The English Patient

Rating:
Summary: Dream-like, poetic, and drifting.
Review: I read and re-read "The English Patient" several times...and in different places. In my garden, on a ship at sea, and lastly, by the shore of a quiet lake in the northern part of my state. Each time I found a new relationship with the characters that I had not realized before. At first I focused on The English Patient as the book seemed to revolve around "his" story. Somehow I did not pity him though. He made the mistake of loving another man's wife. His punishment was dying, helpless and alone with her inside his mind's eye. Katherine, easily dismissed and important in that her being caused The English Patient to begin his journey towards his fate. Hana seemed the most human. She was so strong but determined in a strange way to live with a dying man and ease his pain. Kip was Asian and had a code of honor which the author tried to show us in fragments. He was a mystery. But that is what the author wanted, I believe. The torture victim Caravaggio was interesting. In fact, each character was a victim of torture - either the sad result at another's hands or self-inflicted which can be the most miserable. This is a story that will linger with you long after you have put the book away.

Rating:
Summary: Haunting and Harrowing, Poetic and Beautiful
Review: THE ENGLISH PATIENT is a haunting, heartbreaking book that takes place at the end of World War II in a crumbling, Italian villa and revolves around the lives of four physically and/or emotionally shattered individuals...three men and one beautiful woman. The woman is Hana, a Canadian nurse, who has lost both her father and her lover and believes that everyone she comes into contact with is doomed to die. Hana has volunteered to stay behind at the villa, alone, to care for a dying man...the enigmatic "English" patient...a man burned beyond recognition and who says he can remember nothing...not even his own name. He is called "the English patient" simply because he speaks in English.

Hana, cares for "the English patient" in the most gentle, sensitive manner and, every night, she reads to him from his treasured volume of Herodotus, hoping to jog his memory. Soon, Hana and "the English patient" are joined by two others at the villa...a thumbless thief named Caravaggio, who knew Hana's father, and a Sikh sapper named Kip. No one in this foursome is whole, emotionally or physically or both, and each seeks renewal from the others. Whether they receive what they need or not remains to be seen. Even though this is not a recent novel, it would be grossly unfair of me to reveal anything of its ending here. "The English patient," however, is the person that holds all four of these disparate characters together. He binds them in their symbiotic relationships, for each one has ties, however slim, to him.

As the identity of "the English patient" is slowly revealed, the inner torment of the other three inhabitants of the villa is also revealed, like peeling the skin from an onion. This is a dark, melancholy and tragic novel, filled with rich characterizations and deep insights. I think only the character of Kip, the Sikh sapper, is underdeveloped. His motivations are never clear and I think the book suffers slightly for this...but only slightly.

Although THE ENGLISH PATIENT is a novel of discovery and of healing, it does encompass two very different romances. There is the romance of the present, between Hana and Kip and the romance of the past, between "the English patient" and a mysterious but vibrant woman named Katharine Clifton. These two romances stand in stark contrast to each other, though both seemed doomed to failure from the very beginning. The romance between Hana and Kip is sweet and innocent and tentative; the one between "the English patient" and Katharine Clifton is torrid and passionate and filled with life.

The only criticism I might have with THE ENGLISH PATIENT concerns its denouement. I think it was unnecessary to take us so far into the future. I think it diminished the story at the villa slightly. I didn't like this flash forward at all and I wish Ondaatje had not written it, however, that complaint is little more than a quibble. THE ENGLISH PATIENT is still one of the twentieth century's greatest books.

Ondaatje is a poet as well as a novelist and THE ENGLISH PATIENT is a poetic novel. Though harrowing, it is often lyrical as well, and it is beautifully nuanced. This is definitely not a novel for speed readers or for those wanting a casual "feel good" book. THE ENGLISH PATIENT is a masterpiece that demands much of the reader. Patient readers will find they are well rewarded, though, for THE ENGLISH PATIENT is a story unlike any other I have ever read. It is haunting and harrowing, beautiful and poetic. THE ENGLISH PATIENT is a novel that simply cannot be overlooked by anyone who loves great literature. I would definitely recommend this book to all adult readers who love literary fiction and who have the patience to savor a beautiful book rather than rushing through it.

Rating:
Summary: BRILLIANT!
Review: A Work of art by a magnificent author. the prose will hipnotize you, and don't worry if get lost when starting to read this book 'cause we all went through that phase! The characters are haunted with thier appalling pasts, it's like a nemisis to them.Hana, Kip, Carravigio, are all perturbed people who having troubled getting used to the atmosphere following the second world war. Kip is a typical indian with love for his country and family, which reflects without doubt when he gets angry concerning the fact a bomb was put down on BROWN PEOPLE. 'They would naver dropped such bomb on whitleand' the verse says. READ IT,it really is good. NOT A WASTE OF TIME!

Rating:
Summary: Unfold it, it's worth it....
Review: This, as my teacher told us, is a novel one must reread every five years or so.
Not a quick or easy read, The English Patient one of those books written in language so distilled, so concentrated, that one phrase can be explicated for pages. Its images, many of which I do not yet understand and many of which I'm sure I missed this time through, slip in and out of your consciousness long after you've finished the novel. The effect is that of someone tugging gently on your sleeve and saying "hey, pay attention -- this is important, this is what meaning is made of."
The story is that of 4 characters who have come to inhabit a bombed-out, ruined and abandoned Italian villa towards the end of world war 2. With supreme skill as a storyteller, Ondaatje dips us into their pasts, so that we are made aware of their stories snapshot by snapshot; this is particularly true of the mysterious nameless faceless 'English patient', a severe burn victim with a deep, secretive history.
There is such power in this novel I'd like to bottle its spirit, its poetry and its beauty, and carry it with me. This book is IMPORTANT to me. I cannot say any more than that.

Rating:
Summary: Unique and exciting
Review: I can't imagine who would not enjoy "The English Patient" since the book has all things for all people. It's a love story, that contains historical fiction, espionage, hints of the super natural, hope, tragedy, and a degree of mystery.

The premise of four different people coping with their damaged lives in an Italian Villa at the end of World War II is a compelling one. Hanna, a nurse must deal with the loss of her father and numerous patients. Kip, the engineer who difuses bombs is haunted by the loss of his mentor and teacher, Lord Suffolk. Caravagio the thief has lost his ability to steal after having his thumbs cut off by the gestapo. And Almasy, it seems has lost everything including his lover, his friends, and his body.

Unlike the film version of "The English Patient", things in the novel are quirky and never fully resolved. We learn of Almasy's death before it happens and are exposed to his omnicient recollections in the mean time. As a result, his death becomes irrelvant and we are able to focus completely on his narrative of the past. Similarly, Almasy's affair with Katherine is stranger and darker than the overt passion between them in the film version. Long after Kip returns to India and marrys, his mind is still very much in sink with Hanna's. When Caravagio returns to Canada he is still reminded of Kip years later. In life and in death an invisible thread connects the characters to each other even after they have gone their separate ways.

I thought the film was as wonderful as the book but for completely different reasons. The film was a very compelling drama and love story. But in order for that to happen, Almasy needed to be more of a cut and dry character. He was a taciturn, pseudo Nazi with burried emotion and a tragic streak. In the novel, Almazy was odd humorous and possessed knowledge of almost everything. Instead of appealing to us as a doomed lover, he teased us and made us wonder who and what he really was. In the end his story remained a mystery.

I am glad that this book has not been classified as ethnic literature simply because the author is of Indian decent. Many readers may disagree with me, but I think of literature as the ulimate equalizer. A person's prose stands on its own regardless of who the person is or where they are from. Michael Ondaatje is a great writer more than he is a great Indian writer.

Rating:
Summary: Great prose by the brilliant author
Review: The English Patient is a work of great prose by the brilliant Michael Ondaatje. The book is hypnotizing in style. The characters are haunted with their dreadful pasts. They are slowly uncovering the wounds of their pasts while getting used to the quieter ambiance following the Second World War. The English Patient is an absorbing novel of war, honor, romance, and courage. The parts written in the point of view of the English patient while under the effects of morphine are strenuous, but lyrical, dense, and fascinating.

Rating:
Summary: Haunting... Ondaatje at the top of his game
Review: This is a tremendous book by an enormously gifted writer. Ondaatje's prose is both langurous and sensuous as the story glides back and forth in time, recounting the love affair between the eponymous "english patient" and Catherine Clifton, a married British woman. When Ondaatje is on, he is on with full force, and this book serves as testament to his fluid narrative skills. Passion and love--themes that almost defy original writing--are presented plainly, even austerely; yet Ondaatje's phrasing and style lend immense lyricism to the starkness of his words. More absorbing than Almasy (the english patient) and Catherine's affair is Hannah and Kip's, perhaps because the latter shows an honesty and reality that the former somewhat lacks. Theirs is a wary, awkward courtship punctuated with frustrations that are recognizably human. But "The English Patient" is more than just a twin love story--poetic and haunted, it is about the ghosts of the past and how we strive to reclaim them, even as we try to escape them.

Rating:
Summary: Love among the ruins
Review: Ondaatje has a marvelous way with words but somehow the story seems a little too romantic and self-serving, given the situation in which he embeds his characters. The story loosely revolves around Count Almasy, who was quite a different person in real life, especially in terms of his sexuality. But, Ondaatje doesn't let such little things deter him from telling his tale.

Ondaatje approaches his works as an Impressionist. The colors are muted and blended into each other to create a stunning variety of illusions which carry the reader along with their figurative charm. The situations seem drawn largely from romance novels but are given a more earthy tone in the way he tells his stories. He weaves together essentially two stories, with the Count as the bridge between these two worlds. It is a way to tell of WWII on two fronts: the African front at the height of the war and the Italian front after the Americans had overwhelmed Mussolini's republic. Ondaatje uses romance to soften the effects of war with the only gritty character being Caravaggio.

The book translated well to film, with wonderful performances by Dafoe, Fiennes and Binoche. But, in its own right there isn't much to hold the reader beyond its well worn images of love in the time of war.

Rating:
Summary: A poetic tale of four haunted lives
Review: Set at the end of World War II in an Italian villa, The English Patient brings together four unlikely characters: Hana, an emotionally-wounded army nurse who refuses to leave her last patient even when ordered to evacuate; Caravaggio, a friend of Hana's father, thief and spy, a man who is drawn to Hana in ways he cannot articulate; Kip, an Indian sapper loyal to the British military who disarms bombs by day, loves Hana by night; and the mysterious burned invalid, the English patient of the title, who unites them all in unexpected ways. Told in poetic, often elliptical language, this novel demands to be savored instead of read voraciously. The images are just as likely to be visually precise as they are inexplicable. Unlike the movie, which concentrates on the love story between the English patient and the woman he loved, the novel is more about the confusing impulses that lead to both passion and danger in all the characters.

Serious readers of literature should read this novel more than once, for its subtleties, imagery, and the force of its lyricism. More casual readers may find it tough reading, not because the language is inaccessible but because of the way Ondaatje backs into his story. Those who stick with the author's poetic turns will be well-rewarded by the end.

Rating:
Summary: Passion
Review: How can anyone think that this novel and film are too long, too boring, too complex? It is lush, beautiful, heart-wrenching, complicated, cynical and optimistic. The books is actually rather hard to read, I admit that. I found myself reading a lot of the pages out loud so that I didn't lose track, but it was so rewarding to get inside these words. The cave of swimmers, the chapter called Katherine, the images of Hana in the monastery. This book can set anyone's heart on fire. It is a romantic tragedy during a war, but when I say romantic, I don't mean love. I mean adventure, unusual culture, thoughts of how we ought to be, the heightened feelings of almost having, but not quite having. Count Almasy is a amazing, but moody person. To me, he seems to be so much beyond the trifles that affect regular people that he needs these complications and hardships in his life, some sense of danger/adventure. Ordinary people can love easily and without societal threat (like Geoffrey Clifton, his love for Katherine, his wife), but Katherine is someone who requires the extra-ordinary experience too, she takes risks to feel the passion that you can only feel when something is at stake. But the reward for her (the love with Almasy) was beyond the adulterousness of her actions. I also love Madox and Hana's characters.

This book is like a long poem, it's told is such flowerly language, which isn't a bad thing, as some would say. Some would say the book is too fruffy, but it is delicate amongst the harshness of war and death, how can that be too flowery? The film is equally as absorbing, you may even love that film more than the novel, I recommend them both.