Product Description

Bringing to life the fabulous, colorful panorama of New Orleans in the first flush of the jazz era, this book tells the story of Buddy Bolden, the first of the great trumpet players--some say the originator of jazz--who was, in any case, the genius, the guiding spirit, and the king of that time and place.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #124896 in Books
• Published on: 1996-03-19
• Released on: 1996-03-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Review
"Anybody who cares about good writing ... should get this book and luxuriate in it." ? Minneapolis Tribune

"One of the most innovative and liberating writers of our time." ? Geoff Dyer, The Observer

"A beautifully detailed story, perhaps the finest jazz novel ever written." ? The Sunday Times

"Coming Through Slaughter ... is so stuffed full of the dolour and lust that both buoys and blemishes a life, it reads like a story dying to be told." ? Books in Canada
-- Review

Review
"Anybody who cares about good writing ... should get this book and luxuriate in it." — Minneapolis Tribune

"One of the most innovative and liberating writers of our time." — Geoff Dyer, The Observer

"A beautifully detailed story, perhaps the finest jazz novel ever written." — The Sunday Times

"Coming Through Slaughter ... is so stuffed full of the dolour and lust that both buoys and blemishes a life, it reads like a story dying to be told." — Books in Canada

From the Inside Flap
Bringing to life the fabulous, colorful panorama of New Orleans in the first flush of the jazz era, this book tells the story of Buddy Bolden, the first of the great trumpet players--some say the originator of jazz--who was, in any case, the genius, the guiding spirit, and the king of that time and place.

In this fictionalized meditation, Bolden, an unrecorded father of Jazz, remains throughout a tantalizingly ungraspable phantom, the central mysteries of his life, his art, and his madness remaining felt but never quite pinned down. Ondaatje's prose is at times startlingly lyrical, and as he chases Bolden through documents and scenes, the novel partakes of the very best sort of modern detective novel--one where the enigma is never resolved, but allowed to manifest in its fullness. Though more 'experimental' in form than either The English Patient or In the Skin of a Lion, it is a fitting addition to the renowned Ondaatje oeuvre.

Customer Reviews

Coming Through Slaughter: Ondaatje's musical novel
I originally read this book as part of a fiction workshop. Unlike some other class-assigned readings, this book became a treasured part of my personal collection. Its form is rather unconventional -- it's rather like reading a novel of poetry. Admittedly, it can be hard to "get into," but I found that the more I read in one sitting, the greater impact Ondaatje's prose had on me. For me, Coming Through Slaughter was one of those rare gems that hovers over you until you've completed it. You find yourself thinking of Ondaatje's characters even when you've put the book away; they linger after the last page in the same way they seem to exist in the realm of the book -- a dream-like haze.

The story is one of Buddy Bolden, a real jazz musician in New Orleans in the early 20th century. None of his music survives, but he is said to be one of the founders of jazz. And so Ondaatje explores the small pieces of Bolden's historical truth, creating a character and an entire book that revolves around his life, his love affair with music, his love affair with a woman, and the audience's love affair with him. Other historical characters emerge from the text, like E.J. Bellocq, a man who photographed prostitutes from the Storyville area of New Orleans.

There are a lot of beautiful descriptions of abstractions, particularly of music (the way it looks, its color, the way it's created) and of emotion. As some other reviewers have suggested, they are descriptions tangible enough for a deaf person. And yet there is an ethereal element in Ondaatje's writing that makes it seem as though something much greater eludes you; it adds to Bolden's presence in the book.

This is the first book I've read by Ondaatje, and I hope to read more.

Give this book to a deaf person.
Who can talk truthfully about the borderlands between the wilderness of insanity and the Eden of genius? Well, Michael Ondaatje, for one. Fans of "The English Patient," and later works should not pass this by. The most prosaic of M.O.'s fiction is poetic to say the least, but here, as in "The Collected Works of Billy the Kid," Ondaatje skirts the borders between poetry and novelty just as deftly as he does the two realms I earlier mentioned.

The fictionalized history of Buddy Bolden, cornet-player, jazz pioneer, and psychopath comes alive in this tale of turn of the century New Orleans. It is a tawdry, violent, heat-soaked world, full of passion and lust, suffering and early death, brightly kindled in the reader's imagination by the spare, impressionistic images Ondaatje provides. But more than anything else, it is the jazz, the frenetic ferocity of the music that comes alive in the writing. If I had to explain the joys and powers of music to a deaf person, I would give up, and give him this book instead.

Give this heady experience a try. And if you have any doubts about the trendiness/currentness of the topic, rest assured. Discussion and wonder regarding Buddy Bolden is very much alive today, and interest in this period in general endures. To give you an example, I noted recently an advertisement featuring the exhibition of photographs in an Uptown gallery by E.J. Bellocq, another (historical) character in Mr. Ondaatje's story.

Fiction, not Fact
A good novel. This is not, however the true story of Buddy Bolden. I say this not as a critisism of talented writer Mr. Ondaatje, but rather of the dozens of people on-line who I have seen recomend this book to people for learing about Buddy Bolden. If you want to know the facts about the real life person named Buddy Bolden, read Donald Marquis' book "In Search Of Buddy Bolden". Mr.Ondaatje's novel is a work of fiction which uses the name of Buddy Bolden and a few events of his life, while deliberately ignoring others for dramatic effect (eg, the real Buddy Bolden wasn't a barber)in a setting and story which is mostly the product of Michael Ondaatje's creativity.

I wish I didn't have to say this. I appologize to those who already are clear on the difference between fact and fiction. I am simply exasperated after 5 years of people wrongly recomending this book to people interested in early jazz as information about Buddy Bolden.

For entertaining fiction, read a Michael Ondaatje novel. For the facts about Bolden, read Donald Marquis' book.