i really loved in the skin of a lion, but then i'm a huge fan of historiographic metafiction. linda hutcheon's work (the politics of postmodernism&the poetics of postmodernism) was really influential on my work..if you don't get excited by marquez and morrison and rushdie, then ondaatje's probably not to your liking...

also, i haven't reread him in a while, so reading him now i might react differntly...or maybe not :-)