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The English Patient
 
 
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The English Patient (Paperback)

by Michael Ondaatje (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Customers buy this book with The English Patient (Special Edition) [DVD] [1996] DVD ~ Ralph Fiennes

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Price For Both: £11.97

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Product details

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; New edition edition (2 Aug 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0747572593
  • ISBN-13: 978-0747572596
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 9,679 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #1 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > O > Ondaatje, Michael
    #13 in  Books > Fiction > World > Italian

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk 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 the second world war 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 sheet 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 secured 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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
'One of the most innovative and liberating writers of our time' Guardian 'Magnificent A wise and graceful book about history itself' Sunday Times 'The best piece of fiction in English I've read in years' Independent on Sunday 'Ondaatje has now written the extraordinary novel we have been awaiting from him: THE ENGLISH PATIENT is a masterpiece' Financial Times

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The English Patient
89% buy the item featured on this page:
The English Patient 4.3 out of 5 stars (21)
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Customer Reviews

21 Reviews
5 star:
 (14)
4 star:
 (4)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (21 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This is a book to read slowly and preferably aloud., 28 Oct 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: The English Patient (Paperback)
This is a book which should be read slowly and preferably aloud. In this highly recommended piece of literature we are taken on a sensual exploration of place and people. It is worth savoring the language which evokes the taste, touch, sight, sound and smell of the characters who are inextricably bound up with their own geographical and human journeys.

Hanna, 'imagines all of Asia through the gestures of this one man.' When Kip looks at Hanna, 'he sees a fragment of her lean cheek in relation to the landscape behind it.' The English Patient vividly recalls the dry heat of the desert being refreshed by a breeze eventually increasing and transforming the surface of the desert. 'We had to keep moving. If you pause sand builds up...and locks you in.' This is the same desert which had just been described as: 'The grooves and the corrugated sand (which) resemble the hollow of the roof of a dog's mouth.' In contrast we experience the freezing cold mud as Kip prepares to defuse an unexploded bomb: 'He had come down barefoot...being caught within the clay, unable to get a firm hold down there in the cold water. He wasn't wearing boots - they would have locked within the clay, and when he was pulleyed up later the jerk out of it could break his ankles.' The faceless English patient wears, 'an amber shell within his ear' so he can hear the clawing and breathing of the dog. He hears, 'the drift of voices, now and then a laugh from the smoky garden. He translates the smell, evolving it backwards to what had been burned.'

This is not a book for those who want a quick read in anticiapation of a comfortable resolution. The language compels us to linger as through our senses it transports us in space and time to places and events that have the appearance of fact rather than fiction.

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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome, 15 Oct 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The English Patient (Picador Paperback) (Hardcover)
I agree with the last reviewer - don't let Antony Minghella's half-baked and completely unsubtle adaptation put you off. Or, if you liked the film, rest assured that the book is a hundred times better. Here is a novel that hovers between poetry and prose. I heard the author took 8 years to write it and it shows. Possibly the best 'Booker Prize' winner of the 90s decade, this is a stunning novel which combines prose to make your imagination and senses reel, and (rare in most literary novels) a plot that is as dramatic and intriuging as a modern thriller. The array of places and scenes is mesmerising, from Kip dismantling a bomb, to the intensity of the patient's love affair memories in Eygpt. It is in many ways a challenging read - there are times when the narrative is bewildering and difficult, but persevere - as one review put it, read the book, put your faith in it and it will be repayed.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful, complex book - don't just watch the movie!, 12 Nov 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: The English Patient (Picador Paperback) (Hardcover)
The English Patient is a beautiful and complex novel - it has two story lines which are intermingled but are separate in time and place. I don't agree at all that it is boring, but it is a difficult book to read because of these two stories and the very poetic style of the prose. It is absolutely worth the effort though, because you quickly realise that where the movie tends to simplify and romanticise the relationships, the book adds layer upon layer of ambiguity and complexity. The book enhances, I find, the importance of the Hana-Kip love story, presenting it as a beautiful and constructive love relationship in counterpoint to the destructive, menacing, almost violent love between the English patient and Katherine. The latter love affair dominates both the book and the movie - but in the book it is infinitely more troubling, tragic and lonely. This book is worth every one of the 5 crowns I gave it - try it!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written
A short review that doesn't want to repeat what others have said...but just to add that this is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Read more
Published 16 days ago by MrDmented

4.0 out of 5 stars One to read again
I'm sure that, as wonderful a book it is on a first read, The English Patient will be ten times better the second time around. Read more
Published 2 months ago by daisyrock

1.0 out of 5 stars Book Cover
A small gripe. Why has the publisher of this edition used a picture of Provence to illustrate an Italian story. Its even called The Provencal Nude. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Valerie L

5.0 out of 5 stars Utterly absorbing.
This is a beautifully written book with timeless appeal and I can't recommend it highly enough. The English Patient draws the reader into a world that after a while appears to... Read more
Published 11 months ago by H. Pope

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry as prose
This is one of the most beautiful books ever written. I dipped into it recently (having read it twice on the past several years) and the quality and beauty of the prose left me... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Essex Girl

3.0 out of 5 stars not bad, nothing like the film though.
I watched the film and thought it was brilliant so I read the book and was disappointed. It is written beautifully but it was just so different to what I expected... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Zoe Challis

5.0 out of 5 stars Sublime.
I picked this book up after watching the film on television, and read it in a day.
The English Patient is not only the story of the burned "English Patient" and his tragic... Read more
Published 14 months ago by A. Clark-Brown

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful book
See the film, but do read the book, as both are just magnificent.
I especially like the character, Kip. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Secret Squirrel

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Storytelling
As a great fan of the film,and reading the book afterwards I find it in some ways more enjoable as others a little less so. Read more
Published on 22 Nov 2004 by GeeJayBee

5.0 out of 5 stars Timeless
A book to capture the spirit of all the world's people.
Published on 9 Jul 2003

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