Rating: 
Summary: A blanket of emotions that covers you in feeling
Review: There are some fictional works that can tell more truths than any non fiction book could ever come close to examining. The English Patient is one of those novels. The relationships developed between the characters are so cleverly done that they show the sometimes painful truth about living. While the love story between Katherine and The Count takes a lesser role in the book than the movie the author creates a love that hurts us because even though it is forbidden it is beautiful when it happens All in all the dialouges between the lives of the characters past and present lead to an unforgettable tale that is fated to move readers just like the characters with the rawness of pure emotion
Rating:
Summary: Read it twice--it's worth it.
Review: This author was a poet before he was a novelist, as you will see from his beautifully precise use of language. For example, one of the characters has had his thumb cut off by Nazis as a punishment for spying. "They found a woman to do it. They thought it was more trenchant" (pg. 55). Trenchant not only means ironic or biting, it also comes from the French word for "to cut". There are five stories told in the book; the movie only tells one (they should make four more movies!). Read the book once for the plot and the mystery, and the second time for the words, the subtle discussion of history versus memory, and Ondaatje's love of descriptions and poignant portraits of people in pain, physical and otherwise. You'll never forget the last image, where Hanna, unhappy still and living alone in Canada, drops her coffee cup and as it falls the author shifts you to India where Kirpal, to the delight of his laughing daughter, slides across the floor to catch a dropped fork
Rating: 
Summary: I liked the movie better.
Review: The book is certainly very good, but the movie is stunning.
By focusing on the love story, certainly the movie loses some of the depth of the original (see the review that gives
the book a "5"), but it more than makes up for it in beauty and clarity. The visuals brought home the beauty of the vision far better for me than the book, and I wasn't distracted by the hunt for Almasy's identity the way I was
reading the book. But, oddly enough, it is the differences
between the two that, for me, fill in the gaps between the two most clearly. It's as if I understand the story, the
complex ineffable "point", better by the rearrangement of the scenes into the film.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing book you will want to read slowly
Review: I am an American who recently moved to Canada. Since my arrival I
have been reading Canadian authors as I try to understand the
subtlety and nuance of this similar but distinct culture. Michael Ondaatje is an Indian immigrant (I assume) who has in the fine
tradition of Salman Rushdie, Joseph Conrad and other newcomers to the
English language extended, broadened, and opened new vistas to
our beautiful language.
What depth of understanding of the human condition Michael Ondaatje
shows with this work. This book will stand the test of time
and be read one hundred years from now as we now read Joseph Conrad's
works and marvel.
Rating:
Summary: A work as sublime as it's setting, beautiful, mesmerizing.
Review: Perhaps oe of the greatest fictional stories ever written,
Ondaatje's "The English Patient" is a true masterpiece. Set
in the post-WWII era, in the hills above Florence, Italy, this
story captures you from the start. The characters have a deft
and masterful power about them, particulary the Patient, whose
majesty and subtlety are brilliant. The end leaves you awed,
its' tragedy and sacrifice fills one with a sense of true
desolation. Sublime and intoxicating, like a draught of fine
wine, this book is a must-read.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most beautifully written books I have read.
Review: Haunting, mesmorizing and heart wrenching. I became lost in this book: when reading it I was so engrossed that I could shut out all sounds, all distractions. I will read anything I can find about WWII. This book tells the story from a completely different perspective. I recently saw the movie and it was wonderful. I can't stop thinking about all of them
Rating:
Summary: Do Not Deny Yourself This Book Because You Know Its Story.
Review: If you have only seen the movie the "English Patient," you do not know Michael Ondaatje's "English Patient."
You do not truly know the extent of Hana's detachment from the world around her and the reasons for that detachment,
you do not know of Carvaggio's previous life with Hana and
her father, and you do not know of the physically abusive nature of the relationship between Katherine and Lladislaw.
Most importantly, you have not read:
"A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands
knowing it is something that feeds him more than water."
or
"Her life with others no longer interests him. He wants only her stalking beauty, her theatre of expressions. He wants the minute and secret reflection between them, the depth of field minimal, their foreignness intimate like two pages of a closed book.
He has been disassembled by her."
Finally, the curious involvement of Kip in their lives
becomes clearer when you know that Ondaatje himself is a Sri
Lankin (and, I believe, a Sikh).
Do not deny yourself the majesty of this work because you
feel that you know its story. The telling rewards the reader
beyond the narrow reaches of its text.
stuart gordon
Rating:
Summary: Often difficult to read, but it pulls you on to the end.
Review: I was drawn to read The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje because of the hype the movie version has received. I'm a sucker for a great love story. Also, I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie. What I found was a totally different book from the one I expected. This is a tale about what happens to people in war--to their bodies, their minds, and their hearts. Told in a stream-of-consciousness style, the story is difficult to follow at times, bouncing as it does from the present to the past and sometimes to the future within the same paragraph or page. Still, it pulled me forward because I cared about these four WW II dropouts and hoped that their physical and emotional wounds would find healing. Compelling, unorthodox, a challenging read from start to finish,
Alfred J. Garrotto, author of A Love Forbidden, 1996, Commonwealth Publications, Inc.
Rating:
Summary: Want to lose yourself in a book? This is the one!
Review: Quite simply, The English Patient is the most involving read that I've had in quite a long time. It is smart, engaging, thought-provoking, and above all- beautiful! Onddaatje has a grasp of the atmosphere of North Africa (in flashback) that rivals that of Paul Bowles. I would urge a reading of both the
English Patient and The Sheltering Sky (Bowles). They are very similar in their atmospherics, but very different in their emotional effect upon the reader.
Rating:
Summary: Moving Novel that is Beautifully Written
Review: The English Patient is a complex novel that interweaves four characters and their separate stories in a plot centered around WWII. While the movie focuses on just one story attached to the present narrative, the book is much richer, fully developing all of the characters. The main narrative creates a moving world of its own, as the characters find a safe haven from the war and their personal tragedies. The novel can be difficult to follow, as the flashbacks to the characters' prior stories are not linear. However, the difficulties are well worth the effort. The English Patient is a book that will endure and inform
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