You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
angwrites 's review for:
The English Patient
by Michael Ondaatje
Okay.
This book.
I'm completely on the fence.
Here's a few thoughts:
1. The English Patient focuses on four main characters, Kip, Hana, The English Patient, and Caravaggio. There is a sorta-but-not-really linear timeline that takes place in the present (WWII at an Italian villa) and then there's a completely-all-over-the-place retelling of past events that happened to each of the four main characters all out of order. And while I did catch on to most of the events and where they fit in the story line, it was jarring to say the least and hard to follow. p.s. All this past and present stuff is told side by side as are the perspectives of the main characters.
2. The writing in this novel is insane interesting to me. Most of the story is told in differing third person perspective from the main characters (sometimes within the same chapters) but at times suddenly switched into a first person POV. Sections of the novel had no dialogue tags nor quotations marks or even commas. While the wanna-be literary genius in me thought "WOW this is daring and sets up the characters oh-so-nicely" the real me (ya know not so bright and always struggling to find themes and symbols)struggled to follow along and thought at times it was more pretentious and annoying then artsy. There, I said it.
3. While the book had me hook waiting for the next outrageous scene to take place and I enjoyed reading about WWII and learning what sappers were, I just didn't understand what was driving the story. Plan and simple, this is the story of four people retelling their pasts and dealing with it in the present. There's no real ups and downs and there's no sense of danger. When reading the past you know where all the characters end up and when reading the present you know they are all just bidding their time, to afraid to move on. And honestly, aside from one character, the story ends and you still don't know what happened to everyone and the one person you do know about is a total cliche and a *shrug*. I'm sure there's someone out there cringing as they read this and I ask them to please share with me why I'm wrong.
Anyway, so after all that, I couldn't put this book down (mostly cause a. I have reading goals this year & b. cause I wanted to see what insane event was going to take place next), yet as I read the last few pages I was disappointed. I'm thinking I'm not savvy enough to "get" this book. And, honestly, that's all right with me.
The characters have depth and the setting is beautiful and the story is interesting, but... there's a but. I can't put my finger on why it just fell apart in the end for me, maybe I need to take an English class on this book alone or become more of an English major or maybe I'm trying to force myself to like it cause shouldn't all good English majors love it? Either way, it was a decent read and I'm glad I read it, I'm just not blown away by it.
And I'm done.
p.s. For those of you wondering, I have not seen the movie and I'm not planning on watching it. fin.
This book.
I'm completely on the fence.
Here's a few thoughts:
1. The English Patient focuses on four main characters, Kip, Hana, The English Patient, and Caravaggio. There is a sorta-but-not-really linear timeline that takes place in the present (WWII at an Italian villa) and then there's a completely-all-over-the-place retelling of past events that happened to each of the four main characters all out of order. And while I did catch on to most of the events and where they fit in the story line, it was jarring to say the least and hard to follow. p.s. All this past and present stuff is told side by side as are the perspectives of the main characters.
2. The writing in this novel is insane interesting to me. Most of the story is told in differing third person perspective from the main characters (sometimes within the same chapters) but at times suddenly switched into a first person POV. Sections of the novel had no dialogue tags nor quotations marks or even commas. While the wanna-be literary genius in me thought "WOW this is daring and sets up the characters oh-so-nicely" the real me (ya know not so bright and always struggling to find themes and symbols)struggled to follow along and thought at times it was more pretentious and annoying then artsy. There, I said it.
3. While the book had me hook waiting for the next outrageous scene to take place and I enjoyed reading about WWII and learning what sappers were, I just didn't understand what was driving the story. Plan and simple, this is the story of four people retelling their pasts and dealing with it in the present. There's no real ups and downs and there's no sense of danger. When reading the past you know where all the characters end up and when reading the present you know they are all just bidding their time, to afraid to move on. And honestly, aside from one character, the story ends and you still don't know what happened to everyone and the one person you do know about is a total cliche and a *shrug*. I'm sure there's someone out there cringing as they read this and I ask them to please share with me why I'm wrong.
Anyway, so after all that, I couldn't put this book down (mostly cause a. I have reading goals this year & b. cause I wanted to see what insane event was going to take place next), yet as I read the last few pages I was disappointed. I'm thinking I'm not savvy enough to "get" this book. And, honestly, that's all right with me.
The characters have depth and the setting is beautiful and the story is interesting, but... there's a but. I can't put my finger on why it just fell apart in the end for me, maybe I need to take an English class on this book alone or become more of an English major or maybe I'm trying to force myself to like it cause shouldn't all good English majors love it? Either way, it was a decent read and I'm glad I read it, I'm just not blown away by it.
And I'm done.
p.s. For those of you wondering, I have not seen the movie and I'm not planning on watching it. fin.