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The English Patient
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The English Patient (1992) (edit title/settings)

by Michael Ondaatje (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

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... read more

Summary edit see section history

The historical backdrop for this novel is the Second World War in Northern Africa and Italy. Hana, a young Canadian Army nurse, lives in the abandoned Villa San Girolamo in Italy, which is filled with hidden, undetonated bombs. In her care is the man nicknamed "the English patient," of whom... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

The historical backdrop for this novel is the Second World War in Northern Africa and Italy. Hana, a young Canadian Army nurse, lives in the abandoned Villa San Girolamo in Italy, which is filled with hidden, undetonated bombs. In her care is the man nicknamed "the English patient," of whom all she knows is that he was burned beyond recognition in a plane crash before being taken to the hospital by a Bedouin tribe. He also claimed to be English. The only possession that the patient has is a copy of Herodotus' histories that survived the fire. He has annotated these histories and is constantly remembering his explorations in the desert in great detail, but cannot state his own name. The patient is, in fact, László de Almásy, a Hungarian desert explorer who was part of a British cartography group. He chose, however, to erase his identity and nationality.

Caravaggio, a Canadian who served in Britain's foreign intelligence service since the late 1930s, was a friend of Hana's father, who died in the war. Caravaggio, who entered the world of spying because of his skill as a thief, comes to the villa in search of Hana. He overheard in another hospital that she was there taking care of a burned patient. Caravaggio bears physical and psychological scars; he was deliberately left behind to spy on the German forces and was eventually caught, interrogated and tortured, his thumbs having been cut off. Seeking vengeance three years later, Caravaggio (like Almásy) is addicted to morphine, which Hana supplies.

One day, while Hana is playing the piano, two British soldiers enter the villa. One of the soldiers is Kip, an Indian Sikh who has been trained as a sapper or combat engineer, specializing in bomb and ordinance disposal. Kip explains that the Germans often booby-trapped musical instruments with bombs, and that he will stay in the villa to rid it of its dangers. Kip and the English Patient immediately become friends.

Prompted to tell his story, the Patient begins to reveal all: An English gentleman, Geoffrey Clifton and his wife, Katharine, accompanied the patient's desert exploration team. The Patient's job was to draw maps of the desert, and the Cliftons' plane made this job easier. Almásy fell in love with Katharine Clifton one night as she read from Herodotus' histories aloud around a campfire. They soon began a very intense affair, but in 1938, Katharine cut it off, claiming that Geoffrey would go mad if he discovered them.

When World War II broke out in 1939, the members of the exploration team decided to pack up base camp, and Geoffrey Clifton offered to pick up Almásy in his plane, and takes Katharine with him. However, Geoffrey turns around and crashes his plane in an effort to kill all three of them, revealing he had known about the affair. Geoffrey died immediately; Katharine survived, but was horribly injured. Almásy took her to "the cave of swimmers", a place the exploration team had previously discovered, and covered her with a parachute so he could leave to find help. After three days, he reached a town, but the British were suspicious of him because he was incoherent and had a foreign surname. They locked him up as a spy.

When Almásy finally escaped, he knew it was too late to save Katharine, so he allowed himself to be captured by the Germans, helping their spy cross the desert into Cairo. He then returns to collect Katherine's body; however while flying over the desert, the aircraft is observed by Germans and shot down into flames. Almásy parachuted down covered in flames which was where the Bedouins found him.

Caravaggio, who had had suspicions that the Patient was not English, fills in details. Geoffrey Clifton was, in fact, an English spy and had intelligence about Almásy's affair with Katharine. He also had intelligence that Almásy was already working with the Germans.

Over time while Almásy divulges the details of his past, Kip becomes close to Hana. Kip's brother had always distrusted the West, but Kip entered the British Army willingly. He was trained as a sapper by Lord Suffolk, an English gentleman, who welcomed Kip into his family. Under Lord Suffolk's training, Kip became very skilled at his job. When Lord Suffolk and his team were killed by a bomb, Kip became separated from the world and emotionally removed from everyone. He decided to leave England and began defusing bombs in Italy. Kip's best friend, a British Army sergeant, is killed in a bomb explosion.

Kip forms a romantic relationship with Hana and uses it to reconnect to humanity. He becomes a part of a community again and begins to feel comfortable as a lover. Then he hears on the wireless that the United States have dropped the atomic bomb on Japan. Kip is convinced that they would not have dropped the bomb if the nation were white. He feels betrayed by the side he was fighting for. He becomes depressed and separates himself from everyone, including Hana. He eventually leaves.

Characters/People edit see section history

  • Almasy: Count Ladislaus de Almásy is the title character. He arrives under Hana's care burned beyond recognition. He has a face, but it is unrecognizable and his tags are not present. The only identification they have of him is that he told the Bedouins that he was English. Thus, they call him just the English Patient.
  • Hana: Hana is a twenty-year-old Army nurse who stays behind to take care of the "English patient."
  • Kip: Kirpal (Kip) Singh is an Indian Sikh. Kip was trained to be a sapper officer by Lord Suffolk who also, essentially, made him a part of his family. Kip is, perhaps, the most conflicted character of the novel. His brother is an Indian nationalist and strongly anti-Western. By contrast, Kip willingly joined the British military, but he was met with reservations from his white colleagues. This causes Kip to become somewhat emotionally withdrawn.
  • Caravaggio: David Caravaggio is a Canadian thief and long-time friend of Hana's father. His profession is legitimized by the war, as the Allies needed people to steal important documents for them. Caravaggio arrives in the villa as "the man with bandaged hands". His German captors had cut off his thumbs. He, physically and mentally, can no longer steal, having "lost his nerve".
  • Katherine Clifton: Katharine is the Oxford-educated wife of Geoffrey Clifton.
  • Geoffrey Clifton: Katharine Clifton's husband. He joins Almásy's exploration group as another desert explorer, but is in fact on a secret mission of the British government (military intelligence) to make detailed maps of North Africa.
  • Madox: Add a description of this character.
  • Gilf Kebir
  • Hardy: A sapper who arrives with Kip but is billeted elsewhere.
  • Bagnold
  • Patrick
  • Gyges
  • Eppler
  • Adam
  • Lord Stafford: Head of Kip's sapper unit. He teaches Kip how to defuse bombs.
Show all 15 characters
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Quotes edit see section history

  • “He listens to her, swallowing her words like water.”
  • “If I gave you my life you would drop it. Wouldn't you?”
  • “The desert could not be claimed or owned—it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names before Canterbury existed, long before battles and treaties quilted Europe and the East…. All of us, even those with European homes and children in the distance, wished to remove the clothing of our countries. It was a place of faith. We disappeared into landscape.”
  • “For echo is the soul of the voice exciting itself in hollow places.”
  • “That was how he felt safest. Revealing nothing.”
  • “There are betrayals in war that are childlike with our human betrayals during peace. The new lover enters the habit of the other. Things are smashed, revealed in new light. This is done with nervous or tender sentences, although the heart is an organ of fire.”
  • ““What do you hate most?” he asks. “A lie. And you?”“Ownership,” he says. When you leave me, forget me.””
  • “How does this happen? To fall in love and be disassembled?”
  • ““I just want you to know. I don’t miss you yet.” “You will,” she says.”
  • ““Madox, what is the name of that hollow at the base of a woman’s neck? At the front. Here. What is it, does it have an official name? That hollow about the size of an impress of your thumb?” Madox watches me for a moment through the noon glare. “Pull yourself together,” he mutters.”
  • “What is terrible in what I did? Don’t we forgive everything of a lover? We forgive selfishness, desire, guile. As long as we are the motive for it.”
  • “He pointed his thick finger to the spot by his Adam’s apple and said, “This is called the vascular sizood.” Giving that hollow at her neck an official name.”
  • “We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such earth that had no maps.”
  • “I shall have to learn how to miss you.”
  • “Love is so small it can tear itself through the eye of the needle.”
  • “Their bodies had met in perfumes, in sweat, frantic to get under that thin film with a tongue or a tooth, as if they each could grip character there and during love pull it right off the body of the other.”
Show all 16 quotes from this book

Setting & Locations edit see section history

Show all 24 settings

First Sentence edit see section history

SHE STANDS UP in the garden where she has been working and looks into the distance.

Table of Contents edit see section history

I The Villa
II In Near Ruins
III Sometimes a Fire
IV South Cairo 1930-1938
V Katharine
VI A Buried Plan
VII In Situ
VIII A Holy Forest
IX The Cave of Swimmers
X August

Series & Lists edit see section history

This is book 1992 of 46 in Booker Prize Winners. (authoritative list)

Preceded by The Famished Road, and followed by Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.

This book is in Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read. (authoritative list)
This is book 156 of 1272 in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. (authoritative list)

Preceded by Jazz, and followed by Smilla's Sense of Snow.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Michael Ondaatje (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Country: Great Britain
Publication Date: 1992
ISBN: 9780747512547
Page Count: 319

Classification edit see section history

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • Atonement

Books That Cite This Book edit see section history

   
  • Finding Beauty in a Broken World

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