Reality and Ambiguity

Michael Ondaatje is widely accepted as a writer of reality, but how he defines reality is a recurring theme within his work. Most often, the world he describes is chaotic, and the typical human response to it is panic. But at the center of the chaos, and, therefore, the center of the panic, lies a good reason for both: ambiguity. Very little is clear-cut in this poet's world. Even his daughter turned out to be not what he was "expecting," but rather something he likes even more. Her own life is full of turmoil and uncertainty, easily attributed to the fact that she's a teenager, but, even so, she is not the "usual" adolescent girl. We can simply list the images that portray her qualities, her emotions, her likes and dislikes to note a type of self-inflicted chaos: belligerent goalies, threats, cuts and wounds, purple moods...