Master storyteller Michael Ondaatje, fresh from his Golden Man Booker triumph, delves into memory and its various tropes once again in his latest, Warlight, with the title playing on the recurring chiaroscuro of luminosity and darkness that runs throughout the 2018 Man Booker Prize-longlisted novel.

The first part of the novel plays out through the fragmented memories of 14-year-old Nathaniel, who, along with his sister, has been abandoned by their parents. Their departure to Singapore is shrouded in mystery, leading readers to a 28-year-old Nathaniel who starts piecing together a mosaic featuring a strange guardian (The Moth), an uncertain ally (The Darter) and their strange comings and goings.

Ondaatje’s writing is fleeting and drifting, gripping and drawing, all at the same time. Growing up, Nathaniel is impervious to as well as curious about his mother’s truth, which eventually leads him to figure out her whereabouts.

Set in post-WWII England, the story reflects on the ravages of war on a place and its populace as “fear” becomes a lingering verb. When Nathaniel says, “Ours was a family with a habit for nicknames, which meant it was also a family of disguises”, Ondaatje shows the teenager’s feeble attempt at humour to evade his reality and his eventual realisation.

The little boy grows up to inadvertently follow in his spy-mother’s footsteps and work in the Secret Services. By this juncture, it is clear to us that Nathaniel’s tugging at wisps of memory comes from a sense of abandonment and his quest for answers, even as a parallel story of Rose, a spy, and her handler branches out.

Ondaatje weaves in his many characters with their strengths and flaws, with a steady, omnipresent and romantic sense of darkness and gloom, which feels like the dominant thread stringing the pages together.