The English Patient
3 journalers for this copy...
I must be the only person on the planet who hasn't read this book yet. I found this copy at the thrift store today for $1.99 (this is the third copy I've bought this way -- no one should ever pay full price for this book!), and picked it up knowing someone out there in Bookland would be happy to receive it.
Sooner or later, I need to read this book as part of my Booker Prize project.
Sooner or later, I need to read this book as part of my Booker Prize project.
I'm sending this out as a RABCK to gypsyrose02 in Australia. Hope you enjoy the book!
received this yesterday, monday 24th may as a rabck from goatgrrl with an extra little gift. thankyou so much! looking forward to reading it.
Journal Entry 4 by gypsyrose02 from Byford, Western Australia Australia on Wednesday, October 6, 2004
try as i might, i couldnt get into this. with so many other books calling me (so frustrating), ive decided to move it along. i have a couple of different ideas for this. will keep you posted. thanks so much goatgrrl
Journal Entry 5 by gypsyrose02 from Byford, Western Australia Australia on Tuesday, October 19, 2004
going into the already crossed book bag.
Journal Entry 6 by celestewa from Perth City, Western Australia Australia on Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Just taken this from the Already Crossed Bookbag! Enjoyed the movie along time ago .. especially the bath scene! Will journal after I have read the book .. now in Mt TBR!
Journal Entry 7 by goatgrrl from New Westminster, British Columbia Canada on Tuesday, November 9, 2004
I finally read this book (a different copy, obviously!), and thought I would post my thoughts here.
The English Patient begins in April 1945 in the Villa San Girolamo, a nunnery-turned-hospital located 20 miles north of Florence, in Tuscany. There, at the beginning of the novel, we are introduced to two unnamed characters: "the burned man" (subsequently "the English patient"), and the nurse who has stayed to care for him, though the villa has been nearly destroyed by a mortar shell attack and everyone else has moved on (the war in Europe has just ended, with the Germans retreating up the Italian countryside). The English patient is struggling to survive life-threatening burns sustained during a plane crash in Egypt's Western Desert. The nurse is battling shell-shock and grieving the recent death of her father, a Canadian soldier in France.
(Readers familiar with Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion may be surprised to discover that the nurse, whose name we don't learn for several chapters, is Hana, daughter of Patrick Lewis and Alice Gull, and stepdaughter of radio actress Clara Dickens. Now twenty years old, Hana trained as a nurse at Women's College Hospital in Toronto before travelling overseas in 1943 during the Sicilian invasion.)
Hana and the English patient are soon joined at the villa by David Caravaggio ("the man with bandaged hands"), 45, whom Hana and her father knew in Toronto before the war (Caravaggio, too, was first introduced as a character in Skin of a Lion), and by Kirpal "Kip" Singh, a Sikh serving as a sapper in the British army, who has come to defuse remaining German mines in the area.
The story in The English Patient is told from the points of view of each of these characters (Hana, the English patient, Caravaggio and Kip), in a patchwork of recollections which move back and forth in time from the spring of 1945 at the Villa San Girolamo, to exploration of the Western Desert by members of the Royal Geographic Society in the early 1930s, to the Gilf Kebir in 1942, to the Westbury white horse in 1940. In a similar vein, the narrative shifts at intervals from the first person to third person, a device which serves -- among other things -- to heighten confusion as to the true identity of the English patient. The result is a fairly disorienting read, and despite my efforts to read attentively, I often felt frustrated by my inability to track what was going on. The English Patient is beautifully written, and its exploration of the impact of WWII on a diverse group of individuals makes a significant contribution to the body of literature set in this era. But reading it was hard work -- not my favourite way to experience a novel.
Barnes & Noble has online study notes for The English Patient here.
The English Patient begins in April 1945 in the Villa San Girolamo, a nunnery-turned-hospital located 20 miles north of Florence, in Tuscany. There, at the beginning of the novel, we are introduced to two unnamed characters: "the burned man" (subsequently "the English patient"), and the nurse who has stayed to care for him, though the villa has been nearly destroyed by a mortar shell attack and everyone else has moved on (the war in Europe has just ended, with the Germans retreating up the Italian countryside). The English patient is struggling to survive life-threatening burns sustained during a plane crash in Egypt's Western Desert. The nurse is battling shell-shock and grieving the recent death of her father, a Canadian soldier in France.
(Readers familiar with Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion may be surprised to discover that the nurse, whose name we don't learn for several chapters, is Hana, daughter of Patrick Lewis and Alice Gull, and stepdaughter of radio actress Clara Dickens. Now twenty years old, Hana trained as a nurse at Women's College Hospital in Toronto before travelling overseas in 1943 during the Sicilian invasion.)
Hana and the English patient are soon joined at the villa by David Caravaggio ("the man with bandaged hands"), 45, whom Hana and her father knew in Toronto before the war (Caravaggio, too, was first introduced as a character in Skin of a Lion), and by Kirpal "Kip" Singh, a Sikh serving as a sapper in the British army, who has come to defuse remaining German mines in the area.
The story in The English Patient is told from the points of view of each of these characters (Hana, the English patient, Caravaggio and Kip), in a patchwork of recollections which move back and forth in time from the spring of 1945 at the Villa San Girolamo, to exploration of the Western Desert by members of the Royal Geographic Society in the early 1930s, to the Gilf Kebir in 1942, to the Westbury white horse in 1940. In a similar vein, the narrative shifts at intervals from the first person to third person, a device which serves -- among other things -- to heighten confusion as to the true identity of the English patient. The result is a fairly disorienting read, and despite my efforts to read attentively, I often felt frustrated by my inability to track what was going on. The English Patient is beautifully written, and its exploration of the impact of WWII on a diverse group of individuals makes a significant contribution to the body of literature set in this era. But reading it was hard work -- not my favourite way to experience a novel.
Barnes & Noble has online study notes for The English Patient here.
