Book Review Warlight by Michael Ondaatje

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As an adult, Nathaniel recognizes that his parents' disappearance when he was a child significantly shaped who he is. Nathaniel acknowledges that he has intimacy issues and maintains an emotional distance in romantic relationships.

Nathaniel perceives their departure as an abandonment and associates it with his lack of trust in others. Toward the end of the novel, Nathaniel recognizes that The Moth had been a father figure and had influenced his early years and the person he grew up to be.

Nathaniel takes a job at a government archive office and is responsible for altering files related to British espionage surrounding WWII. He learns that his mother Rose had been murdered by a Foreign operative 10 years before. 

She had taken on a Codename, Viola, through which she committed immoral acts for the British. This changes Nathaniel's perception of his childhood, who his mother was, and in turn who he is. At the end of the novel, Nathaniel moves to the Suffolk village where his mother lived before she was killed, further emphasizing the significance of this loss.

Nathaniel notes that his search for identity mirrors that of Britain in the aftermath of the war. His search for identity is part of the novel's dominant theme, coming of age. His identity, like that of Britain, has been influenced by death and loss.

Warlight follows 28 year old Nathaniel in his reflection on his adolescence. We can piece together an image of a lost childhood as he revisits memories associated with his youth.

 The beginning of the novel offers a sentimental look at a parent-less upbringing in postwar London, 1945. This is before Nathaniel is initiated into secret societies by the Moth, one of his caregivers. At an early age of 14, Nathaniels' vision of the world is that of vast adult conspiracy, creating a withdrawn and shut in 20 year old in the second half of the novel.

 The death of Nathaniel's mother, Rose, a secret agent, further adds to his complicated history. We get an image of children who are dealing with the abandonment and secrecy left, mainly, by their mother.

 As Nathaniel pieces together a fragmented past in the second half of the novel at the age of 20, he uncovers a larger history built on revenge and betrayal. The author, Ondaatje, conjures up powerful images that elicit a familiar force or truth throughout the novel.

 Ondaatje writes of vivid memories as a medium of visual metaphors. His novel about storytelling from Nathaniel's perspective isn't one that is of sober observation but of vivid memories lit by brilliant light in an otherwise dark time during war.

Michael Ondaatje's narratives usually contain the theme of childhood memory; other examples include the fictional perspective present in The Cat's Table and Michael Ondaatje's own childhood memories in Running in the Family.

Nathan's childhood perspective in Warlight transitions into a coming-of-age theme, in which he looks back on how his childhood was shaped by parental abandonment.

 Nathan reflects on how the absence of his parents made him stoic and independent to the point of isolation. This coming-of-age theme and lack of parental guidance is associated with his illegal work with the Moth and the Darter as he assists them in their greyhound smuggling operation.

Closely tied to Nathan's story of development are the themes of love, intimacy, and emotional dysfunction. Related to his tendency to isolate himself from the world, Nathan comes to understand how his youth influenced his issues with intimacy in adulthood.

Nathan comes to understand that the Moth had been his guardian, always watching over him. Nathan recognizes the love that both Agnes and Olive provided him: as a lover and as a friend, respectively

. The most salient and emotional part of the novel for me is how Nathan spends years obsessively searching for signs of his parents in documents while working in the Foreign Office.

One primary theme of Warlight is the fragile nature of memory. Nathaniel spends much of his time reconstructing his childhood and youth, but he must acknowledge that his recollections are unreliable; he describes the pieces he is gathering as “unconfirmed fragments.”

 As Nathaniel tries to move past the childhood trauma of war and abandonment after their parents left him and his sister, Rachel, the author probes the theme of the constructed nature of family through the children’s relationship with their unusual caretakers, two men “who may have been criminals.”

Although the protagonist’s coming-of-age plays a central role, Michael Ondaatje’s novel is more than one man’s autobiographical reminiscence: at its core is a real mystery of what their parents’ jobs were, how their mother died, and perhaps if she did actually die.

 Themes of patriotism and honesty contrasted with wartime expediency and the situational character of integrity also guide Ondaatje’s work. As Nathaniel is looking back from the 1950s at the earlier war years, the author signposts the ethical dilemmas of the upcoming Cold War, asking the reader to consider the full cost of replacing violent warfare with espionage and secrecy, including their impact on the agents’ families.

In Michael Ondaatje's Warlight, Nathaniel and Rachel Williams are siblings who are left in the care of a man called The Moth when their parents leave. Nathaniel and Rachel believe they are leaving for their father's job.

 The Moth is a mysterious character who lives in the same house as them, and has known their family for some time, but Nathaniel and Rachel are not entirely sure how his parents know him, or if they are aware of his criminal tendencies.

 Their father leaves first, and their mother stays behind to get the children ready for their upcoming school year. The children learn that their mother knew The Moth when they were involved in the war, but again, it is a mystery to them. Then their mother packs a case and says she is off to join their father.

While she is gone, the children get to know The Moth and the cast of characters he is involved with: there’s the Darter, a man they are certain is a criminal, and Olive, one of the Darter’s girlfriends.

 Nathan finds his own girlfriend at work, a girl who calls herself Agnes Street after one of the houses she and Nathan sneak into to spend time together.

The first line of Warlight is a memorable one, full of intrigue: “In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals.” 

This is spoken by Nathaniel, one of two siblings left in the care of a man whose real name is Walter, but is known as The Moth, and another man called The Darter. Nathaniel and his sister Rachel live with The Moth while their parents are away, ostensibly for their father’s work.

 The Darter is always around, and the house is full of their friends and acquaintances. Nathaniel says, “The house felt more like a night zoo, with moles and jackdaws and shambling beasts who happened to be chess players, a gardener, a possible greyhound thief, a slow-moving opera singer.”

 Nathaniel thinks the people filling his house are strange, and yet he is drawn to them. One of The Darter’s girlfriends, Olive, is intelligent and beautiful, and Nathaniel loves being with her. She says, “‘Half the lift of cities occurs at night,’ Olive Lawrence warned us. ‘There’s a more uncertain morality then.’”

Nathaniel’s entire life from then on is full of mystery. His parents are gone, and he figures out that his mother is not where he thought she is.

 One night he is out dancing with his girlfriend, who calls herself Agnes Street, he thinks he sees his mother. He says, “Is this how we discover the truth, evolve? By gathering together such unconfirmed fragments?

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