The English Patient [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Michael Ondaatje (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 29, 1992

With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal,and rescue illuminates this book like flashes of heat lightening.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Haunting and harrowing, as beautiful as it is disturbing, The English Patient tells the story of the entanglement of four damaged lives in an Italian monastery as World War II ends. The exhausted nurse, Hana; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burn victim who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning. In lyrical prose informed by a poetic consciousness, Michael Ondaatje weaves these characters together, pulls them tight, then unravels the threads with unsettling acumen.

A book that binds readers of great literature, The English Patient garnered the Booker Prize for author Ondaatje. The poet and novelist has also written In the Skin of a Lion, Coming Through Slaughter and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid; two collections of poems, The Cinnamon Peeler and There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do; and a memoir, Running in the Family.

From Publishers Weekly

A poet's sensitive, deep-seeing eye, a fluid, sensuous prose and imaginative juxtapositions of characters and events distinguish Canadian author Ondaatje's impressive novels ( Coming Through Slaughter ; In the Skin of a Lion ; etc.). Here again he brings together disparate characters whose lives intersect at a crucial moment in history, and introduces real-life figures who add dimension and credibility to the story. The four people who take shelter in an abandoned villa in Italy during the final days of WW II are in retreat from a world gone mad; each of them is bent on protecting painful memories and pondering irreplaceable losses. The mysterious "English patient" has been horribly burned while parachuting into the Libyan desert; his face unrecognizable and his identity unknown, he gradually reveals his tragic story through the prompting of David Caravaggio, a professional thief and former spy whose hands and spirit have been maimed by Nazi torturers. Caravaggio has come to the villa in search of Hana, a woman who is nursing the burned man, whom Caravaggio has known since her childhood in Toronto. Close to emotional breakdown herself, dry-souled Hana is nourished by her love for Kip, a Singh demolitions expert whose perilous craft reflects the fragility of all their lives. Each is "playing a game of secrets," which Ondaatje reveals in a suspenseful narrative whose gripping scenes (a desert sandstorm; the defusing of live bombs) call to mind the sudden brilliance of subjects illuminated by Caravaggio's artist namesake, to whose work Ondaatje elliptically refers. If the events of the novel's closing pages seem forced, they underscore Ondaatje's message about the lingering effects of war's brutality.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 307 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; First Edition edition (September 29, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 7018982421
• ISBN-13: 978-7018982429
• ASIN: 0679416781
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1.2 x 8.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (321 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #650,720 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A poetic tale of four haunted lives, October 8, 2003

By 

Debbie Lee Wesselmann (the Lehigh Valley, PA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (2008 HOLIDAY TEAM)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The English Patient (Paperback)

Set at the end of World War II in an Italian villa, The English Patient brings together four unlikely characters: Hana, an emotionally-wounded army nurse who refuses to leave her last patient even when ordered to evacuate; Caravaggio, a friend of Hana's father, thief and spy, a man who is drawn to Hana in ways he cannot articulate; Kip, an Indian sapper loyal to the British military who disarms bombs by day, loves Hana by night; and the mysterious burned invalid, the English patient of the title, who unites them all in unexpected ways. Told in poetic, often elliptical language, this novel demands to be savored instead of read voraciously. The images are just as likely to be visually precise as they are inexplicable. Unlike the movie, which concentrates on the love story between the English patient and the woman he loved, the novel is more about the confusing impulses that lead to both passion and danger in all the characters.

Serious readers of literature should read this novel more than once, for its subtleties, imagery, and the force of its lyricism. More casual readers may find it tough reading, not because the language is inaccessible but because of the way Ondaatje backs into his story. Those who stick with the author's poetic turns will be well-rewarded by the end.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you've ever NOT read a book because it became a movie...., January 14, 2006

By 

Mark DeRespinis (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The English Patient (Paperback)

There was a time, not too long ago, when you could sit in a cafe and hear the words The English Patient within the half hour, either that or see someone with their head ducked into the pages of the book between slurps of coffee. Of course this popularity made me wary of the book and the movie and I formed ready stereotypes and turned my attention elsewhere. Then the paperback copies of the book started to come out with the actors faces on it, and I have vowed never to by a book that brandishes its connection to the movie version of the story - call me a grumpy old man, but it seems that the book was the book before it was the movie and I'd much rather form my own visual and dramatic accompaniment to the text without seeing the face of some actor. (Disclaimer: I might love the movie if I actually saw it, but that's not the point!)
And yet, poetic justice prevails. On a slow winter morning at my coffee shop, I looked warily over at a copy of The English Patient that someone had left on the shelf months ago. In fact, I didn't even think that I was picking up "The English Patient", and instead looked to the merits of the book's fine author Michael Ondaatje. I thought of Anil's Ghost, which I enjoyed, and Coming through Slaughter, and thought it might do me good to start off my day with a glance at the inspired prose of a great writer. Later, I would read about Hana reading to the English patient: "When she begins a book she enters through stilted doorwas into large courtyards. Parma and Paris and India spread their carpets." In the first paragraph of this book, we enter into The Villa, following Hana into the room where the English patient lies. "She turns into the room which is another garden - this one made up of trees and bowers painted over its walls and ceiling. The man lies on the bed, his body exposed to the breeze, and he turns his head slowly towards her as she enters..." We are introduced to a relationship, and through the relationship, to a place, and through the place, to a war, and through the war, to the strange lurches of a civilization in a time of great change and to individuals trying to situate themselves amidst the absurdly ordered chaos of it all. Once you fall under the spell of the story, you are left to dream, and to be changed forever by the experience.

35 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreakingly Gorgeous, April 12, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The English Patient (Paperback)

"The English Patient" is, without a doubt, one of my very favorite books. It is lush, beautiful and gorgeous. And the glory of it is that it got that way with fine, first-rate writing. You won't find any gimmicks or ... tricks here.

Unlike the movie, the book begins in war-torn Italy (1944) where we encounter Hana, a Canadian nurse and a horribly burned man known only as, "the English patient." Alone in an isolated, abandoned convent, Hana stays behind when her friends move on to care for the dying English patient. Hana is a rare individual and truly caring. She spends her days reading to the English patient from the volume of Herodotus that was found with him and, when his pain becomes too great, she injects him with morphine.

Hana and the English patient aren't alone long, however. A mysterious man named Caravaggio soon arrives and it becomes clear that he has an agenda all his own. Nevertheless, it is Caravaggio who succeeds with the English patient where others have failed. This trio is soon joined by a Sikh named Kip, a man who will play a role in Hana's life, just as she will play a role in his.

Eventually, of course, we learn all about the English patient, who really isn't English at all, but a Hungarian count named, Almasy. We learn where he's been and why and how he came to be so horribly burned. We learn about the great love of his life, a love that sadly, was doomed from the very start.

This is a book that is told on two levels and contains two love stories. One takes place in the past and the other takes place in the present. While Hana's story is told in the present tense, it is not as involving or as intense as is the love story involving Almasy that takes place in the past. I think this is because Hana and her lover are not as fully-realized as are Almasy and his lover, though Hana is by far the most sympathetic character in the book.

The character of Caravaggio is as mysterious as is the English patient. We do learn about him, however, and about his mysterious connection to Almasy. The stories of Hana and Caravaggio are heartbreaking and heartbreakingly beautiful.

"The English Patient" is a quiet love story, one told without the necessity of melodrama or "fireworks." However, it is one that cuts deep, and one that any reader will remember long after the book is finished. This is a story that simply rings with universal chords...of love, of loss, of sadness, of betrayal.

If I have one quibble with this book, it is with the denouement. I didn't really want to know what happened to some of the characters in the distant future. I wanted Ondaatje to leave a little for my imagination. But he didn't and that's his choice. It certainly didn't ruin the book for me.

The writing in "The English Patient" is lyrical and beautiful, though spare. Ondaatje is first and foremost a poet, and it shows. This is a book that flows, that cascades, that washes over you with its words.

I first read "The English Patient" years ago and I haven't forgotten a single detail. "The English Patient" is a book that captures your heart and never lets go. It is a book that will haunt you with its beauty and with its sadness for many years to come, perhaps even for the rest of your life. Yes, it's that good.