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A review by drdreuh
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
5.0
(5) I loved The English Patient until the end, where now I can't quite figure out what happened. It's a wonderful mix of espionage, adventure, intrigue, love, a little science and not a small amount of mental anguish - all taking place in a period of time (end of WWII) and location (North Africa and Italy) that is new-ish to me.
Its part fun and part irritating to search through chapters for the first instances of this character (Katherine, Almasy) or that character (Caravaggio). And can any character's reporting be trusted?
A bit dissatisfying until I poured through anew with special attention to the years 1939 and 1942. It seems I had gotten so swept up in Ondaatje's lyricism that I had lost my sense of time. But even that yearning for more (clarity, mostly) was delightful.
Lines I loved:
"She was secure in the miniature world she had built; ..."
"We are deformed by nation-states."
"I had reached the stage in life where I identified with cynical villains in a book."
"She had always wanted words, she loved them, grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape. Whereas I thought words bent emotions like sticks in water."
"People recover from secret loss variously."
"The war had made all the cities and towns similar."
Its part fun and part irritating to search through chapters for the first instances of this character (Katherine, Almasy) or that character (Caravaggio). And can any character's reporting be trusted?
A bit dissatisfying until I poured through anew with special attention to the years 1939 and 1942. It seems I had gotten so swept up in Ondaatje's lyricism that I had lost my sense of time. But even that yearning for more (clarity, mostly) was delightful.
Lines I loved:
"She was secure in the miniature world she had built; ..."
"We are deformed by nation-states."
"I had reached the stage in life where I identified with cynical villains in a book."
"She had always wanted words, she loved them, grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape. Whereas I thought words bent emotions like sticks in water."
"People recover from secret loss variously."
"The war had made all the cities and towns similar."