Michael Ondaatje – The English Patient – Deserts

The English Patient (1992) is probably the best known of Ondaatje’s novels, largely due to Anthony Mingella’s movie of the same title made in -96. There are always varying opinions about books made into film, ususally on the theme “the book is not like the film, is not enough like the film, is too much like the film” and I personally think this has to do with the idea that the movie and the book can be the same thing, which is of course physically impossible. Not only is the movie a collective effort, it is also a completely different medium – seems obvious when you set it in writing, doesn’t it? So why do people argue the point?

I believe it is because we hold the filmmaker up to our own imaginings and try to see how well they’ve managed to translate the cinematography of the thearte of our minds onto the big screen.  But I digress.

The English Patient is one of those novels that offer a variety of different interpretations depending on what you focus on. You can say that about most novels, true, but normally you have to work harder for it. In this case the question of identity comes to the fore right from the first page. Identity and nationality.

The patient, count Almásy, is actually Hungarian by birth but has during his work in the desert come to the conclusion that nationality does not really matter in the select company of desert explorers he keeps before the war. He falls in love with Catherine Clifton, the wife of Geoffrey Clifton, both of them British. Almásy finally winds up in an Italian villa with a Canadian thief by the name of Caravaggio, a nurse named Hana, also Canadian, and a Sikh sapper working for the British by the name of Kip (or actually – Kirpahl Singh).

The action travels from Cairo to Italy via the Desert and mentions the places alive in peoples memories, such as English gardens and the Canadian lakes. Kip talks of India, and late in the action mentions Hiroshima and Nagasaki, claiming the wise old fathers would not have done such a thing to the brown races of the world. Activate Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism here if you like.

Another aspect is the interpersonal relationships and all their inherent politics. Almáshy and Catherine have an extra marital affair that has devastating consequences, and not only for them personally. In the end it results in Almáshy helping Rommel across the desert. When Clifton tries for a murder/suicide to punish his wife and Almáshy for their betrayal Catherine is hurt badly and when Almáshy tries to go for help he is rejected by the British who regard any foreign national as a threat at this time. Almáshy gets help from the Germans instead on the condition that he guides them through the desert. Catherine is waiting for him in the Gelf Kebir, but she is long dead by the time he gets there. It is when he tries to fly out of the desert in an old plane that has laid buried in the sand for a long time that he catches fire and falls burning from the sky. Rescued and kept alive by a desert tribe he is finally brought in to hospital, claiming to no longer know his name. He becomes The English Patient, and the irony is not lost on him.

The other crucial realtionship in this novel is that between Hana and Kip – the Canadian nurse caring for Almáshy and the Indian Sikh solider trying to clear the area in Italy where the Villa San Girolamo is situated of mines. Hana falls in love with the Sikh and seems fascinated in part with his otherness, the colour of his skin, the sing-song of his dialect, his long dark hair and so on. Hana has been a nurse all through the war and is described as having suffered shell-shock, not so much from the action as from the death of her father. She and Kip negotiate a complicated territory between them. She is scarred by the war and her own personal tragedies, Kip seems to distance himself from personal realtionships from the sheer need of distance. He is a sapper, after all. Death is just a step away for him at all times.

If you go at this book as a parable of love and indentity there are many interesting observations to make. Relationships are messy at best and fail, but for very different reasons. The landscape Almáshy has chosen to live in is the desert. His deep fascination with it seems to rub off on his charater. Catherine misses her green English gardens and never seems at home in the harsh dryness. Kip brings with him the fecundity of India and Hana speaks of the snow and lakes of Canada. It is more than just description of where the characters were born. It speaks instead of everyhting they are, to themselves and others.

On the level of language Ondaatje never disappoints. He delivers one magical image after another, replete with a deep afterthought on what these images will conjure up. One of my favourites is the description of the sand dunes as the corrugated surface of the roof of a dog’s mouth. And the idea that the desert explorer who is reported to have written this sentence was liked by his peers for having the kind of inquisitive curiosity that would stick his hand in the maw of a dog. Double and tripple meanings to everything. Beautiful, caustic at times, opulent at times.

Caravaggio, who has worked as a spy for the allies during the war has been caught and tortured by Nazi soliders who cut off his thumbs. He has since then been addicted to morphine and at one point he is described as wearing the false limbs that morphia promises. A beautiful summation of how damaged he is, and how addicted and scarred.

Ondaatje has done his homework and managed to write intelligently about WWII without falling into the typical genre traps and clichées. He takes hold of his subject and pours everything into it until the text is so rich and layered you can read and re-read his novel and still find more substance to it. The way he treats stories and timelines and subject matter always offers more than any paltry review can do justice to. This is not just another period piece love story. It has far more to offer.

MULE