The English Patient

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Summary: The Gentlest Book Ever
Review: Reading this book is like travelling not only time, but space. The author takes you on a journey that defines the true meaning of what life really is. The book simply allows you to fly with each passing word and whim. The book has been interpreted successfully in the movie. The sights, sounds, and the events are so realistically described. Reading it was more of an art and that makes you question how it was written. The English Patient joins all the other characters together and through it all it's his presence that guides them through all the events going through their mind. This is a wonderful book, with amazing literary value. It touches more than anyone thought it could. It even does more than that. It makes you dream

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Summary: It Changes the Way You Look at the World
Review: The English Patient is among the most excellent novels I have read in my lifetime. In the first place, every page is littered with fragments of language that stick to your brain because they are so melodic, poetic, perfect that you don't want to forget them. Beyond that, it's an excellent story, an excellent way of looking at the world, a powerful commentary on life in general (and not in the least bit cliche`; its message is very original and appropos in our age of "globalization"). The single disappointment is for those of you who have seen the film version: in the novel, the characters of Hana, Caravaggio, and Kip are explored in greater detail; when I was finished with the last chapter (an Epilogue dealing solely with Kip's subsequent life) I wondered why the novel was entitled The English Patient: he had not been the focus. But read it anyway...as soon as you can.

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Summary: Pause, breathe in, and live as you read.
Review: There are no more words to add to the depths reached by this novel. Afterwards, one can only reflect on how one lives . . . and then to try to live more deeply.

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Summary: The English Patient
Review: Ondaatje is a true craftsman of characters. Read this if you think you could be "in love with ghosts." What other author has the ability to craft robust introspective phrases out of solitary and hollow words? Can you ever remember "awaking from sleep with a heaviness caused by unremembered dreams" as Hannah does?

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Summary: A powerful,lyrical, and intelligent war-time romance.
Review: I have just started to read The English Patient for the fourth time and I am still enthralled by the incredible beauty of the language. This novel was clearly written by a poet,who leaves with you multi-layered, powerful memories of the allure of the desert, the obsessiveness of the love affair, the characters' sad longing for everything they've lost and can never recover. Except for a few tedious passages about bomb defusion, this is one of the most intelligently romantic (not sentimental) novels of the late 20th century. The images stay with you--the cave of swimmers, the hunted monastery, the desert winds--as much as the well delineated characters, making you want to come back again and again to their distant and magical world. The novel holds you in its lyrical grip and you won't want to let go.

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Summary: The movie is a shadow of this book
Review: Ondaatje's magical language made me a huge fan before, but this book is possibly his best. The movie, with its gooey love story dominating the scene, appealed to the most common denominator. Read the book. Read the other novels. Read the poems. Read Billy the Kid and Coming Through Slaughter (history? novel? poem?). Just read.

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Summary: An entrancing web of emotion...
Review: The English Patient is a beautiful portrayal of human love and loss during a time of war. Ondaatje's portrayal of mere shadows of human life open up the mind to many worlds and opens up the heart to the beauty of tempest driven passions.

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Summary: Poetic
Review: Although the love story in The English Patient is contrived and uninteresting, I was wooed by Ondaatje's use of language. It felt more like a poem than a novel.

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Summary: An epic that sweeps through you like the winds of the desert
Review: Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient is a lyrical journey into the hearts and souls of four characters in World War II North Africa. His words take hold of your mind and lead you through to the very end, leaving you exhausted when the characters are exhausted and overjoyed when the characters are overjoyed. This is a must read for anyone who has read In The Skin Of A Lion.

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Summary: It's good, but not that good.
Review: I must admit that I read the English Patient last week having never before heard of it or the movie. (No, I don't live in a bubble. I just don't follow the Academy Awards.) I tracked down the book after reading Ishiguro's "The Unconsoled," where, on the back, Ondaatje called Ishiguro "the finest prose stylist of our time." I was deeply intrigued. Having read the book, I now understand that Ondaatje sees himself as the finest poetic stylist of our time. Rightly so. I enjoined the words and language of the book and would recommend the book to readers of serious fiction. And yes, there is plot. And, yes, there is continuity. I don't buy the love story elements, which seem to include the worst elements of "Bridges of Madison County" merged with the best of Hemingway. Nevertheless, the themes of isolation, despondency and retrospection, played out across the spectrum of the somewhat shattered or totally shattered lives of the four characters provide an alternative story line even if you choose to skip over the love story. I haven't seem many comments here reflecting on the corresponding damage between the villa and the characters. It is refreshing to know that novelists still exist who are willing to explore language, theme, irony and so forth. Too bad they aren't from the United States. I can recommend the book very highly. I haven't seen the movie and don't plan to do so.