Coming Through Slaughter - Michael Ondaatje

In a year, where I've had to revise, and re-revise my reading plans, I finally decided that reading all of longer fictional work of one my favourite authors - which means rereading at least two of his books - will be part of the plan. And that's how I came to be reading Michael Ondaatje's first novel - a very ambitious one at that - "Coming Through Slaughter". It is a fictional account of one of the pioneers of jazz - then called ragtime - Charles "Buddy" Bolden, from a period near the start of his fall, till his sad end.

I learn that there is not a single known recording of this early cornetist. At least one musician has called him the father of Jazz. I read of the fast life he read, and his excesses, and details of the times he lived in - and the area he lived in. There are details in this novel - that of him being a barber, and having being the editor of a scandalous rag sheet called "The Cricket", which has been refuted by subsequent biographers of Bolden. So in a way, Ondaatje will always find some criticism against him for this book, for making Bolden out to be something he was not in, in some accounts at least. But it cannot be denied that, Ondaatje, aged 31 at the time of this book being published back in 1976, took on a huge ask writing a first novel, on pioneering figure, of whom little was known back then. Those who will look for accuracy in a historical account will find the artistic liberties that Ondaatje took. For example, another historical figure, Bellocq, who is mentioned as a contemporary of Bolden, but dying in a fire, just before Bolden had his mental issues, has actually lived on till 1949. So in that essence, opinions on this book will always be divided, and a true jazz enthusiast mayn't look upon kindly towards this novel.

But purely from the perspective of a novel, this novel has its own keys that needs to be used to read it. The narrator changes every few paragraphs - it reminded me of a video clip of Coltrane enjoying a cigarette, waiting for his turn, while Davis "tells his story" (with is instrument, of course). So, while it takes on a collage like form, it can also be thought of as a jazz tune where many instrumentalists have "their tale to tell". The form of the book shows the poet in Ondaatje, as he uses spaces to stretch out his somewhat slim novel - this comes out better in the printed book than in a kindle ( for no fault in its edit). ( I used both the printed book, and the kindle - starting with the former, and then settling with the latter as I relax into the book ). It paints a realistic environment of the times that Billy, Nora, Pickett, Cornish et. al. The account of the mental hospital here is possibly accurate given the availability of records, and possibly Bolden's mental state was a blessing in disguise if he was to spend time there.

Finally, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane after him, Buddy Bolden appears to have been a genius, a pioneer, who knew only one way to live, and possibly those excesses might even have given these geniuses something we average folks may never know of, in their pioneering ways ( if I may  venture, to say).

Rating: ***1/2
Published: ( first in 1976)