)
2. Alexandr Stich (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 818.5409

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( O ) › Ondaatje, Michael
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › People, A-Z › ( O ) › Ondaatje, Michael
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Arts & Literature › Authors
• Books › History › Asia › Sri Lanka
• Books › Reference › Genealogy
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Memoirs

More Books Like This edit see section history