The English Patient Analysis
- French-Canadian nurse Hana has an affair with Kip, a Sikh, while she takes care of the Hungarian Count Laszlo de Almásy, who himself has an affair with Katherine Clifton, an Englishwoman. Ondaatje develops these characters in part by exploring the racial tensions between them.
- Set variously in Tuscany, Rome, and the Libyan desert, The English Patient explores the international impact of World War II. Its characters come from vastly different backgrounds, both socioeconomic and political, and converge on the Villa San Girolamo after a series of tragedies. These varied settings offer a glimpse at the widespread global impacts of WWII.
The English Patient
Michael Ondaatje is a Sri Lanka-born novelist who lives in Canada. He is a writer, consequently, whose work writhes with the tensions inherent among races, cultures, and nationalities. Personal and political histories are Ondaatje’s concerns, particularly as they intertwine and work to shape the emerging individual consciousness. In The English Patient, which shared the 1992 Booker Prize with Barry Unsworth’s Sacred Hunger, Ondaatje multiplies these histories and makes of his novel a four-stranded narrative that moves between love story, history, and mystery. Any story of love involves itself naturally in mystery, and Ondaatje here deftly takes his reader in and out of the often dark and crossing passages of his characters’ lives.
The physical locus of this narrative is the Villa San Girolamo, a former nunnery set in the hills of Tuscany north of Florence. Once occupied by the Germans, the battle-ravaged villa more recently has served as an Allied field hospital. With the war in Italy near its end, the hospital has been abandoned, except for a patient—the English patient—and a Canadian nurse, Hana, who has refused to evacuate the villa with the rest of the hospital staff.
The dramatic locus of this narrative begins in the exchange of stories between these two figures. Each possesses a private history that demands slow and significant telling, and Ondaatje gives them time at the start of his novel to begin those tellings. These stories take the reader back in time and move about in space; they are effective and sometimes inaccurate histories. That, says Ondaatje, is exactly the point.
The English patient is a man without a name, without a face, without an identity, with barely a temporal existence at all: He submerges himself in a cherished anonymity. His body lies blackened and immobilized by burns received in a plane crash in the Libyan desert; that body, in fact, is the wrecked emblem of his story and is that story’s starting point. Memory moves where the body cannot, and the English patient uses a voice sweetened by morphine to take Hana to the desert, to that “place of faith” and ultimate mystery. The English patient is one of a group of explorers who in the 1930’s sought to map the desert of northern Africa. Most of them were upper-class Englishmen, members of the Royal Geographic Society and representatives of a specific British political consciousness. They moved in foreign cultures as aliens seeking to pierce the deep heart and history of place; their cartographies were scientific, political, and emotional.
The English patient pays a severe price for his engagement. Working backward from his plane crash and his rescue by a Bedouin tribe, he unravels slowly the intricate lines of his relationship with the wife of adventurer Geoffrey Clifton. Just as he seeks to understand the desert and the profound attraction it holds for him, so the English patient labors to comprehend his love for Katharine Clifton, mapping her body as if it were strange and powerful terrain. He finds himself eventually “disassembled” by Katharine, and after her death in the plane crash that chars the English patient’s body beyond recognition, he spends his days and nights piecing together a history and a self from the fragments.
Hana listens to that narrative knowing that she, too, has been “disassembled” by events. Like the English patient, she has been marked by the war in cruel ways: She has lost her father (also badly burned) to the war, and as a nurse she has witnessed close-up the various, inventive, and tragic activities of death. She craves narrative, incomplete though it might be, for...
(This entire section contains 2203 words.)
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it proffers a route back from her own partial mad- ness: narrative functioning as a psychic cartography, of sorts.
Much of Hana’s history remains locked, however, until an element of that history appears—a virtual reality—in her present. David Caravaggio had been Hana’s “uncle” in her childhood in Toronto, her father’s best friend and a professional thief. An expatriate Italian, he had returned to his country to work for the Allies, putting his profession to political and historical use. Betrayed not by his art but by the accident of a photograph, Caravaggio is caught and dismembered by Italian fascists: his thumbs are lopped off, the thief left “disassembled” and recuperating in a field hospital. There he hears of Hana’s circumstance, and he sets out to locate her in the Tuscan landscape. What he has in mind is his own rehabilitation, but what he actually recovers is more than one truth of the past.
Caravaggio’s relationship with Hana drives part of the mystery of Ondaatje’s narrative, for what is superficially avuncular carries with it the suggestion of sexual desire, at least on the part of Caravaggio. Hana, it seems, sparks the thief’s own memory of his marriage and of his wife, now dead. The erotic tension runs near the surface and with special strength from Caravaggio toward Hana; reciprocation is not forthcoming.
That tension is aggravated by Caravaggio’s concern over the relationship between Hana and the English patient, a concern that begins in emotional doubt and evolves into political suspicion. Himself an intimate of the network of intelligence and espionage, Caravaggio comes to a nagging certainty that the English patient is in fact a known and presumed-to-be-dead spy: Count Ladislaus de Almásy, one of that circle of desert explorers. Caravaggio turns his art to the purpose of stealing the English patient’s secret from the history that he tells, simultaneously lifting the English patient’s anonymity and filling a historical blank with the substantiality of fact.
Incomplete itself, though, is Ondaatje’s quartet of storytellers. With the appearance of Kirpal “Kip” Singh at the villa, the compass of narrative is made whole. Kip—the name is meant to evoke thoughts of Kipling and of Kim (1901), a book that floats through Ondaatje’s narrative—is a Punjabi Sikh who, through natural art and adeptness, has become an almost magical defuser of mines. He is part of a British sapper unit moving through Italy in the wake of the German retreat, mapping a terrain made suddenly deadly and “disassembling” the hidden landmarks of that terrain. The villa and the Tuscany hills are part of that geography, as is the “miniature world” within the villa itself. Kip seems to search for the fuse that would leave that group in pieces. Kip’s art is in disarming.
It is an art he learned from the British, and that education is the very thing that sets him apart from the other members of the quartet. Conscious of color and of culture (and ironically linked to the English patient both by his knowledge of armaments and by the darkness of his skin), Kip involves the world gathered within the villa in the politics of racial and cultural differentiation. His own history works both with and against the larger historical pattern. Born in India, taken in by the British and appreciated for his artistry but exploited for that talent and magic, Kip struggles to resolve the question of character: individual, romantic, and geopolitical character. One knows, too, that Ondaatje is working to resolve the question of his character-as-artist as well. Character, as Kip perceives it, is “a map of responsibility” that he must learn to read. Charted successfully, that map yields power, power bought uncomfortably with one’s anonymity. This is a realization that hits Kip in situ—at both a bomb site and at the villa, for the two are varieties of the same landscape.
He knew he was for now a king, a puppet master, could order anything, a bucket of sand, a fruit pie for his needs, and those men who would not cross an uncrowded bar to speak with him when they were off duty would do what he desired. It was strange to him. As if he had been handed a large suit of clothes that he could roll around in and whose sleeves would drag behind him. But he knew he did not like it. He was accustomed to his invisibility. In England he was ignored in the various barracks, and he came to prefer that. The self-sufficiency and privacy Hana saw in him later were caused not just by his being a sapper in the Italian campaign. It was as much a result of being the anonymous member of another race, a part of the invisible world. He had built up defences of character against all that, trusting only those who befriended him. But that night in Erith he knew he was capable of having wires attached to him that influenced all around him who did not have his specific talent.
Kip Singh, defuser of mines, stubbornly resists his own disarming. That task falls to Hana, with whom Kip falls in love—or at least a form or degree of love. Love is problematic, making manifest the invisible and the anonymous. Kip, who sees in all things the “choreography of accident,” reluctantly embarks on the “treacherous and complex journey” of romantic revelation and dependence. He looks for reliable maps, charts to the territory; the phrase “drawn by desire” suddenly takes on special resonance.
Disarmed and vulnerable, fleshed out by love and the relinquishment of self, Kip is dramatically brought up short by historical fact. In August, 1945, bombs are dropping, dropping on people of color, on people who are one minute visible and the next minute ghosts. These are bombs whose magnitude exceeds Kip’s art. The reality of these events, however, shocks Kip into a greater kind of consciousness and sends him on a journey of a different sort. He escapes the villa, its community running down toward implosion, and heads east, immersing himself on the way in one more river.
Time leaps ahead. Fourteen years later, Kip Singh has returned to India. He is married and has become a father and a doctor. The English patient has died; Caravaggio has vanished (it seems); Hana, “at even this age, thirty-four, has not found her own company, the ones she wanted. She is a woman of honour and smartness whose wild love leaves out luck, always taking risks.” She is a woman recalled now to Singh by the slightest of physical movements, an occasionally disturbed stone in the river of memory.
Rivers and water flow throughout the novel, alternating images of fluidity and turbulence, cleansing and death set against the arid landscape of the desert. Ondaatje positions his characters in precise relation to these elements, establishing the locations of those characters within the cartography of both his narrative and their fictive histories. The world, in time, reveals itself as invention, as product of belief and imagination and experience. People design, says Ondaatje, a choreography to fit that accumulation of belief, imagination, and experience. One can map, at best, a world in flux. Those particularly skillful at such mapping—writers with the poetic power and enduring vision of Michael Ondaatje—provide the less able with the visual and verbal documents needed for survival. The English Patient is one such excellent document, a map constructed in language too potent and too eloquent to be ignored.
Bibliography
Booklist. LXXXIX, September 15, 1992, p. 124. A review of The English Patient.
Chicago Tribune. October 25, 1992, XIV, p. 5. A review of The English Patient.
Ganapathy-Dore, Geetha. “The Novel of the Nowhere Man: Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient.” Commonwealth 16, no. 2 (Spring, 1996): 96-100. Analyzes themes and characters in The English Patient from a postcolonial perspective.
Heble, Ajay. “Michael Ondaatje and the Problem of History.” Clio 19, no. 2 (1990): 97-111. Discusses Ondaatje’s deconstruction and reconstruction of history in Coming Through Slaughter (1976) and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (1970), much of which is applicable to The English Patient’s use of history as well.
Hutcheon, Linda. The Canadian Postmodern: A Study of Contemporary English-Canadian Fiction. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Looks at Ondaatje’s postmodernist experiments with realism, history, autobiography, and other literary genres in his works up to In the Skin of a Lion. Places him in the context of other contemporary Canadian writers such as Margaret Atwood and Robert Kroetsch.
Library Journal. CXVII, September 1, 1992, p. 215. A review of The English Patient.
Los Angeles Times Book Review. October 11, 1992, p. 3. A review of The English Patient.
“Michael Ondaatje.” Essays on Canadian Writing 53 (Summer, 1994). Includes criticism of Ondaatje’s major works, discussions of his postcolonialism, the significance of gender issues in his works, the complexities and techniques of his prose and poetry, and two interviews with the author.
New Statesman and Society. V, September 18, 1992, p. 39. A review of The English Patient.
The New York Times Book Review. XCVII, November 1, 1992, p. 7. A review of The English Patient.
Publishers Weekly. CXXXIX, July 20, 1992, p. 220. A review of The English Patient.
Solecki, Sam, ed. Spider Blues: Essays on Michael Ondaatje. Montreal: Véhicule Press, 1985. Contains essays examining Ondaatje’s poetry and prose to 1985. Those by Solecki and by Jon Kertzer on Coming Through Slaughter are particularly useful in understanding Ondaatje’s major themes.
Time. CXL, November 2, 1992, p. 71. A review of The English Patient.
The Times Literary Supplement. September 11, 1992, p. 23. A review of The English Patient.
The Wall Street Journal. October 16, 1992, p. A12. A review of The English Patient.
Historical Context
The English Patient predominantly takes place in Italy towards the conclusion of World War II, featuring characters from Africa, Europe, Canada, and India. The war directly causes the convergence of the main characters—Kip, Hana, Caravaggio, and the patient—at a bombed-out villa in Italy, just months before the war's end. The international relationships between the characters and the impact of the war on them individually and collectively are crucial to the novel's progression. This includes the various theaters of war and the bombing of Hiroshima, which marked the war's final phase.
World War II stemmed directly from the unresolved issues of World War I, which failed to create a lasting peace. Germany, having lost World War I, was left in severe economic distress. The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, left Germany with limited opportunities for recovery or growth. Meanwhile, Italy and Japan, despite being victors of World War I, were dissatisfied with the rewards they received. Eventually, these three nations formed the Axis powers, opposing France, Great Britain, the USSR, and the United States, which constituted the Allied powers during World War II.
Prior to World War II, Italy and Germany adopted totalitarian regimes known as fascism, characterized by militaristic governance under a dictator. In Germany, Adolf Hitler rose to power as the dictator in 1933, promising to overturn the Treaty of Versailles and restore German dominance by annexing neighboring countries. In Italy, Benito Mussolini became the fascist dictator in 1922. Simultaneously, Japan, which already had a long-standing military government, initiated invasions to take over China.
In 1938, Hitler began his campaign to dominate Europe with the forced annexation of Austria, an act supported by Italy and unchallenged by France or Great Britain, who were taken aback by Germany's sudden display of power. World War II officially commenced when Germany invaded Poland, a nation with a mutual defense pact with France. This aggression led France and Great Britain to declare war on Germany on September 1, 1939. Over the subsequent years, Germany invaded much of Europe, including France.
The horrific hallmark of Hitler's regime in Germany and his actions during World War II was the mass extermination of Jews and other minority groups in concentration camps, an atrocity known as the Holocaust. His aim was to create what he envisioned as a "pure" German state.
Initially adopting an isolationist stance, the United States was hesitant to engage in another major European conflict. This changed on December 7, 1941, when Japan attacked the Pearl Harbor military base in Hawaii. This attack was provoked by the United States' freezing of Japanese assets, which threatened Japan's economy. Consequently, the United States entered the war, facing battles on fronts in both Europe and the Pacific Ocean.
Great Britain's involvement in the war drew people from its commonwealth territories and colonies worldwide, including Canada—an independent nation with strong ties to Britain—and India, which was still under British colonial rule. The war's physical theater extended beyond Europe to the colonies of France and Britain in Africa. In The English Patient, the conflict brought individuals from across the globe to defend lands they had never seen. This sense of disconnection, stemming from fighting in foreign lands, is a major theme of the novel. For India, this was particularly complex; Indians fought to defend the British Empire while a burgeoning independence movement was taking root at home. Just two years after WWII ended, India gained independence from Britain in 1947. The novel explores the tension between British control over India, the movement towards independence, and the racism inherent in British imperialism. This is especially evident in the character of Kip and his evolving attitude towards the West by the novel's end.
In the early years of the war, the Axis powers seemed poised for victory. However, by 1941, with the United States' involvement, the tide began to turn in favor of the Allies. In the summer of 1943, British, Canadian, and American forces successfully took Italy. On June 6, 1944, known as D-Day, the Allies surprised the Germans and captured the beaches of Normandy, initiating the liberation of France. By the spring of 1945, the Allies had breached the German border, leading to Germany's official surrender on May 8, 1945, known as V-E Day.
On August 6 and August 9, 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in an estimated 240,000 deaths. Japan formally surrendered on September 2, 1945.
World War II was marked by the introduction of new, more deadly technologies, most notably the atomic bomb. In terms of casualties and property damage, it stands as the most destructive conflict in history. It served as the backdrop for the deployment of the most terrifying weapon humanity had ever devised and witnessed the horrific genocide of Jews by the German Nazis. The war was also notable for air raids that claimed numerous civilian lives. The conflict left the once-mighty British Empire and the broader European economy in ruins, creating a power vacuum that the United States and the USSR filled, emerging as the new superpowers. This transition sparked a new era: the Cold War between the capitalist democracy of the US and the communist USSR.
Literary Style
Setting
The novel is set during World War II, a period that is crucial to its exploration of several themes, such as the influence of nationhood on individual identity and the illusory honor associated with war.
By situating the story in World War II, Ondaatje uses this historical backdrop to delve into the effects of British colonialism on subsequent U.S. world policies. World War II marked the decline of Britain's colonial dominance and the ascension of the United States as a global power. This shift is symbolically represented in the novel by the bombing of Hiroshima. Through Kip's character, Ondaatje illustrates how the American decision to use the atomic bomb on Japan is linked to the racist, colonialist ideology of Western superiority that was a hallmark of the British Empire's rule over its non-Western colonies.
A significant portion of the novel's action occurs in an abandoned Italian villa, where the lives of the four main characters intertwine, and in the North African deserts before the war began. The villa, a dilapidated relic, appears frozen in time. The garden murals on the walls of the patient's room blur the lines between interior and exterior spaces. This timeless, boundary-less setting offers the characters a refuge from the harsh realities of war and the politics of nations. The villa's timelessness is mirrored in the desert, where the patient and other members of the Geographical Society find sanctuary from their nations' political conflicts and a reprieve from their national identities. However, both sanctuaries eventually succumb to the larger political forces at play, as the war intrudes upon these havens, compelling the inhabitants to either pick sides or face death. Through these sanctuaries' ultimate vulnerability to the war, Ondaatje highlights the individual's powerlessness against the grander political movements of nations.
Collage
The English Patient employs a narrative structure that deviates from the chronological order typical of most novels. Instead, it is crafted like a collage, composed largely of the recollections and retellings of various, non-sequential memories from each of the four main characters. This mosaic of memories is interwoven with the main storyline, which includes the romance between Hana and Kip and Caravaggio's investigation into the patient's true identity. This collaged, multi-voiced structure enables Ondaatje to achieve several narrative objectives.
By presenting a series of episodes rather than adhering to a strict chronological order, Ondaatje unveils the characters' private memories, particularly those they would never share with others. For instance, Kip's friendship with Lord Suffolk and Miss Morden is disclosed through the flashbacks of his memories. The theme of personal anguish is prominent in the novel, and through the revelation of each character's most intimate memories, Ondaatje not only offers essential background information but also delves into the root of each character's deepest sorrow and their ability or inability to cope with it.
This mosaic of memories, narrated from the perspective of each specific character, enriches the novel with multiple viewpoints. For example, by abandoning a chronological structure, Ondaatje is free to include the voice of a deceased character—Katharine. Her perspective in the chapter "Katharine" on her tumultuous relationship with the patient provides an intimate insight into the patient's character that would otherwise remain hidden.
The novel's non-linear, multi-voiced, collage-like narrative structure mirrors the patient's copy of Herodotus's The Histories, into which he has inserted his own writings and observations, along with clippings from other books and magazines. Just as the patient has interwoven personal anecdotes and the works of others into the pages of Herodotus's story, Ondaatje has crafted a collage of diverse narrations and experiences. This non-linear, multi-voiced, collage-like narrative structure transcends mere storytelling technique. It offers an alternative to the traditional, strictly chronological recording of history, suggesting a framework for documenting history that embraces multiple perspectives.
Literary Techniques
The English Patient is a richly poetic work, relying heavily on tone and style as much as on action or character development to engage the reader. Instead of presenting events in a chronological order, the book is composed of a series of vivid scenes in the present, interwoven with flashbacks and descriptions. By opting to tell his story in a nonlinear fashion—even the flashbacks are random and often lack context—Ondaatje sets a complex artistic challenge for himself. He must capture the reader's interest through his use of language, compelling imagery, and apt metaphors. As readers try to make sense of the various past and present episodes, they may resonate with the English patient's description of Herodotus, "one of those spare men of the desert who travel from oasis to oasis, trading legends as if it is the exchange of seeds, consuming everything without suspicion, piecing together a mirage."
As readers journey from "oasis to oasis," moving from one vivid flashback to a revealing present-day episode, they gradually start to piece together the disparate moments and motives. The phrase "piecing together a mirage" not only describes what the reader must do but also exemplifies the author's talent for creating startling and intriguing images throughout the novel.
Ondaatje's poetic economy of language and use of metaphor create a richly textured book and establish a tone that unifies the entire work. It is the water between and within the oases. The sentence, "Harpoons are still found in the desert," captures the reality of climatic change more effectively than a lengthy discussion on the subject. "Cats slept in the gun turrets looking south," imaginatively conveys that the war has moved north of the region. "The women pacing like greyhounds, leaning against you while you muttered into their shoulders during 'My Sweet,'" communicates the sensual tension of nightlife at a Cairo jazz bar. "Her cool hand suddenly against my neck on a Cairo bus . . . Or the sun through her fingernails on the third-floor lobby at the museum when her hand covered my face," suggests the intimacy of the clandestine lovers.
Such rich imagery provides stability as we navigate numerous shifts in chronology and perspective throughout the novel. The individual episodes are like pieces of stained glass—delicate and beautiful when viewed up close, yet even more impressive when seen in context with each other, a perspective that comes to the reader gradually. We do not learn some of the most significant facts about the four protagonists until the end of the book. Ondaatje succeeds in creating suspense and continuity as the reader imaginatively responds to glimpses of the mirage in images, references to books and artists, descriptions of the desert, and the characters' actions and conversations.
Ideas for Group Discussions
Set against the backdrop of a world war, The English Patient narrows its focus to the lives of three men and one woman. A compelling discussion topic is how these dual emphases work together, illustrating how the war's circumstances shape these four individuals and how their actions and interactions communicate the broader scope and human cost of war. The chapter "In Situ" exemplifies Ondaatje's ability to present both aspects simultaneously. It recounts Kip's early training as a sapper under Lord Suffolk, an eccentric English aristocrat, detailing the complexities of land mines and the risks involved in defusing them. The chapter also highlights the human element. Lord Suffolk tells Kip that bomb disposal relies on character and understanding one's adversary: "You must consider the character of your enemy. This is true in bomb disposal. It is two handed bridge. You have one enemy. You have no partner. Sometimes for my exam I make [potential sappers] play bridge. People think that a bomb is a mechanical object, a mechanical enemy. But you must consider that somebody made it." We learn much about Kip's character as we watch him defuse mines in both England and Italy.
Our perception and understanding of the four protagonists are further shaped by the author's adept interweaving of past and present into a cohesive narrative. Any thorough discussion of this novel must explore how these elements are connected and how one gives meaning to the other. Such a discussion will naturally lead to questions of style, examining how Ondaatje extends traditional approaches to characterization and plot to create a compelling portrayal and critique of society, as well as individual actions and motives.
1. How do the constant shifts in time, place, and perspective influence—or shape—the overall story and character development? Do they create a tension or dissonance that becomes integral to the story? Is it effective?
2. How do form and content, style and meaning, collaborate to craft the story we have? Would it be a different narrative if told in another manner? What if the story were presented solely from an omniscient point of view or the perspective of a single character?
3. What is the artistic benefit of centering the story around a mysterious patient without a specific identity? How are the other characters defined by their relationships with the English patient?
4. How does war blur the line between good and evil and challenge traditional notions of national loyalty? Why is Caravaggio, a former thief, recruited by Allied Intelligence? Why does Hana ask Caravaggio to teach her to steal?
5. What role does national identity play in this narrative? Why does the English patient refer to Kip and himself as "international bastards"? Why does Kip leave the war zone and return to India after the bombing of Japan?
Literary Precedents
In portraying the human toll of modern warfare, Ondaatje follows in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway and, to a lesser extent, Stephen Crane, who is referenced in the book. The characters' disillusionment at the war's conclusion also reflects the influence of Hemingway and the modernists.
The significance and impact of the past are poignantly examined in the works of William Faulkner. Ondaatje effectively employs sudden shifts in time and perspective, a technique also present in Faulkner's novels and short stories. Three notable "desert" novels that relate to The English Patient include T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1935; popularized as Lawrence of Arabia), Paul Bowles's The Sheltering Sky (1949), and Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet (1957-1960; see separate entry).
To find another book with the exquisite poetic imagery of The English Patient, one would need to look back to F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925; see separate entry). Beyond their rich, concise prose, these two books share other notable similarities: mysterious identities, forbidden love, and a focus on a small group of main characters defined by their interactions. Ondaatje may have drawn inspiration from Fitzgerald’s approach to plot development and character revelation. In both narratives, we meet the protagonists, observe their interactions, and gradually uncover their pasts and motivations. Much of what we learn about Gatsby, such as his early mentor, first love, and transformation from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby, is revealed near the novel's conclusion. Fitzgerald masterfully maintains suspense while often diverting our attention with more immediate events. Similarly, Ondaatje slowly and skillfully unveils the underlying story, simultaneously narrating both the past and the present.
Another distinctive aspect of Ondaatje's evocative style is his use of poetic language. His background in poetry is evident on every page. Ondaatje's achievement in crafting a beautiful and original work of art was recognized when he received the Booker Prize for fiction in 1992.
Adaptations
One part of the book, the "In Situ" chapter, was published in a slightly different form in The New Yorker in August 1992 as a short story titled "Drawn by Desire." In its standalone version, it serves as a complete story; within the novel, it acts as a background narrative for Kip's involvement in the war.
The English Patient was adapted into a highly praised film in 1996. Produced by Saul Zaentz (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and both written and directed by Anthony Minghella, an English playwright and filmmaker, the movie won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director. The film featured Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient), Juliette Binoche (Hana), Willem Dafoe (Caravaggio), Naveen Andrews (Kip), Kristin Scott Thomas (Katharine), Julian Wadham (Madox), and Colin Firth (Geoffrey). Michael Ondaatje, the author, expressed his satisfaction with the adaptation, noting that he could easily identify his characters on screen. The film version places more emphasis on the characters of Katharine and Madox compared to the book. Minghella effectively captures the intensity, passion, and repercussions of the burned patient's love.
Media Adaptations
- In 1993, Random House released an audio version of The English Patient, narrated by Michael York.
- In 1996, a film adaptation of The English Patient, directed by Anthony Minghella, hit theaters. The movie won numerous Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress for Juliette Binoche, who portrayed Hana.
Bibliography and Further Reading
Sources
Bemrose, John, Review of The English Patient, in Maclean, Vol. 105, No. 42, October 19, 1992, p. 71.
Novak, Amy, "Textual Hauntings: Narrating History, Memory, and Silence in The English Patient," in Studies in the Novel, Vol. 36, No. 2, Summer 2004, pp. 206-32.
Ondaatje, Michael, The English Patient, Knopf, 1992.
Further Reading
Herodotus, The Histories, Oxford University Press, 1998.
In The English Patient, the protagonist's sole possession is a copy of Herodotus's The Histories. Herodotus, who lived in the 5th century B.C., is often considered the father of history. The Histories documents the customs and practices of ancient peoples in what is now the Middle East and describes various conflicts between the Greeks and Persians.
Keegan, John, The Second World War, Penguin Books, 1990.
This comprehensive one-volume history of World War II includes a detailed timeline and chapters dedicated to aspects such as weapon production and espionage.
Kipling, Rudyard, Kim, W.W. Norton, 2002.
Originally published in 1901, Kim is Rudyard Kipling's acclaimed novel. Set in British colonial India, it narrates the life of a British boy born in India who assimilates with the local people and becomes a disciple of a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Ondaatje frequently references this novel in The English Patient.
Said, Edward, The Edward Said Reader, edited by Moustafa Bayoumi and Andrew Rubin, Vintage Books, 2000.
Edward Said was a key figure in post-colonial studies, particularly known for exploring the impact of colonialism on literature. The English Patient, especially through the character of Kip, touches on many post-colonial themes of identity. This collection serves as an excellent introduction to Said's influential works.