欧宝娱乐

Don't know if you read the same book i did - but I've rarely seen anyone get so worked up - if you didn't like the book that much why not quit in the first couple of chapters - i could say the book was great but that would be my opinion, so i appreciate your views, but as i was reading your comments i couldn't help wondering why anyone would endure a book they simply loathed...?

It was assigned reading, for a college course called "Contemporary Innovative Fiction." If I had picked it up on my own, I might not have finished it. But then again, I probably would have, because--had I not--people would be able to dismiss my hatred of the book by saying, "Well, you didn't even finish it." Also, I like to finish things I start.

seriously? the book is not supposed to just going to open itself up to you. You have to critically look at the text, move past the type of dialogue and grasp what it is saying. In doing so you will understand the themes and questions that Ondaatje raises. This book isn't something you can just check of your list as finished, you have to actually THINK while you read. Ondaatje is a good writer and therefore requires a good critically thinking reader. aka it is not just some child's bedtime story, as a reader you have to actually work to understand.

This book's prose amazing and the themes conveyed beautiful; rightly won the Booker prize. Stick to reading simple cheap mindless Hollwood fodder, such as The Da Vinci Code.

Before you condescend to me, read some of my other reviews, check out books I have rated highly, and think long and hard about whether my criticism of Ondaatje's prose comes from a place of ignorance or merely from a different set of opinions than yours.

I have catholic tastes. I enjoy everything from the lowest pulp to the highest-minded literature. My favorite book of all time is George Eliot's "Middlemarch," but I enjoy reading just about everything. There are very few books I hate, but this is one of them. Live with it.

Nicely put! Whenever I admit that I hate Cormac McCarthy's pretentious bullshit I am attacked as a philistine and an ignoramus!

Ha! I actually love Cormac McCarthy (well, most of his books), but I'd never presume anything about someone's intelligence or taste just because they didn't like him.

I effin' hate it when people say "Stick with [insert wildly popular bestselling author here], because you clearly can't understand great literature." It's such a cheap response, and really doesn't have anything to do with whether or not so-and-so is a pretentious, overrated windbag.

In one of my other negative reviews (in which I ripped on "On the Road"), someone told me to "go and read a Stephen King book," because I clearly didn't understand great literature.

I remember thinking, "What's wrong with Stephen King?" He tells great stories and enthralls millions of readers. That's not an easy thing to do.

Speaking of which, did you ever read this article? It came out about a decade ago, but it's still true, and everyone who puts books like "The English Patient" on a pedestal should read it:



He tears apart Cormac McCarthy, too, so that'll make you happy.

That article has been expanded into a whole book, which I own and love. I agree with just about everything said in it. I also agree with you about how personal and vituperative people get these days when it comes to making opinions about literature...I also enjoyed the fact that you used the term catholic in a way that very few people understand: "...I am very catholic in my tastes..." Nice. Did you by any chance go to University or are you just a well-read, well-spoken autodidact?

Thanks, Dr. Edward. Well, I like to think I'm both, but I did go to what the Brits would call "University," but what most people in the U.S. would just refer to as plain old "college."

That book is called "A Reader's Manifesto," right? I'd like to read it. The article came out just after I'd graduated college, and just after I'd taken a class on contemporary literary fiction. Half the books were great, but the other half were exactly the kind of nonsensical twaddle B.R. Myers identifies ... uninteresting, flat stories hiding behind a blizzard of highfalutin words.

Dr Edward wrote: "Nicely put! Whenever I admit that I hate Cormac McCarthy's pretentious bullshit I am attacked as a philistine and an ignoramus!"

In defense of your attackers, you are both those things.

Dr Edward wrote: "I am attacked as a philistine and an ignoramus!"

That's a really unfair judgment. You've read over 108 books, and only like 30 of them are about Star Wars.

Adam wrote: "Eat shit and die, assholes."

HA! I felt the same way about the movie

Right on! Tell it like it is! I found The English Patient to be incomprehensible. And I think much of Stephen Kings work enthralling.

Steve wrote: "Right on! Tell it like it is! I found The English Patient to be incomprehensible. And I think much of Stephen Kings work enthralling."

I know, right?! I've been honing my skills for months with Nicholas Sparks, Stephen King, comic books, and the backs of shampoo bottles. Yet even so armed with a mind newly acute to literature, I could not penetrate Michael Ondaatje's masterpiece The English Patient. I am going to add cereal boxes to my regimen and see if that makes any difference.

I must agree with Taylor Westly. In-your-face, obvious, and blunt literature is for juvenile or young adult fiction. The best writers, be it Dostoyevsky, Conrad, Tolstoy, Twain, or Hemingway have the ability to keep their reader guessing even after they have read the story for the 100th time.

(Not to "condescend", I should probably mention that I still love reading young adult fiction. It's nonetheless still immature to hate a book because you do not understand it).

Thanks for the dose of sanity, Katschi!

Every time I get an e-mail that says someone has commented on my review of "The English Patient" I dread even looking at this thread, but because I'm like Pandora with her box, I always look.

So thanks, Xena, for not being another teenage girl informing me I'm a moron because I can't see the emperor's new clothes. And good luck finishing this book ... I guess.

I guess I shouldn't flip the script and claim that everyone who loves The English Patient is suffering from "emperor's new clothes" syndrome. It's just that for me, Ondaatje's prose is emblematic of a sort of mushy, noncommittal, so-called "lyrical" prose that was really popular in the 1990s and that I always hated. I also wrote this review awhile after I read the book, so I attacked it with broad strokes. I think I do better when I cite specific examples and the book is fresher in my mind.

Xena, your English is clearly good enough for you to understand a book like this. If it's not for you, it's not for you. Don't twist yourself up into knots trying to find meaning in it if it's not speaking to you.

I completely disagree with you about the book - it's my idea of the perfect novel - but I honestly don't understand why you're not entitled to express your opinion of it and why people get so pissed off when you do. What the hell does personal preference have to do with intelligence? Nothing annoys me more than people who claim that you must be somehow deficient in your literary prowess if you happen to dislike something that has been hailed as a masterpiece, if you refuse to go with the flow and allow yourself to disagree with mainstream opinion and jacket blurbs. (I mean how dare you!) It's obvious that you are very intelligent and articulate by reading some of your reviews and comments. How boring a place the world would be if we all felt the same way about prose poetry and Ondaatje's lyrical style! The way he uses language is a very particular and acquired taste and is therefore by definition not at all for everyone. Not liking it does not mean you didn't get or understand it; it means only that - you did not like it! I would get tired very quickly if every review I read about a book that I love agreed with me in every particular. Your review was one of the few I DID read BECAUSE it was negative! Is variety not the spice of life? (Sorry for the overused cliche but I think it's apt here.) I didn't want to read yet another review about how The English Patient is 'one of the few truly great post-war novels', 'the best piece of fiction in English I've read in years' with 'prose both vigorous and marvellously serene' (though I agree with these comments). So thank you for a refreshingly different point of view - I enjoyed reading it.

Thank you, Emma. I think hearing vitriol aimed at a beloved book or film hurts people deeply, because it's like a close friend or family member being ridiculed. I get it.

Still, my review is personal ("I hate it," not "everyone should hate it"), so I'm glad you didn't take it as an attack! You're right that it's just not my taste. When it comes to prose, I prefer writing that is simple, clean, and elegant, so prose-poetry is not my thing.

So, for instance, when it comes to Canadian authors, Robertson Davies is more my taste than Michael Ondaatje. Speaking of Davies, here's a quote from him that I think is germane to this discussion:

The great book for you is the book that has the most to say to you at the moment when you are reading. I do not mean the book that is most instructive, but the book that feeds your spirit. And that depends on your age, your experience, your psychological and spiritual need.

I have one question for you, though, Emma. What does the quote "one of the few truly great post-war novels" mean, exactly? This book was published in 1992, so which war was the writer referring to?

I wanted to hate you. I just read one of the most beautiful books I've ever consumed, and then I see your ignoramus philistine ads...kidding. Seriously though, I wanted to hate you. However, you are quite.brilliant, and funny. after reading this thread I actually liked you. You are just someone with different tastes on this novel, and that is okay. Thanks for your honest opinion, and your courage and intelligence to share it and defend it.

Thanks, Glenn. I am really not so bad once you get to know me. :-)

AHAHAH after feeling completely baffled, in-love, amused, on the fast track to somewhere else and something else with this book, your "fucking annoying" did the trick for me. I don't think your review is really very good but i still think your review is amazing. Thanks *

I like how upfront your points are, but this is a terrible review.

"People in the 1940s absolutely did not speak the way Ondaatje has them speaking."

The truth 'value' in this novel is way off, and the accuracy of its events, characters etc. is questionable, but that was never the point. It's a work of FICTION, Ondaatje's focus was primarily on the human condition.

Your critique of lack-of-substance is also absurd - there is a lot going on here, but it needs some working through (particularly the blurring of binaries and emphasis on hybridity).

Sure, these themes might not have appealed to you, but that doesn't equal a terrible work of literature. It's amazed me that this is the highest polling review.

Today I learned that 欧宝娱乐 arguments are unashamedly biased and thoroughly entertaining!

I haven't read the book yet, but this review made me lol.

Here is another e-mail ping for you, even three years after you wrote your review! OK, so I don't necessarily agree with your review but I stand by your right to write it. (Or you can do what I do if I write a negative review-- put on a disclaimer that it is MY review and negative or snarky comments will be deleted). I read this book a long time ago and it was HARD work, but, after I finished, I was glad that I put in the effort and the book has worth it. But it wasn't a lot of fun to read. Sometimes (most times?) if you are reading by choice, you don't want to have to work at it. Off topic, but my pet peeve is bad writing masquerading as literature and there are a lot of those writers out there right now.

Just commenting so you know there's another person out there on your side with this one. I found this novel rather pointless.
I'm keen to check out your other reviews and books you've read.

Glad I'm not alone in my hatred of the pretentious dreck that passes for "The English Patient". Godawful!

Totally agree!

I couldn't even finish it. And I neurotically finish books. I've started giving myself permission not to finish because there's so many other books out there. I found this so uninspiring I started watching TV. That's how bad it was. I made it to page 160. I'd read coming through slaughter. Not my favorite but I got it. A little. There's so much blankness in this book. I don't get it.

I have started this book twice but haven't got past the first 10 pages...am on my third try now n some how plodded my way to 20 pages...

Great review! this was a tedious, awful read. sorry that people can't handle your opinion which doesn't have any relevance to them at all anyway. i find myself disagreeing with the Booker judges more and more.

Wow! I've been trudging along, feeling guilty for not completing this extremely heavy piece of prose! Loved your post on "the book that feeds your spirit..."!

Wow! I've been trudging along, feeling guilty for not completing this extremely heavy piece of prose! Loved your post on "the book that feeds your spirit..."!

I was forcing myself to read this 'extraordinary' novel for days, but today I decided not to read it as one should listen to his heart.At first I thought I am not getting it because I am a beginner, but later I understood that this novel misses something which makes you stick to the book.It never happened with me while reading another novels.

Despite the fact that I loved this book, this review is by and far my favourite. Gossamer skein! Lol.

Adam, I am a highly educated individual who majored in English in college and have read and enjoyed everything from Chaucer to Danielle Steel. Okay, so Chaucer not so much. The English Patient is very nearly unreadable, but I powered through just because I thought I was supposed to love it and my book club picked it. God help us. What a terrible book and all those utterly obnoxious comments.

They seem to forget that Baskin Robbins used to have 39 flavored for a reason.

But I did like the movie. A lot.

To me this is poetry in prose. I read almost half of it then gave up. Too heavy and intense. At certain times, I felt the transit was too fragmented and fleeting.
Probably, I am not used to such books.

Would recommend readers to watch the movie too. It has some breathtakingly beautiful scenes of Cairo and Florence.

This is honestly one of my favorite book of all time, so I'm not sure I understand where you are coming from, but for all intent and purposes I will not defy your intelligence or education and put this down just as a major difference in tastebuds ... But reading the people's comments to your post and your responses to them, OMG people why all the hatred?

Adam, "jou doring" - Afrikaans phrase which is much more expressive than saying in English (you thorn (spine). It literally in English means excellent or authentic, and in saying that I mean excellent on the "anti" side! Your review was literally also a thorn in my side. It was the first one on goodreads, I imagine A for Adam and such a negative one at that, but your scathing skein of remarks gave rise to my most wonderful journey of discovery some years ago through the movie and novel. I hardly ever watch a movie before I read the book, but, in this instance I did. Both movie and novel is like Ernest Hemingway said of Paris "A Moveable Feast" The visually beguiling movie with the magical screenplay by the late Anthony Minghella was food for my soul. After watching the movie I embarked on a search on google about Ralph Bagnold - the man who figured out how deserts work - and came upon Michael Welland's geo-blog, "Through The Sandglass" based on sand, and so The English Patient and Through The Sandglass the two Michaels worlds collided with mine! There, besides reading about Mr Bagnold I discovered a lesser known artist Jules Laurens beautiful 1869 painting "Le Sentier des sables a Fontainebleau" - The sand path at Fountainebleau and also pics of incredible sand art. Michael's diverse blog enchanted me and when I saw he was an author too I promptly left a comment on his blog and afterward ordered his book "Sand The Never-Ending Story" which is a paean to the wonders and mysteries of sand. When I took possession of said book I was so inspired I got out my calligraphy set and drew a rather pot-bellied swimmer on the inside. The English Patient book - with many of my pencil notes on passages that remind me of other places, people or books, I devoured the lyricism and the poetic prose page after page. The elements of water, wind, (my city is known as "the windy city") fire, (my horoscope sign is Aries) and the desert (we have The Namib) is woven with such finesse through the characters and the desert. I enjoyed the love affair in the story, simply because it was so beautifully written. So many lines of dialogue I loved and perved over like a love-sick teenager. I read all about Almasy (my favourite character) who I was delighted to learn actually existed. Also fascinated with the part the desert played in WWII. The Cave of Swimmers made me dive into reading and learning more about our Bushman paintings. I also read up about Herodotus (the Greek historian) and quite a few articles on different winds and the gods and myths through the ages. Of course I also learned all I could about Michael Ondaatje. The English Patient definitely enlarged my knowledge scape. I have since read Anil's Ghost and The Cat's Table, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Adam. You're making up for a shocking lack of intellectual abilities with some unimaginative language. If I need advice on Potty Words I know who to ask. I won't ask you for anything else or any advice requiring a Grade Two IQ or above. What a loser!

Andrew, here's a quote for you:

鈥淭he sort of twee person who thinks swearing is in any way a sign of a lack of education or a lack of verbal interest is just a fucking lunatic." - Stephen Fry

I just gave it 5 stars again having read it for the second time. I love Russian authors and the classics so perhaps that is the Rubicon between those soared with the poetry and beauty of The English Patient and those who comparatively against contemporary novels found it a sludge and trudge. Probably Adam, you and your supporters love some novels which our kind find anathema to our reading enjoyment. Yours was a good review, but I cannot side with others who virtually questioned his ability to write!

Are you doing drugs, or having therapy?

Could you plz explain this quote " her tongue instead of a swab , her tooth instead of a needle, her mouth instead of the mask with the codeine drops to make him sleep " from the novel English patient

Our professor want us to preparing about it

Does that mean about what she feels about kip