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This section is one of the shortest ones in the book. It also is predominantly about Ondaatje's grandmother Lalla and the stories that he has of her.

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Ondaatje in the beginning of "Running in the Family" is trying to find the identity of his family in Ceylon, and it starts to change drastically in the end of the memoir and can be seen in "Blind Faith" where he starts to question his connection with his family and more importantly his own role in life and wishing that he could speak to his father so that he would have a guide.

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Christopher, Janet and Gilian Ondaatje are described as "“a sense of the dramatic … the determination to now and then hold the floor” (168). Which is implied to have been picked up from the parents which runs along with the title and theme of "Running in the family"

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This is the photo from this section

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Ondaatje's uncle, Lalla's son, Doris' brother.
- daughter Wendy
- once was given a thalagoya tongue and almost died

"my uncle Noel would return to Ceylon as a Q.C. to argue for the lives of friends from his youth who had tried to overthrow the government." (53)

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Ondaatje's Mother
- did many outrageous things
- 4 kids
- Loved Mervyn's humor
- tried to cure Mervyn
-Left Mervyn
- ran a small dance and theatre school in Colombo
- tried to make her children good actors

"My mother read her favourite poems out loud, would make us read plays together and acted herself" (168)
"she arrived at the divorce court in a stunning white dress and hat (she had never worn a hat in her life before) and calmly asked for a divorce, demanding no alimony– nothing for her and nothing for the children." (172)

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Ondaatje's Father.
- four kids with Doris, 2 with Maureen
- Issues with alcohol
- Couldn't stand Lalla -- played tricks on her
- Remarried Maureen
- founder of the Cactus and Succulent Society
- loved cats
-donated acres to a playground

"My father loved books and so did my mother, but my father swallowed the heart of books and kept the knowledge and emotion to himself" (168)
"My father's actions were minimal and more private" (169)
"secretive and slightly crooked humour" (170)
"He was so big in the end, so large. He donated 313 rupees to the Rotary Club and when he was asked why it was that amount, he said because that was his weight." (194)
"He would swing wildly, in those last years– not from sobriety to drink but from calmness to depression." (198)
"His fantasies were awful. Paranoia took over during his downward swings." (199)

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Narrator.
- Defined by his relationship with his family and opinions on Ceylon

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Ondaajte's Grandma.
- ran a dairy farm
- rebellious
- liked to collect flowers
- compassionate
- took people out for lunch, always helped orphans and children
- loved to laugh
- died at 68
- carried everything she needed with her
- traded gossip
- always bet on horse Dickman Delight
- breast removed in what was at the time- an experimental surgery
- Hid Brumphy after he stabbed McKay (115)

"She could be silent as a snake or flower. She loved thunder; it spoke to her like a king." 125

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page 59 https://www.scoutsongs.com/lyrics/mybonnie.html

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP6IUqrFHjw page 46

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By John Bowles pg 46
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP4US7mBYU4

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https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/2012113/Billy+Vaughn/Moonlight+Bay
By Billy Vaughn. Page 46

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https://www.lyricsfreak.com/f/fred+astaire/a+fine+romance_20197762.html
Fred Astaire. Referenced on page 46

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23 ""so how did your grandmother die?" "natural causes." "what?" "floods."
42 "she was standing in the rain at the Pettah market"
69 "driven through rainstorms that flood the streets for an hour and suddenly evaporate"
70 "after the party the thunderstorm we walked through for five seconds from porch to car, thoroughly soaked"
79 "this is the heat that drove englishmen crazy"
113 "my grandmother died in the blue arms of a jacaranda tree. She could read thunder"
126 "she loved the thunder; it spoke to her like a king"
127 "the whole country was mauled by the rains that year. Ratmalana, Bentota, Chilaw, Anuradhapura, were all under water"
141 "the rest of us decide this is the only chance for a bath that we will have here and walk out into the storm"
166 "the house– hit by lightning"
"stereophonic field of the rain"

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63 "a blue-combed ocean"
68 "I wash my hands and see very clearly the deep grey colour of old paper dust going down the drain"
73 "the grey body is covered in yellow spots– with black centres so they form yellow rings"
87 "she chops the yellow coconut / the colour of Anuradhapura stone."
90 "hills / in their high green    the grey"
112 "her eyes swim out into the dark green and unfocussed purple"
126 "drowned in blue and gold flowers whose names she had never bothered to learn"
153 "Unfortunately, she arrived at the station in a white silk dress, a white feathered hat, and a long white pair of gloves"
165 " Tea country. The sleepy green landscape that held her captive"
166 "blue waves of flame"
167 "I can leave this table, walk ten yards out of the house, and be surrounded by versions of green"
167 "the roads weave and whorl away– bright yellow under the grey sky"

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Alcohol is mentioned to often to count!
pg 46 "he lived on gin, tonic-water, and canned meat"
pg 47 "don't forget the fish"
pg 73 "there is a myth that if a child is given thalagoya tongue to eat he will become brilliantly articulate"
pg 80 "they came originally and overpowered the land obsessive for something as delicate as the smell of cinnamon. Becoming wealthy with spices"
pg 100 the insurgents chanting " we are hungry, we are hungry"
pg 136 "what image of family life they consumed in their minute jaws and took into their bodies no thicker than the pages they ate."
pg 137 " string hoppers, meat curry, egg rulang, papadams, potato curry" etc
pg 157 "a servant brings him a cane basket full of fruit, and bread and scones" ... "Gillian and I are both starving".... ""My fish from Australia," he says, and begins to feed them from the basket"

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https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00472337685390321?journalCode=rjoc20   Referenced on page 84

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The image on the first page of this section is an original photograph of Ondaattje's parents. The name of the section was what his father wrote on the back of it. It also happens to be the only photo of the pair. The way they pull their faces and turn away from the camera is wildly different from the norm of sitting before the camera in an almost ridged pose. This illustrates the nature of their relationship, which Ondaatje himself does not have any knowledge of since she died when he was young.

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-Ceylon Light Infantry was a reserve unit in Ceylon formed by the governor on April 1st 1881
-Kegalle is a large town 78 km from Colombo that produces graphite, precious stones, rubber and agricultural products
- Colombo is the current commercial capital and largest city of modern day Sri Lanka. Its large harbor and position along East-West sea trade routes made it a valuable capital
- Nuwara Eliya means "city on the plain" or "city of light." High tea production, overlooked by Pidurutalagala, the tallest mountain in Sri Lanka

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-drought
-king coconut
-ferns
-weeping
-bounced
-searing
-howling
-hunched
-impassable
-persuasion
-perverse
-solitary
-sprawled
-fragments
-exasperated
-moistened
-starchy
-substanance
-alludes
-sneaky
-harsh
-alliterates
-Antecedent=precurser
-foster
-catalyst
-burgeon=grow fast
-bastion=maintains particular principles
-inflame
-inadvertant=not purposly
-superflous=unecassary
-discredit
-anamoly
-belie=failing to give the true impresion
-diverge
-continuation
-synthetic

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- Ondaatje was born in Ceylon in 1943
- Published RITF in 1983
- RITF was written after visiting his birth country
- plays with musical prose, myth, poetry, jazz, history and memoir styles in his work
- Attended University of Toronto
- parents separated as an infant, so he lived with his relatives
- 1954 Ondaatje joined his mom in England
- Went to Canada at age 19

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- 16th century occupied by Portuguese
- 17th century occupied by Dutch
- 1796 British occupation
- 1802-1815 British crown colony
- 1948 Ceylon became independent
- 1972 name changed to Sri Lanka

- a main island and some smaller islands
- 2.12 million people
- Civil war started in 1983 because of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)