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Loading... The English Patient (1992)by Michael ONDAATJE
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Booker Prize (13) » 56 more 501 Must-Read Books (97) Historical Fiction (84) 20th Century Literature (168) Unread books (130) Favourite Books (574) Top Five Books of 2013 (512) A Novel Cure (132) 1,001 BYMRBYD Concensus (123) World War I Fiction (22) BBC Radio 4 Bookclub (59) Contemporary Fiction (19) Big Jubilee List (8) War Literature (19) Books Set in Canada (44) Books Read in 2023 (933) Elegant Prose (36) Best Love Stories (64) Books tagged favorites (177) Books Read in 2020 (3,398) Africa (50) Fiction For Men (38) 1990s (213) AP Lit (138) Tagged 20th Century (23) Protagonists - Men (18) I Can't Finish This Book (150) No current Talk conversations about this book. I kept reading it thinking that somewhere, sometime a point would be made. It didn't happen. Romantic? Maybe due to the acting in the movie. I would not use romantic to describe this book. Words that came to my mind upon reading this book: dysjunctive; dysfunctional; meaningless; bland. I had to read the movie synopsis to get a sense of what this story was all about. ( ![]() "Death means that you are in the third person." The English Patient tells the story of four people whose lives intersect during the closing days of WWII. The first person is Hana, an Allied nurse who has been left behind in an Italian villa to take care of the second person, a severely burned pilot who crash-landed in Africa. While no one knows the identity, he speaks like he is English and is thus referred to as the English patient. The third person is Caravaggio, a friend of Hana's deceased father, who used his talents as a thief to serve as an Allied spy and was caught and tortured by retreating Axis troops. The four person is Kip, who is from India and is charged with defusing mines left around the villa. While I generally enjoyed the English Patient, I found it overwritten. Oftentimes the book is beautiful, but its heavy jargon and stilted dialogue does much to undercut its beauty. Generally recommended for high-brow readers. [signed] Some lovely scenes, some lovely sentences, but lots of beautiful writing just for the sake of beautiful writing annoyed me after a while. I yelled (in my mind, so as not to scare the dog), "Get on with the story already!" multiple times. --> I'll leave this sentence here, although my opinion of the book has changed. Read my full review on my blog at http://www.wildmoobooks.com/2017/02/the-english-patient-1992-by-michael.html Here's what I wrote in 2008 about this read: "Famous book, famous movie. Glad to have read; never have seen. Love and compassion, in the midst of the traumas of war. Should probably read again."
Ondaatje gibt jedem Charakter die Möglichkeit, sich dem Leser zu präsentieren und die ganz eigene Geschichte zu erzählen. Dabei ergreift er nicht Partei, sondern lässt die Figuren ganz einfach aus ihrem Blickwinkel erzählen. Die Schnittstelle, die sie verbinden, werden durch die Orte, an denen sie sich aufgehalten haben, definiert und dadurch geradezu greifbar. Zufälligkeiten scheinen ursächlich zu sein, dass die Personen in Kontakt treten und wieder voneinander scheiden. Die Schwierigkeit, jeder Figur ihren Platz innerhalb dieser Geschichte zuzuweisen, ohne den Faden zu verlieren, bewältigt Ondaatje meisterhaft. ... the plane must have been drying out under its tarpaulin in the desert for eight years. It is entirely covered with sand. Almasy `digs' it out : with what? ... Having shifted tons of sand ... he moves, single-handed, the plane out on to the level, so it can take off. How, single-handed, does he `swing the prop'? ... sand would have penetrated moving parts of the machinery and would have to be meticulously dusted out. ... Almasy merely pours in his can of petrol -- and the engine starts! It is a complex and confusing novel whose readers might easily want to consult the index simply to untangle the threads of the plot ... to clarify events that had another meaning ... in an earlier context. Una vez oí a una mujer africana decir que no se podía describir África, que África solo se entiende si se ha vivido allí. Hace años ya de aquel momento y, sin embargo, esas palabras se me han quedado grabadas y las recuerdo con frecuencia. Por ejemplo, me han venido a la memoria al leer El paciente inglés, de Michael Ondaatje, y no solo porque hable de lo que supone atravesar el desierto de Libia, algo inimaginable para nuestras cabezas acostumbradas a vidas sencillas, sino porque además transmite el peso de la guerra, un hecho también inconcebible para los que siempre hemos vivido en paz. Belongs to Publisher SeriesIs contained inHas the (non-series) prequelHas the adaptationHas as a student's study guide
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. No library descriptions found. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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