‘The English Patient’ Wins Best of Man Booker Prize
Tuesday, July 10, 2018 at 12:53PM by Murtada
The English Patient, the novel by Michael Ondaatje, has won the Golden Booker prize. The one-off award, voted for by the public, commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Man Booker prize. The shortlist of five novels was selected by a panel of judges from the 51 previous winners of the Man Booker, which honors the best novels written in English and published in Britain or Ireland. The book, which I read after the film won 9 Oscars in 1996, has always been a favorite. Not only for its beautifully written lyrical romantic love story but for its exploration of the fallacy of nationalism.
The characters in The English Patient - Hungarian, Indian, Canadian and English - form artistic allegiances rather than arbitrary ones based along geographical lines. Those themes resonate even more today, as we are in the midst of a volatile debate about immigration...
Perhaps the story of the patient who only became “English” after his face was completely burned and his identity erased is captured best in the note that the elegant Katherine Clifton leaves for her lover as she lays dying in a cave in the Sahara. We hear it in Kristin Scott Thomas’ beautiful narration:
We die. We die rich with lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we've entered and swum up like rivers. Fears we've hidden in - like this wretched cave. I want all this marked on my body. We are the real countries. Not boundaries drawn on maps with the names of powerful men.
The quote comes from Ondaatje’s book, paraphrased slightly by the late great Anthony Minghella who adapted the screenplay and directed. Of the many Oscars it won Minghella lost the screenplay award, which always baffled me because I thought the adaptation was the film’s strongest element. For example Clifton is a memory or an illusion in Almasy’s head in the book, yet in the film she’s the most alluring character, almost wholly coming from Minghella’s writing. Ondaatje’s acknowledged the film’s role in keeping his book alive, in an interview he gave to The Guardian after the Booker news was announced:
Well, it already had a second afterlife with the film, right? And that was a bolt of lightning that I wasn’t expecting. And then this – suddenly redoing the whole thing again.
Are you a fan of The English Patient or a skeptic like Elaine Benes?
Reader Comments (17)
I liked The English Patient. People pick on it a lot b/c of its BP win (I personally would've gone with Fargo), but you just have to settle into it, give it time and watch it unfold. The rewards are there. And it's certainly beautiful to look at.
I have the book on my To Be Read shelf and I figure I'll finally tackle it this fall or winter. Then of course I'll rewatch the film, which is always fun to do - that compare/contrast thing.
Lovely write up, Murtada - thanks!
Agree, Nathaniel. It's a beautiful book. (If you loved this, I think you'll also find Ondaatje's The Collected Works of Billy the Kid a compelling read.)
P.S. KST deserved that, Oscar. Sorry, Frances, not sorry.
I adore the TEP gr8 old fashioned movie making,i'm not a fargo lover so it's win is perfect to me.
KST'S story by the fireside is so evocative,I can feel the warmth in Egypt and the stars in the sky and I see Ralph fall in love with her right there,v well deserved.
Thanks Murtada for a lovely tribute to "The English Patient". I am an unapologetic lover of both the book and the film. I dislike those that denigrate it with jokes like those on "Seinfeld".
The English Patient, (book & film) asks the question, "can we get past our national identities?"
This was a timely question back in the 80's and 90's and even more so now.
When Ondaatje was writing the novel there were arguments going on in Canada about nationalism and integration. “They didn’t want Sikhs to wear turbans if they were policemen and stuff like that. That was in the air.” Also Quebec nationalism and threats of succession were at their peak.
How do countries handle this? How do individuals get past these borders?
These questions resonate even more with us now, as we are entering as harsh a world as existed in the 30's.
I am grateful that Minghella adapted and directed such a great film adaptation of such an intelligent and beautiful novel. More people should ignore the jokes, and revisit the movie.
It's beautiful to look at, and will haunt you with thoughts about love reaching beyond borders and war.
(And if KST, Ralph Fiennes, and Juliette Binoche don't move you, then you are comatose.)
Love the book. Love the movie. And Juliette's is one of my favourite Oscar wins for the sheer surprise and because she was my favourite.
Murtada: Its not just Britain or Ireland, until 2014 it was "any book, in English, by a Commonwealth citizen". Trinidad. Canada. New Zealand. South Africa. Australia. Nigeria. Now, as for this "Golden Booker"? Interesting choices on the base ballot. I applaud a choice from the 80s that isn't Midnight's Children (its an excellent book, but c'mon!), even if I think I'd have VASTLY preferred The Bone People getting the alternate shout-out from the eighties over Moon Tiger, for being both 1. A much better novel and 2. One from a much more unique perspective. Moon Tiger is a WWII novel by a straight white upper-middle-class British woman. The Bone People is a semi-autobiographical novel by a half Maori asexual New Zealander.
Volvagis - "published in Britain or Ireland in English", not the writer is British or Irish.
Loving all the love for the book and the movie in the comments... both great works of art.
Both book and movie are stunning. I go back to the film all the time, to lose myself in it. So many rich moments that feel real and surreal all at the same time.
Great text, thanks. You nailed the questioning of nationalism and boundaries.
I also love the novel - object of my PhD together with Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things - and I love the film. Minghella managed to create a beautiful and touching adaptation of a literary masterpiece.
a Sumptuous film. So much to take in.
And was Ralph Fiennes ever more beautiful than in desert khaki?
i love the movie and the book so much. just so so much. i just read ondaatje's newest novel, warlight, which i recommend to those who loved the english patient.
Thanks for this lovely piece of news. I thought Ondaatje's prose was -- to use an oft-repeated cliché -- unfilmable, that is untranslatable to screen. And I agree that Minghella did a great job in distilling what was sublime on page and make it evocative through the superb performances of the five main characters -- but mainly for Fiennes, Scott-Thomas and Binoche. I need to revisit this book again after all these years. Maybe a detail or layer of the writing will reveal itself even more so now.
I love it that The English Patient won a lot of awards. In retrospect, it was a good choice for the Academy despite the backlash that happened a few years after it won. But since I have always been firmly in the #TeamSecrets&Lies, I still think Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste should have been winners for their performances (alternate: Emily Watson) and Ralph Fiennes moved me more than Geoffrey Rush in Shine.
Thanks for the lovely write-up and for quoting some of its beautiful passages.
You are all crazy by even considering any other actress than Emily Watson the best of that year. Except for Keaton, they all would be strong winners in any year, but not that year. Watson belongs to the league of Falconetti, of Masina in La Strada. It's the best Oscar nominated performance ever after Gena in A Woman Under The Influence and Garland in A Star is Born. Please.
cal: Blethyn and Watson is a very close fight. I'd still lean on Blethyn (because Watson is shouldering a movie that is Lars Von Trier at his Von Trier-iest), but still. Both of them are somewhere in the top 5-10 nominees in the entire category.
I agree with carl roth
Watson is in her own league, one of the performances ever... Perfect. Still, I understand why she lost to Frances M.
Dare I confess I prefer the movie (which I adored) to the book (which I merely admired)? I think it may come down to whether you prefer your poetry to be verbal or visual, and I'm more easily seduced by the latter.
Totally deserved all of its Oscars, although I'd have given supporting actress to Joan Allen, who carried the otherwise-mediocre Crucible and outshone both of her more famous co-stars. And yes, it should have won adapted screenplay, too.
Lovely write up, on a film I have sadly never seen all the way through. I'll correct that.
PS Keaton should've won.