Monday, March 9, 2020
The English Patient - AP Worthy?
Hello, readers! Thank you so much for following my posts while I read The English Patient. This book has quickly become one of my favorites, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who needs a good story to invest in. I could see myself re-reading this book in the future. It’s both rich with beautiful imagery and detail as well as complex in its storytelling, making it a great book to read for pleasure. With that being said, I would also like to tell you why I would recommend this book as part of an AP curriculum.
After taking two AP English classes, I’ve started to figure out what makes a book good for the classroom. Most importantly, it has to be one that students can analyze for a deeper meaning. One example of this that I caught early in the book was Hana’s tendency to read to Almàsy, then read the same book to herself, causing Almàsy to miss large chunks of the story:
“She was not concerned about the Englishman as far as the gaps in plot were concerned. She gave no summary of the missing chapters. She simply brought out the book and said ‘page ninety-six’ or ‘page one hundred and eleven’. That was the only indicator,” (8).
Even through these stories, Hana keeps Almàsy in the dark about certain things despite her love for him. We see that weigh on him at the end of the book, as he has been trapped in the bed as well as his own mind, making life hard to appreciate. I found that this, as well as many other moments for these characters, made the story more compelling and impactful when pieced together.
Michael Ondaatje is very intentional with the details that he puts in his writing. Hana’s quirks, Kip’s big appetite, Caravaggio’s cockiness. They aren’t just there for no particular reason. These characters are crafted to represent the different ways that people deal with war, and how their habits can affect the people around them. They all have a different relationship with their past, the villa, and the state of the world. I could write a whole essay on the relationship between any two characters in this book, which is extremely helpful to a student. In just 320 pages, this book could aid a student in a wide range of essay questions and prompts.
This book’s use of flashbacks makes it a unique choice for an AP class. It was fascinating to see Almàsy’s character unravel through the story of him and Katharine and I think that this section of the book could be the prompt for a project, seminar, or essay. Kip’s experience as a sapper and its ties to racial inequality were also prominent parts of the book that I think could be explored by students. Overall, this book is a thought-provoking read that can still be enjoyed by people my age. I’m so glad I chose to blog about it, as it allowed me to dig deeper into an already incredibly moving story. This book is raw and emotional. It’s an unconventional perspective on World War 2 as it's told from those who have been affected by it without being a part of their country’s military. However, it doesn’t shy away from the horrors of war, but rather makes them feel all the more real and personal. I’d love to see future AP Literature students choose this book for one of their projects as it is such a useful piece of text to be familiar with.
Again, thank you so much for checking in. I’m so glad I could share this story with you, and I hope you read it for yourself if you haven’t already.
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
Chapters 8, 9 and 10
Hello readers! Welcome back. I have finally finished The English Patient and let me tell you, it was not an ending that I could have imagined.
This book has always felt extremely fragmented due to the many flashbacks and focus shifts. Similarly, the ending leaves each character where you might not have expected them to be both physically and mentally. It's an ambiguous ending because none of the characters have a plan. They are left at the Villa at different points in their development as people, leaving the reader to form their own opinions on what might happen next in these complicated lives.
"The Holy Forest"
This chapter doesn't focus on a certain flashback or character, but rather on how these people live in the villa together. We see a kinder side of Caravaggio as he learns to respect Kip after he saves him from a bomb:
"He could walk away, never see him again, and he would never forget him. Years from now on a Toronto street Caravaggio will get out of a taxi and hold the door open for an East Indian who is about to get into it, and he will think of Kip then (208)."
Caravaggio has always been a hard person to understand. At times he's a foil to the sympathetic, emotional and compassionate Hana, especially when trying to coax the patient into revealing his past. This little instance of mutual respect surprised me.
Hana also grows through her experiences in the villa. As Caravaggio continued to watch her grow up and mature, "he loved her more than he loved her when he had understood her better, when she was a product of her parents. What she was now was what she herself had decided to become (222)." Hana's relationship with each of the men in the villa shaped her differently. She didn't submit to what Caravaggio wanted from her but rather found love and companionship with Kip and the patient. The war was a catalyst for her independence from her parents, and her newfound strength from being a nurse for so many years translates into her willingness to understand and empathize with others.
"The Cave of Swimmers"
So you want to know how to fall in love? This chapter may not show you the best way to express your feelings for another person, but it does give us more insight into the relationship between the patient and Katharine. Katharine's character was hard to understand when first learning about her time with the patient. She was this socialite wife who suddenly threw away her young marriage for the patient, abusing both men in the process. This chapter explains the shift she went through as she grew to love the desert:
It doesn't get blunter than that. The freedom that the desert embodies gave Katharine an outlet to fully express her desires. She was no longer the young rich stereotype that Clifton married, so it only makes sense that their marriage would fail and she would fall for someone who was just as fascinated with freedom: the patient. The patient's connection with Katharine and his years of exploration are described extensively, but what I always wondered about was how these memories affect his time in the villa. His present self is not very expressive of how he feels about his past. He merely just tells it like a story that is separate from himself. The chapter ends with him completely emotionless and the narrator finally refers to him as Almàsy, revealing that he is in fact, not English.
"August"
In my opinion, the final chapter of this novel fully encapsulates the most major issues that each character faced for the past few months in the villa. It begins with a celebration of Hana's birthday. A celebration of the small community they built together. It ends with Kip leaving in anger and Almàsy wishing to die.
When Kip hears that an atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, he immediately turns his back on the bond he built with Almàsy, pointing a gun at him. He expresses his plights with having to convert to English practices and culture:
"Your fragile white island that with customs and manners and books and prefects and reason somehow converted the rest of the world. You stood for precise behavior. I knew if I lifted a teacup with the wrong finger I'd be banished. If I tied the wrong kind of knot in a tie I was out (283)."
Kip's biggest challenge in the book has been with his identity. He's been forced to, for his own survival, adapt to a whole new culture while still being called the Sikh or the sapper. The atomic bomb symbolizes a betrayal to the east despite people like Kip doing everything they can to fit in with the English, and it sets him over the edge. He leaves on a motorcycle, only to reach a day where the rain is so severe that he skids off the road and into a river, where we are uncertain if he survives or not. Meanwhile, Almàsy wanted Kip to pull the trigger when faced with death. It is the first time that Almàsy truly expresses how he feels in his dying state with such a traumatizing past. He's also the only character who we know the fate of, as it stated in the first chapter that he would eventually die in the villa.
"He was a burned man and I was a nurse and I could have nursed him. Do you understand the sadness of geography? I could have saved him or at least been with him till the end. I know a lot about burning (298)."
Although she was a nurse to Almàsy, she could not do the same for her own father, with war tearing them apart from each other. The most important message that I've taken from this book is that war tears people apart. It brings out the worst in people and the most horrible of circumstances for others. The way that Ondaatje utilizes these characters to show this makes the effects of world war 2 all the more personal to read.
Thank you so much for following my opinions on The English Patient. Remember to check back next week for my last post!
This book has always felt extremely fragmented due to the many flashbacks and focus shifts. Similarly, the ending leaves each character where you might not have expected them to be both physically and mentally. It's an ambiguous ending because none of the characters have a plan. They are left at the Villa at different points in their development as people, leaving the reader to form their own opinions on what might happen next in these complicated lives.
"The Holy Forest"
This chapter doesn't focus on a certain flashback or character, but rather on how these people live in the villa together. We see a kinder side of Caravaggio as he learns to respect Kip after he saves him from a bomb:
"He could walk away, never see him again, and he would never forget him. Years from now on a Toronto street Caravaggio will get out of a taxi and hold the door open for an East Indian who is about to get into it, and he will think of Kip then (208)."
Caravaggio has always been a hard person to understand. At times he's a foil to the sympathetic, emotional and compassionate Hana, especially when trying to coax the patient into revealing his past. This little instance of mutual respect surprised me.
Hana also grows through her experiences in the villa. As Caravaggio continued to watch her grow up and mature, "he loved her more than he loved her when he had understood her better, when she was a product of her parents. What she was now was what she herself had decided to become (222)." Hana's relationship with each of the men in the villa shaped her differently. She didn't submit to what Caravaggio wanted from her but rather found love and companionship with Kip and the patient. The war was a catalyst for her independence from her parents, and her newfound strength from being a nurse for so many years translates into her willingness to understand and empathize with others.
"The Cave of Swimmers"
So you want to know how to fall in love? This chapter may not show you the best way to express your feelings for another person, but it does give us more insight into the relationship between the patient and Katharine. Katharine's character was hard to understand when first learning about her time with the patient. She was this socialite wife who suddenly threw away her young marriage for the patient, abusing both men in the process. This chapter explains the shift she went through as she grew to love the desert:
"After that month in Cairo she was muted, read constantly, kept more to herself, as if something had occurred or she realized suddenly that wondrous thing about the human being, it can change. She did not have to remain a socialite who had married an adventurer. She was discovering herself (230)."
"August"
In my opinion, the final chapter of this novel fully encapsulates the most major issues that each character faced for the past few months in the villa. It begins with a celebration of Hana's birthday. A celebration of the small community they built together. It ends with Kip leaving in anger and Almàsy wishing to die.
When Kip hears that an atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, he immediately turns his back on the bond he built with Almàsy, pointing a gun at him. He expresses his plights with having to convert to English practices and culture:
"Your fragile white island that with customs and manners and books and prefects and reason somehow converted the rest of the world. You stood for precise behavior. I knew if I lifted a teacup with the wrong finger I'd be banished. If I tied the wrong kind of knot in a tie I was out (283)."
Kip's biggest challenge in the book has been with his identity. He's been forced to, for his own survival, adapt to a whole new culture while still being called the Sikh or the sapper. The atomic bomb symbolizes a betrayal to the east despite people like Kip doing everything they can to fit in with the English, and it sets him over the edge. He leaves on a motorcycle, only to reach a day where the rain is so severe that he skids off the road and into a river, where we are uncertain if he survives or not. Meanwhile, Almàsy wanted Kip to pull the trigger when faced with death. It is the first time that Almàsy truly expresses how he feels in his dying state with such a traumatizing past. He's also the only character who we know the fate of, as it stated in the first chapter that he would eventually die in the villa.
In between parts of Kip's journey out of the villa and towards the river, Hana writes a letter to her Aunt Clara, the only living family member of hers that we know of. She tells Clara of her bottled up feelings about her Father's death and the guilt she feels for not being there when he was dying of burn injuries:
Although she was a nurse to Almàsy, she could not do the same for her own father, with war tearing them apart from each other. The most important message that I've taken from this book is that war tears people apart. It brings out the worst in people and the most horrible of circumstances for others. The way that Ondaatje utilizes these characters to show this makes the effects of world war 2 all the more personal to read.
Thank you so much for following my opinions on The English Patient. Remember to check back next week for my last post!
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