The English Patient

1. The English Patient Michael Ondaatje

2. Michael Ondaatje • Philip Michael Ondaatje (born 12 Sep. 1943): • Born in Ceylon to a Burgher* (see Note in the next page) family of Dutch-Tamil-Sinhalese-Portuguese origin, in 1954 moved to England with his mother. • Became a Canadian citizen in 1962. • Received his BA from the University of Toronto and his MA from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario

3. Note • *The Burghers are a Eurasian ethnic group, historically from Sri Lanka, consisting for the most part of male-line descendants of European colonists from the 16th to 20th centuries (mostly Portuguese, Dutch and British) and local Sinhalese women.

4. Michael Ondaatje • Teaching: University western Ontario in London, Ontario; 1971-1988, York University and Glendon College in Toronto. • Style of fiction: non-liner, creating a narrative by exploring many interconnected snapshopts in great detail.

5. Michael Ondaatje • Works in other genres: • Memoir: Running in the Family (his Sri Lankan childhood) • Poetry:The Collected Works of Billy and the Kid (1970); There’s a trick With a Knife I’m Learning to do: Poems 1973-1978 (1979); both won the Governor General’s Award

6. Michael Ondaatje • Fiction: • Anil's Ghost — winner of the 2000 Giller Prize, the Prix Médicis, the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize, the 2001 Irish Times International Fiction Prize and Canada's Governor General's Award. • The English Patient — winner of the Booker Prize, the Canada Australia Prize, and the Canadian Governor General's Award and later made into a motion picture, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. The English Patient can be considered a sequel to In the Skin of a Lion (1987).

7. Michael Ondaatje • Fiction • In the Skin of a Lion — winner of the 1988 City of Toronto Book Award and finalist for the 1987 Ritz Paris Hemingway Award for best novel of the year in English. It was selected for the first "Canada Reads" edition in 2002. A fictional story about early immigrant settlers in Toronto, In the Skin of a Lion eventually won the competition. • Coming Through Slaughter — a fictional story of New Orleans, Louisiana about 1900, very loosely based on the lives of jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden and photographer E. J. Bellocq. Winner of the 1976 Books in Canada First Novel Award

8. Michael Ondaatje • In 1988, was made an Officer of the Order of Canada (OC) and two years later became a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. • Brother: Christopher Ondaatje, a philanthropist and businessman.

9. The English Patient • A 1992 novel by Sri Lankan Canadian novelist Michael Ondaatje • A story about the gradually revealed histories of a critically burned man, his Canadian nurse, a Canadian thief, and an Indian sapper in the British Army as they live out the end of World War II in an Italian villa

10. The English Patient • Plot summary: (see the handouts) • Characters: • Almasy/the English Patient: • 1. A slippery, cryptic character, not adept at self-examination. • 2. Lacking any identification, serving a sort of blank canvas onto which the other characters project their wishes (healing wounds).

11. The English Patient • Characters: • Almasy: • 3. An Hungarian not an English (irony) • 4. Rejecting nationalism, so can be forgiven for his actions (e.g., helping a German spy across the desert)

12. The English Patient • Characters: • Hana: entirely paradoxical • 1. Internal wound: losing her father to an accident where he was burned beyond recognition; lover killed; • 2. Young: 20 years old; playing hopscotch I the villa and seeing the patient as a noble hero who is suffering.

13. The English Patient • Characters • Hana: • 3. Mature: treating patients but immediately detaching from them once they are dead; Having a particular affinity for death. • 4. Chaining herself to the English patient for atonement; seeing Almasy as saintlike and with the “hipbones of Christ”; falling in love with him in a purely non-sexual way,

14. The English Patient • Characters: • Hana: • projecting her own romanticized images onto the blank slate of the patient, forming a sort of fairytale existence for herself. • 5. Falling in love with Kip; Almasy urges her to find that fire (of love) within and to kindle it.

15. The English Patient • Characters • Kip: the most conflicted character, uncomfortable with his own race and being part of a culture that was subservient to the British • 1. Internal wound: Lord Suffolk’s death • 2. Emotionally withdrawing: racial discrimination

16. The English Patient • Character • Kip: • 3. Regaining confidence and a sense of community (Hana) • 4. Choosing to leave after the dropping of the atom bomb on Japan (escaping? Emotionally withdrawal again? Or having seen through the reality?)

17. The English Patient • Characters • Caravaggio: • 1. A Canadian thief and long-time friend of Hana’s father. • 2. Two thumbs amputated, making him lose his nerve (not capable of stealing, physically and mentally) • 3. Coming to the villa to try to get Hana to leave, but eventually falling in love with her

18. The English Patient • Characters • Katharine: • 1. An Oxford-educated firebrand • 2. Stubborn and feisty • 3. The figure who leads Almasy to sensuality (reading Herodotus) • 4. Breaking off the affair: sense of guilty and Almasy’s dislike of being owned

19. The English Patient • Major themes: • 1. Healing vs. denial • 2. Passion vs. frigidity: • 3. Drive towards life vs. drive towards death • 4. The desert • 5. Loneliness vs. connection • 6. Surrogate parents • 7. debt