Customer Reviews
Utterly absorbing. - By: H. Pope, 12 Jul 2008 
This is a beautifully written book with timeless appeal & I can't recommend it highly enough. The English Patient draws the reader into a world that after a while appears to consist of only four people as they learn to love & live with each other. Each character adds another dimension to the microcosm created in a secluded Italian villa, but set against the vividly described past lives of the patient himself & his new companions. Having watched the film many years ago I was intrigued to see how the book differed. Ondaatje's rich & poetic language was thoroughly absorbing & now I find the film doesn't reallly do it justice. If you have seen the film & weren't impressed, please don't be put off as this book is one of the best I've read in a long time.
Poetry as prose - By: Essex Girl, 28 May 2008 This is one of the most beautiful books ever written. I dipped into it recently (having read it twice on the past several years) & the quality & beauty of the prose left me staggered at what can be done with the English language. The descriptions put you right into the location with the characters, from Kip in a crater defusing a bomb, to the eponymous patient in the desert.
One of the cleverest things about it is the way that we become acquainted with the characters as they would have got to know one another: in fits & starts, without chronology. They are built up layer by layer, incident by incident. They become visible in the mind's eye. Not only that, but we see the world through their eyes: the image of Kip lighting flares & swinging in space to look at the paintings inside the domes of churches is magical - & I'm not sure Ondaatje could have written it had he not come at Western culture from the East, born as he was into the Ceylon Burgher community.
The plot is complex, the characters are complex, the prose is amongst the best you will ever read. Now & then the switches of time & location will leave you gasping, as you turn the page expecting to read more about one of the characters, only to find yourself dropped into another part of the story.
The only thing that puzzled me was the persistent survival of the patient: that anyone so badly burned could survive so long seems illogical. Aside from that, I thought it was a perfect book about loss & longing, & written with almost implausible talent & skill. Ondaatje is a poet as well as a novelist, & that is very obvious in the pages of this story.
not bad, nothing like the film though. - By: Zoe Challis, 18 Apr 2008 
I watched the film & thought it was brilliant so I read the book & was disappointed. It is written beautifully but it was just so different to what I expected.
SPOILERS
The main story is alll about Kip, then Hana & then their relationship, the actual English patient features very little throughout the book to the point that I was wondering why the book is callled The English Patient. His relationship with Katherine only takes up a few pages.
It is a good book & I liked the story but if you've seen the film first, don't expect much of it to be in this book. I actuallly prefered the film.
Sublime. - By: A. Clark-Brown, 13 Apr 2008 I picked this book up after watching the film on television, & read it in a day.
The English Patient is not only the story of the burned "English Patient" & his tragic love affair with the wife of a colleague, but the stories of Hana, a nurse who is caring for him, a crippled thief, David Caravaggio, & a Sikh, Kip, who is part of a bomb-disposal unit, drawn together in an old bombed hospital in Italy.
The story switches between these characters; we are alllowed into the minds of alll of them, & hear their stories. The book is written in beautiful, evocative prose, reading almost like a poem rather than a novel, but never descending into the region of overly descriptiveness & boring the reader.
As for a comparison to the film; I think it's much more interesting. For a start, there isn't so much focus on the love affair between Almasy & Katherine Clifton; we are alllowed to see much deeper into the stories of the other characters.
In short, the prose is breathtakingly beautiful, & is held together by an entertaining & emotional plot. If you have not read this book already, do so.
A beautiful book - By: Kasablanca, 23 Jul 2007 See the film, but do read the book, as both are just magnificent.
I especiallly like the character, Kip. the Indian sapper, who listens to music while defusing bombs: 'Noise did not matter. There would be no faint tickings or clickings to signal danger on this kind of bomb. The distraction of music helped him towards clear thought, to the possible forms of structure in the mine, to the personality that had laid the city of threads & then poured wet concrete over it'.
There is so much in this book: Romance; the beauty of the desert; a spy story; archaeology; & much more below the surface.
