Perspective

The perspective of Running in the Family is that of Michael Ondaatje, the famed author of The English Patient, and writer of this memoir. Nothing political or religious arises out of the pages of the book. Instead, Michael is focused on close social relationships. Despite the fact that Ceylon was a colony of various imperial powers, and Ondaatje's postmodern style of writing, he does not take up a discussion of colonialism at any time. So these typically larger biases in other writers are indiscernible in the text.

Ondaatje's perspective is that of a middle-aged man reconstructing his youth in a far-off and often magical-seeming place, Ceylon or modern-day Sri Lanka. He also writes from the perspective of a child wounded by his parents' divorce and his father's addiction to alcohol.

Because Michael's father was too proud to let anyone into his emotional life, he found comfort in his...