Synopsis
The myriad interests of the author - a poet, short-story writer, novelist, dramatist, essayist, painter and composer of songs - can be found in these letters, written between 1886 and 1895.
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Review
However hauntingly, harrowingly soulful, Anthony Minghella's screenplay could never entirely encapsulate the essence of Michael Ondaatje's novel, The English Patient. What was, without doubt, a great film (nine Academy Awards' worth) will be remembered for its visual joys--the sensational, sweeping desert scenery, the reckless passion of its difficult, eponymous hero and the sculpted beauty of his lover. What was always lost to the medium was the sheer, breathtaking beauty of the words--Ondaatje's ethereal prose, like luminous poetry, casting shadows on its pages and piercing the soul of its reader.
Never wholly comfortable in his role as novelist, Ondaatje's exploration of love, life and death, deserves to be read aloud, in honour of its masterful lyricist. And who better to breathe life to these, original, words (the Audio Book is abridged by Ondaatje himself), than Ralph Fiennes, whose film portrayal of the English patient was a masterpiece of casting. His carefully considered locution lends itself perfectly to this novel, conjuring visions of steamy Cairo, endless dry dunes and the reduced splendour of the Florentine villa, with its dusty books and damaged occupants.
It is here, amongst the swaying Cypresses, where the Canadian nurse tends her dying English patient, while her own wavering love for humanity is slowly restored. Here, where the burnt and barely alive pilot, whose identity has been lost, remembers his tragic past, helped by the morphine shots, the tortured thief, Caravaggio, and the brilliant young Sapper, Kip. If you've seen the film, but never read the book, Fiennes' reading will illuminate. If you've already read the book, hearing it read aloud, with such care and understanding, will give immense pleasure. And if you haven't done either, but you love the beauty of words, here are four hours of joy. --Carey Green
About the Author
Rabindranath Tagore (1861 1941), is to the Indian subcontinent what Shakespeare is to the English-speaking world. A poet, playwright, painter, and educator, Tagore was also a mystic of great complexity and depth. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.
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