The English Patient cover art

The English Patient

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The English Patient

By: Michael Ondaatje
Narrated by: Jennifer Ehle
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About this listen

With unsettling beauty and intelligence, this Golden Man Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an abandoned Italian villa at the end of World War II.

The nurse Hana, exhausted by death, obsessively tends to her last surviving patient. Caravaggio, the thief, tries to reimagine 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 centre 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.

©1992 Michael Ondaatje (P)2020 Audible, Ltd Classics Historical Fiction Fiction Heartfelt Italy

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All stars
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I love the movie, but the book was very heavy going and I found it a chore by the end, the narration was very monotone and seemed to make it drag.

Really struggled

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I saw the movie based on this book years ago and enjoyed it, so I thought I'd give this a try. I'm sure the story is good, but the narration wasn't engaging.

Struggled

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Narrator was sympathetic to the content, brilliant . She has a very calm voice, enjoyed immensely.

Enjoyable listening

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Brilliant book. The narrator doesnt change voice much for individual characters making it sometimes hard to keep a track on who is talking

sometimes hard to follow

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I already knew the story as I had seen the film yet I was keen to listen to the book for all of the missing bits.

The narrator has an American accent which I didn't think suited the story at all! I also felt like there was a lack of emotion in the telling and I found myself thinking about other things whilst listening because her voice was so boring.

Great book but didn't enjoy the narration

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Loved the narration, bore no resemblance to the film for me, so a new experience

Mesmerizing

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Having watched this film a good many years ago and long forgotten it I decided to give the book a go. I didn't find it any easy listen as it jumps all over the place but I did enjoy it. As you only have the narrator to guide you it's not always obvious who is speaking so I got a bit lost at times. It's the story of four people haunted by love and war told in a lyrical way by the author.
It seemed so different to what I vaguely remembered of the film, overall I enjoyed it.

Fragmented but sensual

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I loved the film but have never thought to look out the book - if anything it’s better than the book. I thought the narrator was brilliant delivering the lines of the English Patient himself particularly well.

Even better than the film (of course)

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However I was disappointed with the narrator done by an actor I like. The book is one of my favourites and so rich and deep.

Beautiful story

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This is my favourite book. It's sheer beauty haunts me, but it has been taken to a whole new level with Jennifer Ehle's voice. There were times when I just stopped whatever it was I was doing when I listened and found myself staring into this broken world, quite overcome as each word entered my ear and seeped somehow into my blood. No other writer arrests me in this way. No other words conjure such alertness in me. Nowhere is more palpable than this desert, these loves and this villa in Italy at the end of the second world war.

Just my favourite book. ever.

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