OLFACTION IN ONDAATJE’S

In The Skin of
A Lion

CARL MANLIO HJELM GIORDANO

DECEMBER 2009
In his widely acclaimed novel In the Skin of a Lion (1987)i, Booker Prize-
winning postmodern, postcolonial writer Michael Ondaatje (b. 1943)
offers an at least twofold challenge to the concept of “master
narratives”. The traditional view of the early 20th century history of
Toronto and the pre-postmodern notion of the existence of particularly
valid perspectives on novels, works of art etc. are both called into
question. The present short essay (which will assume familiarity with
the novel) was written as part of the course “Engelska A – Tematiskt
uppbyggd” at Umeå University, Sweden, and my chosen obligatory
thesis statement (i.e. selected from a list) is “Scents are used as
markers of identification in In the Skin of a Lion.” Scents, I will briefly
argue, are introduced by Ondaatje as but one element in a more
general strategy of emphasising and developing aspects of human
perception and experience that fall outside the domains traditionally
considered in historical accounts – a strategy (among several) that
makes his readers immediately aware of not only the inescapable bias
in such accounts, but also of the existence of even whole worlds of
human life and interaction that history essentially has turned its back
on. In its providing a revisionist view of history from the perspective of
marginalized groups in Canada (mainly immigrant workers), the novel
has been compared1 to Hugh MacLennan’s (1907-90) Barometer Rising.

Ondaatje worked, intermittently, for over ten years on the novel, which
originally was focused entirely on Ambrose Small2, who existed also in
reality and formally retains his status as missing3. After writing 200
pages about Small4, however, he had developed an exceedingly strong
dislike of him5 – Ondaatje calls him a “daemon” in a radio interview6 –
and for various reasons also became much more interested in the
workers of the 1920s and 1930s, who built Toronto with their bare
hands. Thus he rewrote the story. In his trying to research the lives of
those workers, Ondaatje discovered (“…a total eye-opener…”7) how they

i
Page references will refer to the 1988 Picador (London, England) edition of In the
Skin of a Lion. ISBN-13: 978-0-330-30183-1.

2
have remained anonymous, largely absent in historical records: “…this
is Toronto history, but the people who actually built the goddamn
bridge were unspoken of. They’re unhistorical!”8 This is even mentioned
explicitly in the novel (p. 151) and will also have necessitated many of
the author’s discursions into the realms of fiction, as with the story of
the blurry cyclist (p. 29; 149), where most elements are fabulae et
figmenta of creative license9.

As said, it appears that Ondaatje incorporates descriptions of olfaction

(i.e. the sensation of olfactants, fragrances) and of other physical
sensations in the narrative to flesh out – quite literally – aspects of
being human that obviously fall outside the traditional scope of
historical accounts and are also too local10 occurrences to fit into the
grand schemes of even the so-called current events of any time. (This
connects well with some of the hallmarks of postcolonial11 and
postmodern12 writing, as expected with this author.) He takes this
pedagogical approach to the extreme and the Appendix lists a
selection of words from the novel with distinctly non-intellectual
connotations, that in all are employed a very large number of timesii.
Not only do people often behave like animals in the novel – tasting,
touching, smelling, bleeding, spitting, micturating, defecating,
copulating, torching, cutting, and blasting their way through life (the
rough jargon of the author will not be reproduced here, other than in
the Appendix; the book is definitely “adults-only”) – but they also
display close affinity to animals (close contact with animals is
encountered already on the first page; animals are used for drawing
heat (p. 7, p. 13), as pets, and even as co-workers (p. 212)), treat
others like animals, or are described by the author in a physical,
animal-like manner, so that names of body parts appear over a
thousand times (see the Appendix). Recurring remarks about the moon

ii
The brain-like illustration on the cover sheet for this essay, generated with the
online service “Wordle”, includes the most common words in the novel, with font size
proportional to prevalence. (Extremely frequent words from closed word classes are
not considered in the analysis.) The illustration has been saved to the online image
gallery of that site (http://www.wordle.net) and is now in the public domain.

3
and the stars also add to the impression of a primitive, brutish outlook;
perhaps the characters are significantly affected by the lunar cycle, like
some animals, and perhaps also subscribe to primitive religious beliefs
(see the Appendix).

It has already been indicated that olfaction is used for the broader
purpose of emphasizing primitive behaviour, but regarding the
marking of identity by scents, one particularly clear example (within an
unusually civilized setting, however) is how the true identity and
intentions of Caravaggio, the thief, are – in principle, or symbolically –
betrayed by his smelling of dog during the costume ball: “For the next
hour he danced with women who noted to themselves the odour of
hound on his neck.” (P. 234.) The dog in question is none other than
his accomplice August, his partner in crime (p. 212), and we have
already learned that (p. 207) “That was always true of thieves, they
smelled of what they brushed against. … He liked people who smelled
of their trade...” (Caravaggio thinking to himself.) Caravaggio also
wears a pirate costume (p. 233) during the ball, which similarly betrays
the true purpose of his presence: later that evening, the captain of the
yacht that he gets to know (p. 234) is chloroformed, at sea.

Scents are more clearly described as a marker of social class on p. 129:

“’And the smell of the tanning factories goes into [the workers’] noses
and lungs and stays there for life. They never get the smell off their
bodies. Do you know the smell? You can bet the rich don’t know it. It
brutalizes. It’s like sleeping with the enemy.’” The significance of the
smell of the dyers is analogous (p. 138): “What remained in the dyers’
skin was the odour that no woman in bed would ever lean towards.
Alice lay beside Patrick’s exhausted body, her tongue on his neck,
recognizing the taste of him, knowing the dyers’ wives would never
taste or smell their husbands again in such a way…” The latter quote
exemplifies also the use of taste, as well as the various uses of the
senses for animal-like, primitive interaction.

4
Many distinct and satisfying readings are possible with In the Skin of a
Lion. There is something also for the Marxist reader interested in the
oppression of the working classes. If Ondaatje wanted to get a Marxist
message across, however, his methods may partly have backfired. For
instance, those who are not in power, in the story, can easily be
perceived as uncouth brutes that should be denied ascension to greater
influence. Thus, in one of the great climaxes of the story, the main
protagonist Patrick Lewis seeks out the commissioner of public works,
Mr. Rowland Harris, to make him understand how the working classes
are being forgotten by society – but he does so with a blasting-box
under his arm, ready to turn the premises into dust, and also behaves
in a highly disorganized manner, even falling asleep during the critical
conversation. (Specifically animal-like behaviour can also be identified.)
The response of Mr. Harris to this behaviour, in contrast, is not only
civilized, but also highly clever, empathic and forgiving. Actually a
portrait is painted of Mr. Harris that is very favourable, and further,
both he13 and the “daemon” Ambrose Small were self-made men. This
story may therefore create or reinforce the belief in some readers that
both ruling and working classes are needed in a society, which is also
strongly implied by Mr. Harris at the close of the novel (p. 249-50).

In spite of the vividly depicted plight of the poor and explicit mention
of class struggle in some dialogue (“’You name the enemy and destroy
their power.’” … “‘The grand cause, Patrick.’”, p. 130, etc.), this novel
“animalizes” or “humanizes”14 even such apparently coordinated
processes down to the level of mere sensory input in the individual,
and it is by levelling, as fellow men, that Harris and Lewis reach the
implied peace. Perhaps this is an example to follow; maybe peace could
more often be found, if we only learned to smell it – and each other.

5
REFERENCESiii
[1] Beran, Carol L. “Ex-centricity. Michael Ondaatje’s In The Skin of A
Lion and Hugh MacLennan’s Barometer Rising.” Studies In Canadian
Literature – Etudes en Litterature Canadienne vol 18 no 1 (1993): 71-
84.

http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/SCL/bin/get.cgi?directory=vol18_1/&filename=B
eran.htm

[Visited November 2009.]

[2] Interview with Ondaatje from 1987, by Peter Gzowski. Re-broadcast

April 24, 2002, by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Available online at

http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/literature/clips/16679

[Visited November 2009. Last updated: May 29, 2009.]

[3] Ibid.

[4] Eldridge, David. Online instructions for study module (at Charles
Sturt University) on In The Skin of A Lion.

http://www.hsc.csu.edu.au/english/advanced/critical/2595/skin_of_lion.html

[Visited November 2009.]

[5], [6], [7] See reference [2].

[8] Turner, Barbara. “In the Skin of Michael Ondaatje: Giving Voice to a
Social Conscience.” Quill and Quire May 1987: 21-22.

[9] Duffy, Dennis. “Furnishing the Pictures: Arthur S. Goss, Michael

Ondaatje and the Imag(in)ing of Toronto.” Journal of Canadian Studies,
summer 2001.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3683/is_200107/ai_n8983893/

[Visited November 2009.]

Note for the department examiner: This section (References) and the footnotes have not
iii

been included in the word-count (maximum allowed length of text 1,200 words ±10%).

6
[10] See reference [1].

[11] See reference [4].

[12] See reference [1].

[13] See reference [9].

[14] Sarris, Fotois. “In the Skin of A Lion: Michael Ondaatje’s

Tenebristic Narrative.” Essays on Canadian Writing 44 (1991): 199.

Articles of more general value consulted:

1 – McInnis, Gilbert. “The Struggle of Postmodernism and Post-
colonialism in Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion.” Web essay at
the “Canadian Literature & Culture in the Postcolonial Literature and
Culture Web”. (Date of publication not stated.)

http://www.postcolonialweb.org/canada/literature/ondaatje/mcinnis3.html

[Visited November 2009.]

2 – Slepoy, Graciela Moreira. “Historical Obliviousness in Michael

Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion.” Web essay at the “Canadian Literature
& Culture in the Postcolonial Literature and Culture Web”. (Date of
publication not stated.)

http://www.postcolonialweb.org/canada/literature/ondaatje/gms4.html

[Visited November 2009.]

3 – Delmas, Catherine. “’The quicksand of the New World’ in Michael

Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion.” Représentations, Hors série 1, avril
2007. (English translation of date: April 2007.)

http://w3.u-grenoble3.fr/representations/articles_pdf_hs1/Delmas.pdf

[Visited/downloaded November 2009.]

7
 APPENDIXiv
Below, a selection of words from the novel that are often used, in various
ways, to emphasize “animal-like” sides of human behaviour, or that are
otherwise relevant to the present interpretation (illustrating potentially
primitive religious beliefs, etc.) will be listed. The number of “hits” stated, for
each word, includes also conjugated and derived forms. (One source of
overcounting are homographs, like “nail” = body part and “nail” = metal rod.)
The “search engine” used was that of Microsoft Word 2003.

Physical sensations (358)

drink = 37 eat = 32 feel = 88

hear = 58 kiss = 18 lick = 2
listen = 21 sound = 26 spit = 8
suck = 3 swallow = 10 taste = 9
touch = 46

Olfaction (the process of smelling) (82)

fragrance = 2 nose = 13 odour = 12

scent = 2 smell = 53

Body fluids (60)

bleed = 1 blood = 27 piss = 3

saliva = 2 semen = 2 shit = 7
sweat = 17 urine = 1

Violence (98)

blast = 13 bomb = 2 death = 13

die = 25 dynamite = 15 explode = 6
explosive = 4 kill = 14 murder = 6

iv
Note for the department examiner: This section (Appendix) and the footnotes have not been
included in the word-count (maximum allowed length of text 1,200 words ±10%).

8
Body parts (1082)

ankle = 10 arm = 121 ass = 2

belly = 4 body = 91 bones = 8
breast = 5 calf = 1 elbow = 5
eye = 98 face = 139 finger = 38
fist = 4 forearm = 2 hair = 48
hand = 180 head = 67 heel = 2
knee = 24 leg = 7 lip = 8
mouth = 38 muscle = 11 nail = 7
neck = 37 palm = 16 shoulder = 65
stomach = 11 thigh = 4 thumb = 1
toe = 1 tongue = 13 tooth = 9
waist = 5

“Bad language” (30)

ass = 2 damn = 8 fuck = 5

hell = 5 piss = 3 shit = 7

Words describing celestial bodies (45)

moon = 27 (P. 119: "These were days that really belonged to the moon." P.
112: "In the green room the moon showed her face clearly. A moon returning
from when he was eleven." P. 1: "Driving the four hours to Marmora under six
stars and a moon.")

stars = 6 (P. 127: “A half-moon, a few stars, … Somewhere in his past he has
dreamed such a moment…”)

sun = 12 (P. 133: “But for now the dawn in him, the sun, wakened his blood.”)

Miscellaneous words (218)

anger = 4 angry = 3 animal = 27

dance = 22 darkness = 76 hate = 6
love = 66 naked = 14

P. 256 (“animal”): “He climbed in, pretending to luxuriate in the passenger

seat, making animal-like noises of satisfaction. - Lights, he said. The End”
▲