Hi my dear classmates!

This week in our ASTU class, we read and discussed the book Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje. Running in the Family is a memoir where Ondaatje collected the memory and comments from his family in Sri Lanka. For me, Running in the Family is different from other books I read before, not only because of Ondaatje’s identity as a Sri-Lanka born Canadian, but also because he shows the process of collecting the fragments of family memory in the book and uses different narrative perspectives. Matthew Bolton says there are two main critiques about Running in the Family: Ondaatje’s ethic identity and historical inaccuracy.

In this blog, I’d like to share with you how I think of the way Ondaatje tell the story according to these two main critiques.

First, about ethic identity, Mukherjee argues that Ondaatje “undermines the notion of the national subject”, because he has immigrated from Sri Lanka to Canada and lived in Canada for years. However, I don’t think Ondaatje’s identity causes any problem for telling his family history. In contrast, his identity makes the story unique. Unlike the authors of other memoirs, I have read before. Ondaatje doesn’t show himself as the participant of his family history all the time. He also tells the story about how does he collect the memoir and where he gains his relatives’ anecdote. For example, in the beginning of Running in the family, Ondaatje goes back to Sri Lanka and describe the scene where he traces his ancestry history with his aunt and sister (Running in the Family, page 7). I believe Ondaatje never wants to tell his story as a person who is familiar with his family history and Sri Lanka but as an emigrant who traces back to his family’s history, as both witness and participate.

The way Ondaatje tells the story also reminds readers the story might not be accurate because they were collected from people’s dictation and memory. After reading this book, I changed the way to think other memoirs and history books. I never doubt the accuracy of the autobiography before, because the authors are mostly celebrities and they use a lot of details (like photos) to make me believe automatically that they’re telling truth. I rarely questioned history books, and now I start to think that the authors might change the fact or show the fact selectively to achieve their own purposes. Thus, unlike the critics that accuse Ondaatje of telling inaccurate history, I think Ondaatje has reminded the readers of the stories are collected from personal perspectives.

These are my opinions about Running in the Family. Hope everyone can survive and get good grade in midterm！