The Photograph

I do believe that the chapter entitled "The Photograph," in Running in the Family, is a reminder of Geoffrey Douglas's "autobiography" The Classmates. Ondaatje looks at a photograph of his parents on their honeymoon and he describes it in full detail, how his parents are posed, what their faces look like, etc. We see the photograph on the following page, and we see that he has done a pretty good job of explaining what the picture looks like to him. His parents are making hysterical faces and his father has written, "What we think of married life," on the back of the photo. In this short chapter, we know exactly what that quotation means. The marriage was doomed.

"Everything is there of course, their good looks behind the tortured faces...The evidence I wanted that they were absolutely perfect for each other. My father's tanned skin, my mother's milk paleness, and this theatre of their own making. It is the only photograph I have found of the two of them together."
(Page 162)

We know right then that they did not take many photographs together, which indicates that the marriage certainly had more downs than it had ups, and I can't blame Doris for leaving Mervyn. He was completely off his rocker and was an alcoholic to boot. However, I am absolutely blown away by Ondaatje's ability to express something so heartbreaking in such a short amount of text. He is clearly still pained by the idea that his parents separated and that his father did not die anywhere near his mother. It seems wrong to him, and he sees in the photograph how right they were for each other. Yet, the last line of the chapter must have been particularly tough for him to write. His parents probably didn't take many photos together, because they were rarely happy with each other toward the end of the marriage. So sad!

Ondaatje's Anecdotes...Are they like scenes?

I think that Michael Ondaatje lays out exactly how is autobiography is going to be set up pretty early on in his book. It's sort of hidden within the text, but I think I figured out exactly why he has set up his autobiography in such a sporadic manner. His sporadicness may not be so sporadic.

"But I love the afternoon hours most. It is now almost a quarter to three. In half an hour the others will waken from their sleep and intricate conversations will begin again. In the heart of this 250-year-old fort we will trade anecdotes and faint memories, trying to swell them with the order of dates and asides, interlocking them all as if assembling the hull of a ship. No story is ever told 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 judgments throw in. In this way history is organized..."
(Page 26).

Ondaatje's family likes to tell stories to each other, plain and simple. Ondaatje has learned about his family's history in anecdotes and from multiple sources. Why would he not construct his autobiography in a similar fashion? I think his style suits how he grew up and how he took in information as a child and adolescent. I also feel that these anecdotes, especially the vision that he constructs of his grandmother's death, apply directly to the idea of "performance," or a "performative piece." Though I don't think I grasped exactly what "performative" meant in terms of Ondaatje's work, I can clearly see the anecdotes as various scenes in a play or performance piece. Some of the anecdotes could be read on their own and little to no meaning would be lost. Perhaps that is what performative means here?

I think that the last two chapters of the autobiography are particularly representative of this anectdotal style and hearing stories from multiple sources. Ondaatje introduces information about his father's death from the perspective of his sister and his father's two friends, as well as detailing what he was up to the morning his father passed away, or at least that is what I see the last chapter of the text to be. Correct me if I'm wrong?