October 25th, 2009
- ISBN13: 9780679745204
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
The Booker Prize-winning novel, now a critically acclaimed major motion picture, starring Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe and Kristin Scott Thomas. With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminates this book like flashes of heat lightening.Amazon.com Review
Haunting and harrowing, as beautiful as it is disturbing, The English Patient tells the story of the entanglement of four damaged lives in an Italian monastery as World War II ends. The exhausted nurse, Hana; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burn victim who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning. In lyrical prose informed by a poetic consciousness, Michael Ondaatje weaves these characters together, pulls them tight, then unravels the threads with unsettling acumen.
A book that binds readers of great literature, The English Patient garnered the Booker Prize for author Ondaatje. The poet and novelist has also written In the Skin of a Lion, Coming Through Slaughter and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid; two collections of poems, The Cinnamon Peeler and There’s a Trick with a Knife I’m Learning to Do; and a memoir, Running in the Family.
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5 Comments
I find it incredibly funny that so many people are gushing over this book. They must think they’re supposed to like it because it won the Booker prize. *I* am ashamed of the fact that it’s still on my shelf. I think I’m going to use it for toilet paper.
Rating: 1 / 5
Wow. 300 pages of nothing. This book is certainly amazing. Everyone tells me the style of this book is breathtaking. Yea, it truly is. He has absolutely no writing ability whatsoever. The “imagery” and “description” that everyone rants about is pointless, boring, uninteresting, and rambling. There is zero structure to the novel, and to add insult to injury, this hapless book doesn’t even lead you to anything. There’s no plot. It’s just a winding nonsense festival of shallow observations and condescending themes. If you would happen to like a book about 4 people living in a random villa TALKING for 300 pages, you’d love this book. For all others, avoid this book like the plague.
Rating: 1 / 5
The movie, very romantic, so.. I needed even more than before to visit Toscana (in the end, also a disappointment compared with Piemonte, Veneto, …). Unfortunately, novels and films not only need not tell the truth but are free to distort it badly. The real story of Almasy can be read on the web, in English or German. He was a German agent, was never captured, had no great interest in women and died on the way home sometime after the war of a disease contracted earlier in Africa. He indeed was an Africa researcher and did write a book, Schwimmer in die Wüste, about the pictures on the rocks in the desert. Almasy means apple, more or less, his family made money from apple orchards in Hungary and bought the castle, never quite attaining official status as nobility from the Austrian government. So, the film is largely a charming, romantic fabrication, as are most films.
Somehow, it is very unsatisfying to be seduced by a book or film and later discover that harldly anything in it is correct. The fortress where Laszlo Almasy grew up, Burg Bernstein, lies south of Vienna and is now an attractive little Schloss-Hotel run by my wife’s only aunt’s best friend, a Küffstein-German who was adopted by the Africa researcher’s brother after WWII. The castle does have a fantastic kitchen and a wonderful high view of the surrounding territory, maybe the best view in the region. Also, there are nice wine ‘villages’ not far away.
Rating: 3 / 5
I got this book for 25 cents in my library’s basement and all I can say is I’m glad I didn’t have to pay the retail price for it.
There isn’t much I can say other than that the language gets in the way of the “story”. Heck, I couldn’t even find the story at times. I hate pretentious books and all the hype surround thing one just makes it worse. The only reason I gave it two stars is because the wording could be quite beautiful. Just not my kind of book.
Rating: 2 / 5
There are two couples in the movie. In one, the woman is a dead witch, and the man is in a bed lying very still. In the other, the woman is a nurse whose boyfriends tend to die, and the other DEFUSES BOMBS!!!
Which couple do you find more interesting? The movie focuses on the dead witch and the man lying in bed. The book gives them space, but focuses more on the other two lovers. You know, the ones who we care about a whole lot more and whose jobs are real interesting.
Oh, and in case you haven’t heard, Ondaatje is a weaver of words unchallenged in North America. Maybe South American authors (mostly dead) can give him a run for his Booker, but they aren’t in the commonwealth, are they? This text is a gorgeous jewel. Check this one out and avoid that awful, boring, tedious, cowardly film. My theory on that unfortunate Oscar, everyone wanted to give this book the Oscar so they had to give it to the director of the movie.
Peace out, and word to your mother.
Rating: 5 / 5
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