The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje - Book Review

The English Patient book by Michael Ondaatje review
Rating 3.5/5
Genre: romance, drama, war

It is the time of 1942-43. Italy and its allies are at war with Germany. The war is coming to an end and German forces are retreating from Italy.

A pilot is flying a helicopter in a sandy desert and it catches fire. He hits the ground with a parachute but his skin is badly burnt and his nerves are so damaged he can barely move. The local tribal people rescue him and take care of him as long as he proves useful to them. He knows the maps of the desert by heart and can recognize different models of guns. They find this kind of information useful during the war. And when he is no longer useful, they abandon him at a hospital in Villa San Guirlamo in Florence. He remebers everything but doesnt know his name. No one knows who he is but from the way he talks think he is British. Hence he is referred to as the English Patient.

As the war is coming to an end, the doctors plan to shift the hospital to a different place where there is war still going on. They decide to abandon 'the english patient' because his nerves are so weak he cannot move. There is a nurse in the group Hana who refuses to abandon him and decides to stay back taking care of him. The others warn her that the villa is surrounded by land mines and has limited supply of water and food. She is adamant about not leaving the english patient.

So she saves up a stash of morphine from the supplies and starts taking care of the patient. Learning of her location, her childhood uncle Cavaroggio, a thief by profession comes to join them. During the war, he works for the British intelligence but is caught by the Germans and they chop off both his thumbs. They are also joined by a sapper Kip(Kirpal Singh) who works for the italian intelligence in disposing bombs,landmines. The four of them start living together and a routine sets up between them. A platonic love and intimate romance develops between Kip and Hana. The English patient starts telling his past story and how he got to be in the plane that caught fire. Cavaroggio suspsects the english patient is hiding his identity and is a man named Count Almasy who worked for the German forces(against Italy and allies). As the story unfolds we learn if his assertions are indeed true. Also what painful loses the others had sustained through the war and its devastating consequences.

I thought that since this book has won the Man Booker Prize in 1992 it is going to be wonderful. But at times the prose felt ambiguous,abstract and vague. It was hard to understand what was happening and difficult to go on. Like for example when both Kip and Cavaroggio are in the same room, he refers to both of them as 'he'. It got so exasperating that I wanted to give up reading the novel altogether and pick up some other book. The author alternates between the past and present and it takes some effort to understand where we are. Almasy's past is told like a puzzle whose pieces are scattered all over the place. I liked the plot very much but I think the author wanted to write the story like a movie creating much intrigue and it really failed to make a connection at times..