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Editorial 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 the second world war 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 sheet 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 secured 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.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Book Cover A small gripe. Why has the publisher of this edition used a picture of Provence to illustrate an Italian story. Its even called The Provencal Nude. A brilliant picture but not for this book. Valerie L
Utterly absorbing. This is a beautifully written book with timeless appeal and I can't recommend it highly enough. The English Patient draws the reader into a world that after a while appears to consist of only four people as they learn to love and live with each other. Each character adds another dimension to the microcosm created in a secluded Italian villa, but set against the vividly described past lives of the patient himself and his new companions. Having watched the film many years ago I was intrigued to see how the... more info
Poetry as prose This is one of the most beautiful books ever written. I dipped into it recently (having read it twice on the past several years) and the quality and beauty of the prose left me staggered at what can be done with the English language. The descriptions put you right into the location with the characters, from Kip in a crater defusing a bomb, to the eponymous patient in the desert. One of the cleverest things about it is the way that we become acquainted with the characters as they would have got to know... more info
not bad, nothing like the film though. I watched the film and thought it was brilliant so I read the book and was disappointed. It is written beautifully but it was just so different to what I expected. SPOILERS The main story is all about Kip, then Hana and then their relationship, the actual English patient features very little throughout the book to the point that I was wondering why the book is called The English Patient. His relationship with Katherine only takes up a few pages. It is a good book and I liked the story but if... more info
