The English Patient, set against the backdrop of a post-WWII Libyan desert, is a truly lyrical novel that delves deep into the themes of love and loss.

We are introduced to four characters who find themselves living in a bombed villa in the aftermath of the war. There is the eponymous English patient, an invalid terribly burned in a plane crash. Hana, a Canadian nurse, devotes herself to looking after him. Caravaggio, a thief and spy, has known Hana since her childhood. And then there is Kip, an Indian sapper working in the English army.

The narrative skillfully switches between these characters, continuously moving forward and back in time, piecing together their stories like a complex puzzle. We hear the English patient's tragic love story, which is intertwined with Kip's training as a bomb defuser in England and the shy budding romance between Hana and Kip in the present timeline.

All of these characters are grappling with some form of grief or trauma. Caravaggio has been captured and maimed for spying. Hana has lost her lover and father to the war. Kip constantly faces the specter of death in his line of work. These are four individuals from different cultures, races, and life experiences, brought together under the same roof by a devastating war. However, the same war ultimately tears them apart when Kip learns about the Hiroshima bombing and realizes the futility of his efforts in the war.

This book is not simply character-driven; it is entirely about the characters. Their stories, their emotions, and their experiences are what make this novel a powerful and moving exploration of the human condition.

There was this book on the shelf for about 20 years. But since I had seen the movie, I never felt the urge to pick it up. It wasn't because I disliked the movie, but because I thought it wasn't worth going back to the same story. Fortunately, we have Goodreads and friends who make us change our minds. After recently reading Teresa's opinion, I became curious and went to get the book. And it was a good decision. It is a narrative of uncommon elegance, developing around four central characters, and beautifully harmonizing the epic and intimate dimensions. In the almost aftermath of World War II, each in their own way, all four characters receive sadness and loneliness. But the one of Kip, the Indian sapper, a lieutenant in the British army expert in bomb disposal, touched me especially. His revolt and his hurt when all his work seems meaningless to him because in war there are no right sides, no innocents or just ones. Because this book does not exempt the West and the Allies from their share of crimes against humanity (as far as I remember, the movie distanced itself from these less praiseworthy acts). I don't know if it will be a book for all tastes, because it is dark and oppressive and even depressing. Because the pace is slow, the narrative fragmented and even the narrator changes, requiring the reader to keep the connections to not get lost.

But the literary quality, the density of the characters and the human dimension of this work seem to me unquestionable. Especially Kip made me have tears in my eyes, I shared his loneliness, his consternation and his grief. The movie left him in the background, the book left him marked in my heart and memory.

Thank you Teresa for the incentive for this reading.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ½
Genre: Literary Fiction

At the conclusion of World War II in Italy, four broken lives converge and reside together. In an abandoned villa, a nurse named Hanna, a thief known as Caravaggio, an Indian sapper called Kip, and an English patient come together and live there. They engage in conversations about their present circumstances and the traumas they have endured in the past. They relive those memories, both good and bad, that continue to either inspire or haunt them constantly.

This book was the recipient of the Booker Prize in 1992. Although I have watched the movie adaptation on numerous occasions, this is my first time reading the book itself. However, it is not my first encounter with a Michael Ondaatje book. The story is incredibly captivating. I believe the concept behind the story is ingenious, bringing together four strangers who have endured numerous hardships in an isolated location, especially when the dust of war has not yet settled. The entire setting of the story is truly remarkable.

The author has done justice to all the characters. Each one is well-developed, whether it pertains to their present or their past. I consider this a great achievement considering the book is not overly long. The writing is nothing short of stunning. You will encounter beautiful prose and many passages rich in poetic language. Regarding the timeline, it is important to note that this is not a linear story. It alternates between the past and present for each of the characters.

The identity of the English patient is gradually disclosed throughout the story. Not only his, but also that of all the other characters. However, initially, the reader will be more intrigued by him due to the title of the book, which leads one to believe that it is solely about him. In reality, the story encompasses all the characters, but the English patient is the one who remains mostly ambiguous for the purpose of constructing the story and adding more intrigue and vagueness to the plot. Highly recommended for all fans of literary fiction.

The English Patient is truly one of my all-time favorite films.

For starters, it is visually breathtaking, as if presenting a dreamy holiday.

My initial impression is how skillfully the film dramatizes and even, at times, reworks the novel.

In several aspects, it actually enhances the story, which is not a common occurrence. It brings the narrative more to the forefront.

In the novel, it is more concealed in the form of fragments that one has to assemble.

The film also rectifies some of Ondaatje's occasional overly melodramatic attempts at poetry.

For example, in the cave when the English patient paints Katherine's body and licks her eyeballs. She is dying from the wounds sustained in the air crash, and yet he is painting her body!

However, for the most part, Ondaatje's poetic writing is truly beautiful, and although the cinematography does an excellent job of capturing this, Ondaatje makes you aware at times of the unrivaled beauty that verbal language can possess.

Overall, The English Patient is a remarkable film that successfully combines the art of cinema and literature.

Maybe it's not a story told slowly - but definitely a story that needs to be read slowly.

It is told non-linearly, from multiple angles, skipping through time, sometimes so often that I'm sure Ondaatje deliberately confuses us at times. The English Patient is full of lyricism, and in terms of fragmentation, style, and as an anti-war theme, it reminds me here and there of Čarnojević's Diary.

Again, although it is full of sweet phrases and sentences, none of them are there just to fill space. If something said doesn't advance the story, then at least it deepens our thoughts about the characters. Ondaatje does this masterfully - through one such sentence, you often learn more about a character than if you had read a description of their character over several pages.

I understand that the book is not for everyone. It attracted me - both as a literary fiction and as a narrative related to the end of World War II and the encounter with psychologically damaged people who went through that period. Although the last third of the book is a bit worse than the first two, it still went on my Goodreads "reread" shelf.

I am just going to fess up. This book was too literary and depressing for my tastes or, at least, for my mood when I started. Ondaatje offered beautiful descriptions, insightfulness, and a profound melancholy. Yet I found myself trudging through this one, propelled forward only by his up-coming visit to my city.

Given his picture on the jacket cover, highfaluting writing style, and acclaimed career, I expected him to be pretentious. To the contrary, he was charming during the on-stage interview. (He actually reminded me of E.L. Doctorow.) I enjoyed hearing him read out loud from his new book, The Cat's Table, during which he elicited a few good chuckles from the crowd. And it was cute when he described copy editing as the most humiliating experience for an author. “Everything is wrong!”

One critic describes Ondaatje as a “novelist with the heart of a poet” and that’s really telling. His first four works were poetry. When he switched to prose, he wanted to maintain that suggestiveness, that restraint, that vagueness. To start a novel, he requires very little: a period of time, landscape, and a hint of a character or two. (And contrary to rumors, he doesn’t go and live at a book’s location. He may just visit briefly.) Thereafter, he doesn’t like to fill his head with research. He jokingly called himself an inaccurate researcher and warned us to not depend on him to defuse bomb. (A character from this book was an expert at bomb disposal.)

The shame I felt sitting in the audience! There Ondaatje had been, graciously giving me space in his world. He invited me to engage with the text in my own way. I could paint the rest of the picture. I was encouraged to pause and ruminate on this or that genius nugget at my leisure. And what did I do? I whined about the remote characters and lack of plot. The characters were recovering from a disastrous war – of course, I couldn’t relate to them! How I have been ruined by urban fantasy shit!

Oh well, perhaps I should give Ondaatje's works another chance. Maybe I was just in the wrong frame of mind when I first picked up this book. His writing is clearly very talented and unique, and I feel like I may have missed out on a lot by not fully engaging with it. I'll try to approach his next book with a more open and receptive attitude, and see if I can better appreciate his artistry. After all, not every book has to be a fast-paced, action-packed adventure. Sometimes, it's nice to slow down and soak up the beauty and depth of a more literary work.

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje is an epic and profound tale that weaves together the themes of love and war, along with the tragic loss of times and lives.

It is a book that demands patience from its readers. Without that patience, one cannot truly appreciate the depths it delves into and the unique paths it leads the readers along.

The narration, at times, can be a bit challenging to follow. Among the four main characters, the primary narrator changes frequently. It takes some time for the reader within me to figure out who has received the baton of narration. This often results in having to re-read a few lines, but I don't mind doing so because of the magical prose.

Although it is a difficult read, it is worthy without a doubt.

Verdict: Recommended. It is a book that will stay with you long after you have turned the last page, making you reflect on the complex emotions and the harsh realities of war and love.

Li-o há duas semanas, and it has been not only because I was on vacation and without a computer that I didn't write about it, but also because the impression it left was not clear. Clear, in the sense of being able to be translated into words. I wrote when I finished it — “Immensely sensorial...” — and I still feel it as such. Ondaatje presents not only a rich vocabulary but also an elaborate and poetic prose. There is a story, among several stories for each of the characters. Each one carries with it its own morals, each one touches us in its own way, allowing us to read the book from multiple perspectives of meaning, hence my difficulty in verbalizing a single central idea. However, I hope to see that idea emerge in the following lines...

I saw the movie when it came out. It was not at all my type of movie, and surprisingly I loved it. Perhaps it was because in the midst of the predictable Hollywood formula, I saw something more, something that at that time I couldn't verbalize, but that I felt was different from previous works with a great aura pedestalized by the Oscars. At the Oscars, I was rooting for “Fargo” and “Shine”, but I never felt that it was a mistake to lose out to The English Patient. Let it be said that Geoffrey Rush (“Shine”) won the best actor and Frances McDormand (“Fargo”) the best actress. The English Patient had something not only epic but also incomprehensible and contradictory. The multiple characters, distinct and opposite, pulled in every direction, and in the fragmentation, they offered unity, which the actors supported very well. But above all, the direction and cinematography took it to levels of transcendence. Not in a mystical sense, but of beauty, of pure formal beauty, that enveloped everything and guaranteed meaning to everything. A bit like when we paste a music over a photo or a silent video and everything seems to magically flow, that's how I felt Anthony Minghella's movie. The hot desert seemed to transmigrate between the captured images.

When I started reading the book, 23 years after seeing the movie, that same heat of the desert, yellow-brown, dense and losing sight, resurfaced. The patient in his bed, Juliette Binoche always by his side, and Kristin Scott Thomas in the patient's dreams of the past. The narrative structure uses the space of the improvised and abandoned hospital in Tuscany to travel geographically from the characters to North Africa, Canada, World War II, and Hiroshima, in a true temporal back-and-forth. From this, we get to know each of the characters, their pasts, their values, and morals. The non-linear narrative emerges from the dense mesh of facts that solidify to simultaneously account for the enormous condition of fragility of all. The characters who reach a point of equilibrium, seen by us from the understanding of their past and the assumption of their real presence, there in that place and in that present time, begin to dissolve, lose strength, and disintegrate, leaving the place and the people, seemingly emotionally following the path of the approach of the end of the war, which, despite walking towards victory, would end deeply black.

On the surface, we have a love triangle and the disastrous consequences for all involved, but that is only the human support of what Ondaatje wants to tell, or rather create. Because in truth, and hence my difficulty in verbalizing, Ondaatje doesn't really want to tell, he wants to make us feel. And he makes us feel because he uses all those characters, those of the triangle and all those who surround it, with their pasts, connections, and life missions, and gives them form through a text that presents itself as also a character, because it is he who links them all, and it is from him that we obtain answers to our questions. But those answers are never direct, nor even complete, because Ondaatje's answers are not textual but rather textural. Because the characters do not contribute with complete answers, rather they only accept to expand our understanding of what we are reading, expanding the meaning of the artifact, offering it texture through the traveled space and the defied behavior. If in the end there is a lot to answer, nor do we feel that we have not reached the end, because the end of that space-time was felt, and those characters, each in their own way, remained in us.

If we don't have answers, if it is difficult to verbalize what the book gives us, if we feel more than we reflect, nor does it stop us from questioning. And one of the high moments that only with this age could understand came with the sentence below that could serve as a definition of the existentialism of middle age: “When we are young, we don't look at ourselves in the mirror. We do it when we get old, when we worry about our name, about our legend, about the meaning that our lives will have for the future. We fade away from the names we use, from our pretension to have been the first eyes, the strongest army, the shrewdest merchant. It is after old age that Narcissus wants a recorded image of himself.” (p.151)

[Review published on VI: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...]

This truly feels like a classic gem of literature, one of those fundamental core books that are taught in American Lit classes within liberal arts colleges.

Perhaps it is due to all the classical references that Michael Ondaatje artfully places in the mouths of his characters, especially the English patient. Maybe it lies in the storytelling, which focuses on the cerebral aspects and is almost entirely lacking in action, except for the backstories.

The poetic choice of words themselves could very well be the cause. Or perhaps it is the World War II Italian countryside setting that has the power to draw one back and give an aged charm to these pages.

I don't really know. I ceased attempting to know long before I completed The English Patient. I simply let those words wash over me, much like a rejuvenating bath for the mind.

Here is a detailed summary for those who are interested in knowing more, but I would highly recommend skipping it and directly delving into the book: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/english...

Although I consider this to be a brilliant novel, I wasn't completely overwhelmed. It does drag in certain parts and is a bit too self-consciously literary for my current tastes. And yet, despite these flaws based on personal preference, I still have to award this book five stars. It is far too good to be grouped together with the plethora of four-star books that I have read. Many of those are quite good, but very few of them can achieve the otherworldly feeling that one experiences when reading The English Patient.

Right from the very start, this work struck me in a particular way. It didn't seem so much like a tale that one could completely lose oneself in, but rather more like a performance that was meant to be watched. The author makes it abundantly clear that none of what is being described actually took place. One is reading a work of fiction, not truly immersing oneself in the Italy and North Africa of the 1940s. The purpose of this exercise appears to be to admire the writing.

This artifice was most evident in the first third of the book. Here, we are introduced to a nurse, an old family friend, her patient, and a Sikh serving on the bomb squad for the English army. The scenes set in the present lack a certain amount of interest. However, the book becomes significantly more engaging when the backstories of these characters are presented. In some cases, the previously hidden connections between them are made clear.

As for the writing itself, Ondaatje demonstrates skill in handling time. While reading, I was often transported back in time, down memory lane. He effectively captures the feelings of missed opportunities, the golden days that one knows will be remembered forever, and the excitement of youth. But the story he presents is so interesting, and yet the writing is often rather flat. He writes a remarkable passage about dismantling a bomb, and I just wish the rest of the book had been written with the same level of vividness. It is truly frustrating to think about how much greater this story could have been in different hands.

Another aspect for which I cannot forgive him is his tendency towards grand pronouncements and profundities that sound great if one skims right past them, but do not hold up to even a moment's scrutiny. I have picked out a couple of examples.

"Women want everything of a lover." Really? All women? Everything? Most women I know would consider it a great achievement if their lover could be trained not to leave his socks in the middle of the dining room every day. Has Ondaatje ever actually lived with a woman?

"It is important to die in holy places. That was one of the secrets of the desert." Hmmmm. Death, holy, desert... It must be profound! But of course, this pronouncement is completely meaningless.

And then there is just the general overwriting that fills every page.

"In the desert the most loved waters, like a lover's name, are carried blue in your hands, enter your throat. One swallows absence." What?

Or -

"She would take my wrist at the confluence of veins and guide it onto the hollow indentation of her neck." I know this may seem terribly unromantic, but there isn't a great deal of confluence in the venous system of the wrist. The cephalic, median antebrachial, and basilic veins do most of the work at that point. A nurse would know this. I guess the point is that "She would take my wrist and guide it onto the hollow indentation of her neck" works just as well and eliminates that pretentious and unnecessary anatomical blather.

I want to re-read this book. It will allow me to skip through the fluff and spend more time on the interesting story and the lovely parts set in the past. I think I will enjoy it more the second time around.

The review of "The English Patient" takes an unusual Q&A format with Hana, the main character or perhaps a central figure. The reviewer questions Hana about her decision to stay in the Italian Villa despite the dangerous and post-war conditions. Hana claims she doesn't think the English Patient would survive the transfer and she loves her independence there. The reviewer also inquires about Hana's pseudo-sexual relationships with the men in the book, which Hana justifies by simply stating she is a woman surrounded by men. The reviewer then asks about Hana's relationship with Kip, finding it hard to believe that the most interesting thing about him is his ability to disappear into shadows. Hana defends her feelings for Kip, saying she enjoys his silence and the way he takes up little space in a room. The reviewer is also confused about the English Patient's significance and Hana's lack of curiosity about his identity and story. Hana simply likes his dark skin, even though it's from life-endangering burns. The reviewer questions the point of the story, finding it to be filled with pages of dates and excerpts that don't seem to contribute to the overall narrative and love affairs that lack passion. Hana argues that the story is about love and loss and is erotic, but the reviewer is not convinced. In the end, the reviewer concludes that while the book has beautiful moments, it is overall as bland as plain yogurt, and Hana believes the reviewer is not the intended audience for the book.

  O, is for Ondaatje





2 Stars

I'm going to deviate from my typical review style and instead conduct a Q&A with Hana (the, erm... MC, perhaps?).

Me: Hey Hana, why haven't you left the Italian Villa even though there are corpses and mines everywhere and the war has ended?




Hana: I just don't think "The English Patient" would survive the transfer and I cherish my independence here. I mean, where else can I give an immobile man sponge baths, inject him with morphine AND play hopscotch in darkened hallways?




Me: *puzzled stare* Moving on: Why do you seem to have a pseudo-sexual relationship with all the men in this book, despite one being like an uncle and another being completely bedridden?




Hana: Well, I'm a woman surrounded by men, need I say more? *shoulder shrug*




Me: Well, yeah, I kind of need more than that! But I'm not going to get any more explanation from you, am I?




Hana: Nope. Just accept it.




Me: *growls* Fine. *teethgritting* What's up with you and Kip? He sounds really interesting and kind, in a quiet, reserved way. Don't you think his job as a sapper is fascinating?




Hana: I just really like his silence and the way he can enter a room and take up almost no space. That's why I often use bird references when thinking about him. Also, his skin is brown like darkness, and I like that.




Me: ...okay?! So you're saying that the most interesting thing about this man who has lived in India, traveled to London, and has a job with an incredibly high mortality rate (defusing bombs, for crying out loud!) is that he can disappear into shadows? Is that why you became lovers?




Hana: No, he was just kind of there, I guess.




Me: Well, that's romantic! *headdesk* What's the story with the English Patient? Why is he so special?




Hana: Oh, he was burned all over in a plane crash, so his skin turned dark. I like dark skin, even when it's from life-threatening burns!




Me: What does that even... ?? And his story, don't you want to know who he is and how he ended up here?




Hana: No, not really. My sort-of-sexually-attracted-to-me Uncle is much more interested in his story. I'll let them have their morphine and stories.




Me: Okay then. What is the point of this story exactly?




Hana: What do you mean "point"? It's about love and loss, AND it's really erotic.




Me: *blank stare* It is? I thought it was about pages and pages of dates and excerpts from other books that never really become part of the overall story, and love affairs that aren't hot enough to warm a baby's bathwater.




Hana: But it's so erotic because Kip is Indian and boy-like despite being in his late twenties. Did I mention his skin is darker than mine?




Me: For god's sake… YES, yes you did, five hundred million times!! Okay, final question: Why in the world would I care about your affair or the English Patient's affair (in hindsight)?




Hana: BECAUSE it's roooommantiic!!




Me: I don't buy it. I think that while this book has beautiful moments, it is, overall, as bland as plain yogurt.




Hana: I don't think you're the type of person this book is meant for.




Me: Neither do I.

“From this point on,” she whispered, her voice carrying an air of mystery and solemnity.

“We will either find or lose our souls.”

These words hung in the air, as if weighing down on the very essence of those present.

It was a moment of great significance, a crossroads where the path ahead was filled with uncertainty.

Would they embark on a journey that would lead to self-discovery and enlightenment, or would they take a wrong turn and lose themselves in the darkness?

The thought sent shivers down their spines, yet there was also a glimmer of hope in their eyes.

They knew that whatever lay ahead, they had to be brave and face it head-on.

For in this quest, they were not just seeking their souls, but also the meaning and purpose of their existence.

And so, with a deep breath, they stepped forward, ready to embrace whatever fate had in store for them.

Little did they know that this would be a journey like no other, one that would change their lives forever.