So, I didn’t like it: not my favorite subject matter and some of it felt vulgar just for the uncomfortable factor. But I certainly appreciate the writing — naturally, it’s wonderful writing since it’s Ondaatje. It’s prose, but written very much like poetry. The main character, based on real-life Buddy Bolden, slips into madness, and that’s a lot what reading this book is like. I understand this to be purposeful and therefore well done. The plot is non-linear, there are multiple points of view, there are changes of tense, and the syntax is more like modern poetry than well-structured sentences. Ondaatje certainly has wonderful characters — gruesome, ugly people who simultaneously break the reader’s heart. Was personally interesting to me since it’s based in Louisiana, namely New Orleans, but includes so many small towns that I know. All in all, it’s one of those books in which the reader says “Wow, I can appreciate what is happening here” over and over without ever actually liking what is happening. Three stars just for the complexity of writing and pure talent of Ondaatje.