Introduction

Transnational Identities 341
rounding her which already represents an instance of if not dissolution, then certainly
a weakening of the boundaries between reality and fiction.
This is especially striking since Anna also speaks of her belief that “we live
permanently in the recurrence of our own stories, whatever story we tell” (D 136).
Considering that she is a writer who presently works on researching the story of
Lucien Segura’s life, this comment certainly suggests a deeper meaning: what if she
does exactly this with Lucien’s life? This suspicion is further supported by several
of her remarks that she enjoys “hid[ing] in a stranger’s landscape” (D 75) in order
to escape the violence of her past. It appears that she does exactly this while living
in Segura’s house in France.
Her mentioning of the “small fictional street” Hugo supposedly created for
the fictional character “Jean Valjean to slip into, in which to hide from pursuers”
(D 142) mirrors her behaviour. While this could be merely another instance of the
abundance of references to French literature that line her narrative, her following
mentioning of the street she lives on in San Francisco nevertheless introduces
another element of doubt concerning the truthfulness of her story. One cannot
help but wonder whether she really lives on Divisadero Street or if this is her fictional
street. It would be convenient indeed if she lived on a street named after
“the Spanish word for ‘division,’ the street that at one time was the dividing line
between San Francisco and the fields of the Presidio. Or it might derive from the
word divisar, meaning ‘to gaze at something from a distance’” (D 142). Especially
since she further comments: “It is what I do with my work, I suppose. I look into
the distance for those I have lost, so that I see them everywhere. Even here in
Dému, where Lucien Segura existed” (D 143). It would be a huge coincidence if a
character who is scarred by and distanced from her past accidentally turned up on
a street that fittingly reflected their behaviour with the additional benefit of describing
their style of work, especially since many parts of her narrative shed similar
moments of doubt on her reliability as a narrator.
Considering Ondaatje’s careful structuring of his novels and the significance of
even the smallest details, I cannot believe that this is done without some deliberation.
Such a ‘coincidence’ does indeed fit perfectly with Ondaatje’s tendency to
dilute boundaries since it effectively blurs the line between fact and fiction and
leaves the reader uncertain of what can be trusted anymore. After all, the address
on Divisadero Street is one of the few pieces of information that is actually available
about Anna. 44 If she does not really live there and it is merely a metaphoric
description of the way she leads her life, Divisadero Street could also describe her
state of mind while being in France and reflecting on her past which is territorially
and geographically distanced in California. The novel’s structure certainly supports
such a reading as the following chapter will detail.
44 She even changed her name but does not tell us her new one as the framing passages before the
first chapter indicates.