Rating: 
Summary: Just good
Review: I didn't see the movie so I was very curious after reading some summaries of other people. That's why my expectations were very high and now I am a little disappointed (but nevertheless the book receives an 8). I like the story very much and the way it's written. You can see before your eyes how Kip disarms a bom,... He's the carecter I liked the most.Ondaatje knows very well how he has to describe a person, a situation,... and that's very nice to read. You don't need a movie to see it all
Rating: 
Summary: Intoxicating
Review: Ondaatje puts American writers to shame. This book is not the kind of book that you read in one fell swoop. It's the type of book you savor, to read over and over and over. Some passages are so incredibly beautiful that I've memorized them like a favorite poem. The English Patient is about loss and the lives of characters destroyed by arbitrary boundaries--geographical, physical, and spiritual. It's about man's primitive instincts, and the need to make meaning of what we cannot understand. Read this book for the pleasure of its prose. Read it for a story that reveals how we are all ultimately trapped in the vortex of our own mortality
Rating: 
Summary: After seeing the movie, this book was a major disappointment
Review: This book was a rambling mess. It was a crime for the Academy not to give Anthony Minghella an Oscar for his adapted screenplay-he turned this terrible work of literature into one of the best movies ever made. See the movie, DON'T read the book
Rating:
Summary: Mesmerizing
Review: The English "Patient" is a literary masterpiece.
The non linear format is one the most captivating features of the book. Of course, the work deserves its own share of credit, the complexity of the interwoven stories, and the artistry which Ondaatje used to tie the plots together make this book an unforgetable read. The story grows on the reader and in the end one cannot help but cheer for each of the characters. This is a book for the serious reader, not a quick read. If your literary tastes lay along "bodice ripping novellas", you are wasting your time. "The English Patient" is to be savored, to be read more than once, to be put with your other treasured books. This is a serious candidate for the title of Classic. "The English Patient" deserves to share the shelf with Austens, Brontes, and Alcotts.
Rating: 
Summary: Guaranteed success
Review: An excellent example of a book written with an audience in mind. Contains all the right trappings for appeal to the modern upwardly mobile. Oh! yes, how strange, the book has also been made into an award winning movie. Full of punishing, flowery and mostly inappropriate prose. This book proves, once again, that the best literary efforts don't win awards
Rating:
Summary: literature should be art.
Review: Ondaatje is a fine writer. I have read many negative reviews here about the work being "artsy farsty"; literature is an art. The English Patient has such beautiful imagery, I can't understand how you could be bored- unless you are not a literature reader. I think this attitude is perhaps derived from the movies success. Ondaatje's brillance really comes through in the details, his original descriptions. He has the ability to make prose sound like poetry. In many passages you can here the poetic quality clearly, this is the writing only a great writer could do. maybe it is not his best story, but it is far from bad. for those who said it was boring, what literature do you like
Rating:
Summary: Marvelously Intoxicating!
Review: As a high school student reading this book for an assignment, I was not expecting to be entertained by any means. However, I enjoyed this fantastic novel. The complex web of mystery surrounding the charcters was gripping. Reading the sensuous discriptive passages was more like reading a wonderful poem instead of reading a novel. This splendid novel is definitely worth the read
Rating:
Summary: The Pleasure of a Good Book
Review: There are few things in life that give me greater pleasure than good books. The "English Patient" by Michael Ondaatje, is not an exception. Indeed, my pristine hardcover copy is lent out to no person of questionable literary tastes. Granted there exist certain historical liberties, but I for one can offer a bit of latitude. Afterall, Ondaatje never claimed to be a historian, just a writer of compelling fiction. His style is original, and at times certain passages bend in their re-reading, toward profound. Still, this novel is not for everyone. There are many that can not comprehend a journey as intertwined, loves so fated. Love, as a genre, is so popular among today's authors. Finally one breaks from the formulaeic school, offering his readers discovered swimmers, saffron, water, sand, wind, and war
Rating: 
Summary: He's really a dastardly hun !!!
Review: Sorry to give it all away. I saw the movie and laughed at all the wrong parts... well I thought they funny. I had to read the book to clear up a big dispute I had with my girlfriend. "I don't get it - if they were flying down to pick him up in the desert why did the wife come too... The plane only has two seats so where was he supposed to sit on the trip home ???". Alas I was none the wiser after reading the book
Rating:
Summary: The English Patient, even better in print than on the screen
Review: The English Patient by Micheal Ondaatje should be savored. Its words, its phrasing is poetic and profound. Very different from the movie, quite unique in perspective, this book offers mental bonbons that can be devoured quickly or rationed for weeks. Many of the phrases that sounded awkward on screen become delicious in print. The interplay between the characters and even the plot twists carry new weight when read. It is a story of beauty appreciated and love that just misses out, of bad decisions that lead to the wonderous moments of life that we would never have avoided no matter what the cost. Ondaatje's work ranks with Milan Kundera in its sheer beauty and "rightness". My first introduction to his work, The English Patient will not be my last. Now I plan to order and feast on his other offerings
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