Jessie Jackman Book Review

Jessie Jackman

English Patient Review

Michael Ondaatje, the author of The English Patient, is a Sri Lankan writer and poet who has won many awards, including one for the English Patient.  Knowing this, I set overly high expectations for this novel. Although The English Patient was filled with beautiful, descriptive language (thanks to Ondaatje’s poetry background), I believe that only a certain type of person would enjoy and be able to see the incredible aspects of this novel that I was unfortunately missing.  Don’t get me wrong; I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book, but once I finished it and looked back on the story I thought the plot fizzled out. Ondaatje took the opportunity throughout the book to teach the reader a history lesson on pre-World War II, which ended up dragging on towards the end of the book.  Even though I enjoyed  it as I read it,  I do not  feel like it fulfilled the expectations it set for it.

The English Patient is a story of a young nurse named Hana who lives in an abandoned hospital in a small villa in Italy. She refused to leave the hospital when the rest of the staff did because she feels obligated to take care of the severely burned, unidentified, English patient who was unable to be moved to a new hospital. The hospital they live in now is very unsafe and filled with hidden mines, able to spontaneously explode. As we begin to learn about the English patient, we find out that he had been found in a plane crash which has cause him to have severe burns throughout his body and no memory of who he is. The English Patient tells Hana stories of what he can “remember” about his life in return for Hana reading to him. On occasion Hana will read Herodotus's The Histories to the English patient, which is the same book the patient kept his journal in throughout the war.

One day a man named Caravaggio comes to the hospital, an old friend of Hana who believes he may know the identity of the patient. Caravaggio is missing his thumbs which he tells Hana they were cut off by the Germans when they caught him stealing. His thumbs are bandaged up, but upon hearing this Hana unwraps them and cleans them for him. Soon comes along two sappers, one of which being Kip. Kip is an Indian sapper who soon becomes a friend of the English patient and romantic partner to Hana. He begins to live in the hospital with the 3 other residents but is constantly searching for new bombs to dismantle. At one point Hana finds herself in a life or death situation helping Kip dismantle a bomb.

We watch Caravaggio and the English patient’s relationship grow, and we learn many shocking details of the patient’s old life which he shares to Caravaggio as they use large amounts of the English patient’s morphine to sooth Caravaggio and bring back the patient’s memory. Kip and Hana’s relationship intensifies but things change with the discovery of the English patients identity, ending things as quickly as they started.

Ondaatje uses and quick changing point of view and rolling time span from past to present throughout the whole book. Although this keeps you on your toes, he leaves it up to you to see if you can take the information from the past and try to discover who exactly the patient is. Ondaatje uses a ton of pronouns, which adds a bit of confusion in his novel, and adding this to the changing point of views makes it hard to follow. Although Ondaatje uses a mash-up between his prose and poetry to create a work of art, the so-so plot pulls the whole vibe of the book down. If you’re up for a fictional story that carries real recap of prewar events with a twist of romance and mystery than this book is your kind of read, but be warned that this “history book” may leave you feeling indifferent about the plot, with no real slap of excitement.