Brad Mar 25, 2008

it was amazing bookshelves: faves, booker-prize, canadian-lit, the-best, to-read-again, about-love, about-guilt

Read 5 times. Last read December 25, 2012 to July 31, 2013. 's review

I marvel that this was ever read by more than a thousand people. It is too poetic for the mainstream, too fragmented for easy consumption, and too sensual for those who consider plot the most important part of a novel. This remains one of my three favourite novels because of its poeticism, fragmentation and sensuality.



This time through I decided to read it out loud, and a whole new sensuality exploded into the experience for me. Actually rolling those words and worlds around on my tongue, wheezing my way through the English Patient's tale, letting Kip's Lahore English spill over my teeth, adopting Carravagio's voice as my own, and trying my best to capture Hana for myself (I have the benefit of being mostly Canadian and not having to adjust my accent for the latter two) broadened the sensuality of the book, and not just because the sounds were resounding in my head. I could feel the words filling my lungs, or burning my throat, or passing through my airways in different manners, so that saying the words on the page, those already sensual words, made the sensuality tangible for me.



To feel a book in other ways as I read it and hear it is as near as I come to a holy experience. Words are my church. Michael Ondaatje is my priest. The English Patient is one of my scriptures.



Don't even talk to me about the travesty that is the film.