Explorations Read-Aloud: “The English Patient” by Michael Ondaatje

Every Friday, at 11:00 am, on the library’s YouTube Channel and Facebook Page, the library will stream a brand new recording of local thespian, Joseph Coté reading aloud selections from a wide variety of fascinating and entertaining books of fiction and non-fiction.

For December 12, Coté will read aloud from Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient.

• NATIONAL BESTSELLER
• 1992 BOOKER PRIZE WINNER
• 1992 CANADIAN GOVERNOR GENERAL’S AWARD
• 1996 FILM ADAPTATION WINNER OF NINE ACADEMY AWARDS
• 2008 GOLDEN MAN BOOKER PRIZE
• 2022 BRITISH COMMONWEALTH “BIG JUBILEE READ”

The novel follows four dissimilar people brought together at an Italian villa during the Italian campaign of World War II: an unrecognizably burned man—the eponymous patient who is presumed to be English—; his Canadian Army nurse; a Sikh sapper; and a Canadian self-described thief.

The nurse Hana, exhausted by death, obsessively tends to her last surviving patient. Caravaggio, the thief, tries to re-imagine who he is, now that his hands are hopelessly maimed. The Indian sapper Kip searches for hidden bombs in a landscape where nothing is safe but himself.

And at the center of his labyrinth lies the English patient, nameless and hideously burned, a man who is both a riddle and a provocation to his companions—and whose memories of suffering, rescue, and betrayal illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning.

The story is primarily set during the North African campaign and centers on the incremental revelations of the patient’s actions prior to his injuries, and the emotional effects of these revelations on the other characters.

The story is told through the characters’ perspectives and “authors” of books the characters are reading.

Click the links to find the library’s YouTube Channel and Facebook Page.

Thoughts to share? Book ideas to suggest?
Contact Joseph at friday-explorations@usa.net