The Book: The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje
The Story: World War II has ended. Hana, an exhausted, devoted nurse stays in this Italian villa to care for an unnamed, English patient who is straight covered with burns. Over time, Carvaggio, a thief who was also injured during the war, and Kip, a bomb defuser (sapper) during the war, both end up at the villa too. Their lives start to intertwine in unexpected ways.
The book weaves together the stories of these four characters. We learn their back story, their thoughts and what they are going through right now.
What I Thought: I know that it’s going to make me sound pretty stupid, but I only knew what was going on about half of the time. I’ve said it before on my blog, but seriously, when poets write novels I should just not read them. I read a lot of reviews of this after finishing it because I was just stunned that it is such a popular book. Most reviews talked about the “lyrical prose” and “passion” and the book being “illuminating.” Huh? Maybe I just missed something.
It was a different style of writing, that’s for sure. I remember in the first few pages it says that the English patient’s penis was, “sleeping like a sea horse.” Maybe I’m just quick to judge, but right away I was kind of like, “oh, this book isn’t really for me.”
The first half of the book was choppy and I couldn’t really figure out what the stories had to do with anything. I’ll admit that the narrative kind of got smoother in the second half, but by then I was up to my ears in the “lyrical prose” and sea horse penises and I just wanted it to be over with. I was never emotionally attached to any character and I didn’t really care what happened to them.
I heard, however, that Sayid from Lost is in the movie as Kip. I love me some Sayid, so maybe I’ll give The English Patient another try in movie form.
Conclusion: Skip it. I know it’s a classic and people will say that I just didn’t read enough into it. Maybe that’s true, but I didn’t enjoy it and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.