![]() Book name: English Patient Author: Michael Ondaaje Genre: Novel Goodreads: <Link> Storygraph: <Link> “She entered the story knowing she would emerge from it feeling she had been immersed in the lives of others, in plots that stretched back twenty years, her body full of sentences and moments, as if awaking from sleep with a heaviness caused by unremembered dreams.” The English Patient primarily revolves around the story of a couple of unlikely individuals ; Kip; a Sikh sapper attached to the British army, Caravaggio an Italian-Canadian thief turned spy and Hana a Canadian army nurse who stays back to care for the ‘English Patient’ the mystery man referred to in the title of Michael Ondaatje’s novel whose body has been burnt beyond recognition cloaking his identity. The characters find themselves in a crumbling Italian Villa during World War II where the plot of the novel revolves around the characters living their lives and recalling the past. I found the novel to be written in a very poetic way where the plot of the novel was very sparse and times difficult to follow as the plot jumps back and forth in time in their narrative of their lives. At the heart of the novel is the mystery of the English patient’s identity who’s story comes out in bits and pieces amidst the morphine the patient and Caravaggio are addicted to for dealing with the physical pain they both face. The English patient’s narrative comes across as being a very stream of consciousness style of writing which at times makes it difficult to follow as at times he switches between referring to him in the 1st person or in the 3rd person. This might be deliberate to throw the reader off about the English Patients identity and also might be a result of the tremendous pain he is going through. “The desert could not be claimed or owned–it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names... Its caravans, those strange rambling feasts and cultures, left nothing behind, not an ember. All of us, even those with European homes and children in the distance, wished to remove the clothing of our countries. It was a place of faith. We disappeared into landscape.” While the start of the novel is sparse on plot, it really starts to pickup when the English patient narrates his experience as part of an archaeological expedition in the 1930s in the desert around North Africa. The tone of the novel takes on a new sense of vibrancy and activity tone at that point compared to the present and the melancholy of life in the villa. This shift in tone might have been deliberate choice of the part of the author in order to make that the centerpiece of the novel as well as to show the contrast between the vibrancy of the desert in its unspoiled state compared to the scenes in the Villa which takes place during the war where the glory of the villa has faded or can only be viewed through a lens of constant danger as in the case of kip who admires the frescoes of the Sistine chapel through the scope of a rifle. The descriptions of the desert, the Bedouin Camps & cities, the pre historic caves they discover were very evocative and were parts of the novel that particularly appealed to me. Was interesting to also learn that some of the characters and events mentioned are loosely based on historical events and characters while the locations such as the cave of swimmers is an actual site in the Sahara which has Neolithic pictographs showing humans that seem to be swimming which suggests that part of the world used to be much greener than what we see today. Another aspect of the novel I like is alot of the characters in the novel are very distinct, having very colourful personalities and don’t fall into a particular stereotype. While this might seem somewhat unrealistic it might also reflect the author drawing on inspiration from his own upbringing and family history which he draws on for a lot of his novels. Apart from the English patient, another character who is talked about a lot is Kip; the Sikh Sapper who does not get as much screentime in the movie adaption and so was interesting to read of his story about his family in India and his experiences in England where he trained in bomb disposal. I felt that the scenes where Kip is diffusing bombs is presented in a very authentic manner while also creating the tension without it being overly dramatic as it usually is the way they are depicted in films. Was very interested to read about the thought process that goes into diffusing bombs where its almost like a cat and mouse game between the bomb’s creator and the diffuser where both seem to have a grudging admiration for each other’s work. It felt like the author had done very in-depth research into this topic. "We were German, English, Hungarian, African - all of us insignificant to them, gradually we became nationless. I came to hate nations. We are deformed by nation-states". While at the centre of the English Patients story is a story of romance, and aspect that I felt was overlooked particularly in the film’s depiction is that at least in my reading it seems to have a strong anti war message. This comes out in terms of the impact it has on natural beauty such as the beauty of the desert which has been tarnished where it has become a theatre or human creations such as the Frescoes and art works such as that in Italy which has throughout various points of history come under threat. The anti-war message also comes out strongly in terms of the experiences of the characters at the Villa have been traumatized by the war and are finding ways to escape from it. The characters who are drawn from different backgrounds, age groups, religions, ethnicities and political views share a sort of common bond through the common losses they feel whether its a father, a father figure, a lover or a loss of a body part and piece of your identity. At one point, this peace is put to the test at one point when Kip learns about the U.S bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki and where Caravaggio reflects that wouldn't have been done to a white nation. Overall, would say this is a very meditative novel and with its poetic language and limited plot and might not appeal to everyone. However personally I quite liked it for its themes, the memorable characters and evocative language which I feel there are a lot of nuances I’ve missed out on a first read. Would be interested to revisit the novel something as well as read the authors other novel ‘In the Skin of the Lion’ where the backstories of some of the other characters featured in the novel are covered.
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AuthorAvid reader of Historical fiction, High fantasy novels, Comics & Graphic Novels. Passionate about teaching & the future of education in general. Categories
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December 2023
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