Author: Michael Ondaatje
Title: The English Patient
Press: Bloomsbury
Date of Publication: 1992
Prizes: Winner of the Man Booker Prize 1992
Date of Purchase: January 2019
RRP: £8.99
Price of Purchase: £2.50
Reading Time: 6 days
Rating: 6
I probably didn’t read this correctly. I found myself distracted and skimming, having to go back and reread pages to get their sense. That is not a criticism of the book but rather a comment that this wasn’t the right book at the right time for me personally.
As a result I was never fully immersed in the story and I suspect that many of the more poignant moments passed me by in a blur as a result. Also, and this is really me just nit-picking, but the scene depicted on the cover cannot have happened because Hana had hidden all of the mirrors in the villa…
That said it was moving in parts and the careful interweaving of the lives of the four characters was an interesting comment on the realities of an almost post-war world. The pervasive nature of the echoes of the war which had changed each of the characters’ lives can be readily felt throughout and enhanced my own understanding of the variety of ways in which a life can be changed by something as dramatic and far-reaching as warfare.
This is a book I know I should go back to when in the right frame of mind but I confess I rarely reread books so that is not particularly likely.
Beth's Books (and other bits and bobs) 