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Good morning, today we are going to begin with the Michael Ondaatje celebrated novel
The English patient which won the booker prize for the best novel in 1992, and the film was
adopted for an academy award winning movie also. I am sure most of you are familiar with
this historian and son a Julliard Binoche - the nosh - and a William Defford directed
by an Thrimangla. So, the movies set during the second world
war, and the exact location is a place called villa san giralomo in Tuscany Italy, I will
read the epilogue; epilogue is the way writers begin generally their works and just to set
that tone of the work, and we are told that this excerpt is taken from the minutes of
the geographical society meeting of 19, sorry, November 1947 London.
So, it begins like this, most of you I am sure remember the tragic circumstances of
the death of Geoffrey Clifton at Gilf Kebir followed later by the disappearance of his
wife Katharine Clifton which took place during the 1939, desert expedition in search of Zarzura.
I cannot begin this meeting tonight without referring very sympathetically to those tragic
occurrences the lecture, this evening ellipsis. Now, what does it tell you, the very epilog
tells us that we are going to encounter two characters Katharine and Geoffrey Clifton;
Geoffrey died during desert expedition, so we now know that this is a novel which is
primarily set in the deserts particularly of North Africa, and in search of Zarzura
perhaps, this is a name of a particular desert, and Geoffrey Clifton who is an expert cartographer
or geologist. He along with his wife perished tragically in 1947 November yes, sorry, not
in exactly 1947, but during the war, during the expedition, in 1939.
So, this a tragic of affair that is recalled and remembered. So the English patient has
got lots to do with the idea of memory, and we had finished the remains of the day which
is another novel about, if you remember, a mister Steven's who recalls most of his life
said during the years between the first and the second world war.
So, that is the novel of memory, and so is the English patient, so remembering two dead
people who just disappeared in one of the desert expeditions in 1939. So, this epilogue
sets the tone of the novel, it is a novel of loss, it is a novel of death, it is also
a novel about people who live in exile in faraway lands, not in their own lands because
the very construct of identities and nationalities is interrogated in the English patient.
So, these are the key words that you will be looking at memory, death, loss, identities.
English patient is the most famous work of Michael Ondaatje that these and it is extremely
lyrical in style, the novels principle themes are continuation of themes that appeared in
two of on that these earlier works, and we will be talking about those earlier works
soon. The character’s in English patient Count Almasy, and Count Almasy is the English
patient, I am giving away the suspense right at beginning at the introduction of the novel,
Count Almasy is the English patient, who is not an English, where he is a Hungarian, so
as we were talking about just now the very construct of identities is challenged.
The English patient is not exactly English that is the idea, then we have French Canadian
nerds, hanaa, we have a spy - a Canadian spy - Caravaggio and he is also an interesting
character, we have an Indian Sikh called Kripal Singh, but who has abbreviated his name to
kip. And we have of course, Katharine Clifton and Geoffrey Clifton, husband and a wife who
died in 1939, and they mention at the very beginning in the epilog, and another very
important character is vilas san giromo, where the novel, where the action takes place, so
now that villa is also an extremely important character.
Michael Ondaatje who was born in 1943 wrote another important works up earlier to the
English patient, one is the Dainty monsters in 1967 and the collected works of Billy the
kid left handed poems it was written in 1970, so 1967 Dainty monsters and the collected
works of Billy the kid 1970, so like these two works the English patient also explores
the themes of love, memory, exile, death, the conflicted sense of national identity,
the political and moral dangerous of complicity with ruling a lead, something that we found
in the remains of the day also, in away the understated manner.
The English patient is also concerned with the fairy intensity of love along with the
postmodernist sense of history as a function of perspective, the tension between creative
and destructive energy and most importantly many manifestations of the so called outsider.
So, as we were talking about at in the beginning English patient is also a novel about identities
who is an outsider, who is the other, and who is the insider, and who belongs.
So, very construct of identities is extremely fluid, who is what, we do not know, so that
is also that is perceptible in the way the novelist structured a construct, because there
are several gaps, and gaps is then important aspect of the many pleasures of reading the
English patient. So, we have to understand what are these literary gaps and how do they
accentuate the literary pleasure of reading English patient, we will be talking about
that soon. Stylistic convention, now stylistic convention
that emerge in the English patient appeared first in on these poetry, remember, Ondaatje
is also renowned poet, and client poet, besides being in award winning novelist, so the stylistic
conventions that I most obvious. One is fragmentation the novelist fragmented, its broken, but that
adds to its pleasure, it also has the kind of action that we found in Ishiguro’s the
remains of the day, that the action is non-linear, it move back and forth in time because, after
all it is a novel of about memory. We have several interruptions and inclusions
in the story and subversion of absolutely any kind of linear narration, we do not know
how the characters go back while they are in conversation at one point at the particular
time, and at the particular place and suddenly with one swish of memory they have transported
to a totally different place and time. So, completes of *** of the linear way of a
story telling or narration, shifting narrative points of view is also an important aspect
of the English patient. We have also seen how point of view is an
integral part of any narrative, in the remains of the day we noticed how the entire story
unfolds through the perspective or through the point of view of mister Stevens, the butler,
but here we find that there are several points of views, we have curvaceous point of view,
we of course, we have the English patients point of view, who is the hero of the novel,
the so called hero of the novel, we have Hana’s point of view, and we have Kripal’s perspective
also - kips perspective on things. So, there is multiple perspectives, and each
perspective adds to specific dimension, bending of the jauner is another recurring stylistic
convention, in other works of Michael Ondaatje, and one thing is that you never know how to
read the book. I will give you the titles of the chapters, and it tells you, it may
give you an glimpse about the various kind of, the titles itself - themselves - give
you an over view of how difficult it is to define the jaunt of the English patient.
Jaunt is the category of course, we all know that jaunt is the category, we have several
kinds of jaunts in literature, we have romantic Joyner of novel writing, we have an adventures
novel, we have a detective or spy novel where the hero is a spy, we also have love stories,
we have a family novels, we have adventures novels, but it is very difficult to pigeon
hole in the English patient in any particular category, so that contents of the chapters
go like the villa - that we were just talking about villa san giromo.
In near ruins, so this is in near ruins itself is the very deceptive title, what exactly
is in near ruins, is it the villa, is it the life of a new particular character, or maybe
you know the world falling apart, because remember this is a world, this is a story
which took place during the second world war. So, world an entire way of life civilization
going a center, some time a fire, what exactly south Cairo 1930 to 1938. So, perhaps that
period is extremely important 1930 to 1938, but remember 1939 is the time and Geoffrey
Clifton died along with his wife. So, whatever happened between 1930 to 1938
must have been extremely important, Katharine and an entire chapter devoted to Katharine,
you know the title I am is she must be so important to some of the characters that we
have a full lengths chapter dedicated to her, it is her name that figures. And talking about
names form an integral part of the English patient as we saw, just even the title itself
is so intriguing, the English patient. So, a nameless entity what is he called, and names
are an important aspect of the English patient, I will read out a couple of paragraphs, and
that will perhaps substantiate, what I am saying.
A Beirut plan insutive, the holy forest, the cave swimmers august, now just a mere glimpse
at the titles of the chapters tell you that it is very difficult identify the Janour of
the English patient and that is what we were talking about, lets also talk about the idea
of names, you know because names are a vital aspect of our identities, all of us get recognized
by our names. We are known by our names qualifies us, but
here the construct of names are extremely, you know, what Ondaatje does is, deal with
the romance of names, deal with the glamour of names, and you find names all over the
novels, if the entire novel is full of names of people of books of even winds, and desserts,
and places, and every name has something significant, every name has something significant aspect
to it. So, this is how the novel begins very intriguingly,
she has stands up in the garden where she has been working and looks into the distance,
she has sensed a shift in the weather, there is another guest of wind, a buckle of noise
in the air and the tall suppresses way, she turns and moves appeal towards the house climbing
over a low wall, feeling the first drops of rain on her bare arms, she crosses the lousier
and quickly enters the house, in the kitchen she does not pause, but goes through it and
climbs the upstairs which are in darkness and then continues along the long haul, at
the end of which is a wage of light from an open door, she turns into the room which is
another garden, this one made up of trees and bowers painted over its walls and sealing.
The man lies on the bed his body exposed to the breeze, and he turns his at slowly towards
her as she enters. Now, so much of detailing, how she walks,
how the women walks, how she goes across the length and breadth of the place, but we are
not told who she is and what is her, more importantly what exactly is her name, and
he lies on the bed but we do not know who he is.
His body is exposed to the breeze and he looks at her he watches her, so, so much of pronouns
but no absolute, it is Dane rather for names, but names are very important. What about Michael
Ondaatje? Michael Ondaatje was born in Srilanka in 1943, his parents Marvin Ondaatje and duress
were prominent members of the inhabitance of what ones comprised the Ceylonese colonial
society. Marvin Ondaatje was a tea and rubber plantation,
engineer, supervisor, and Doris Ondaatje’s mother perform part time as a radical dancer.
So, you know a very interesting mix of parent’s, father is a supervisor for the tea and rubber
plantation, mother is kind of a performing artist. His parents separated in 1954, and
he along with his mother brother and sister migrated first to England and later move to
Canada, so Michael Ondaatje is basically known today as a Canadian writer.
So, Canadian post colonialism is something that we have to look at while doing being
English patient; Ondaatje received his a bachelor of arts degree from the university of Toronto
in 1965, and his masters degree from the quince university 1967, and then he also taught for
a number of years at various universities in Canada. So, the English patient is the
continuation of an earlier Ondaatje novel, in the skin of a lion, which was published
in 1987 which first introduces as to the character of dived Caravaggio, who is the masteries
spy in the English patient. So, a sense of continuity, a sense of continuity of characters
form from one novel to another, it is a very postmodernist aspect also, if you remember
in one of earlier lecture and postmodernism, we talked about how characters from one a
novel appear or emerge in another novel of the writer is the very postmodernist technique,
adds a sense of inter-textuality, and a sense of you know continuation.
So, Michael Ondaatje started his carrier with writing poetry's or poems, and his first poem
as your just talking about was Dainty monsters, also notice how he just opposes to very opposing
images in his very first literary work. Dainty monsters and a result explodes some very seemingly
in congress elements an ideas, at rate that is common to most of his works. He has also
written a serial poem, at the man with seven toes in 1969 and this was inspire by paintings
by an Australian artist which was about a true story of a women living among the aborigines
after a ship track. So, this interest in historical narratives
- fragmented narratives - and visual arts also has become a signature styled in most
of in Ondaatje writing. Both the collection of poems, the collected works of believe the
skin and his first novel coming through slotted 1976, they were inspire by films for photographs,
historical fragments, as well as oral legends, many of which are included in the final publish
works, in the skin of a lion in which we saw that the character of David Caravaggio appears
and also his first novel, it takes place in Toronto within the Macedonian emigrant community.
So, look at the common idea then themes that interconnect most of his works, the idea of
exile, immigration this blaring of boundaries and identities, perhaps a reflection on his
own life, on his own identity. Michael Ondaatje realize heavily on historical
documentation for inspiration viewing it into a kind of fictional story. Two characters
from the novel turn up again, you know, that from the skin of the lion they turn up again
in the English patient, so which is another history based on historical archives, after
all its a novel which was set during the second world war, and during the course of his historical
research Ondaatje also relied heavily on true incidence of course, it is a fictional narrative,
but he interweaves fiction with a historical facts.
In 1982 he published his fictional kind of a biography of his childhood in ceylon, it
was called Running in the family, and he uses plenty of oral history of his family to try
and reconstruct his families past. Then, after the English patient on the next major work
was Anil's ghost which was published in the year 2000, set emits the civil war and Srilanka
during the late 1980’s and the early 1990’s. So, according to Ondaatje, the conflict in
the island has three sides, the government side, the anti-government insurgents, and
the separatist, the gorillas, and the story a focuses on the character of its *** very
mysteriously called Anil. Anil usually is a boy’s name - a man’s
name, in 2007 on that they published Divisedaro a novel which maps the lives of three characters
through their journey’s across California of the 1970’s, Sanfrancisco of the 1990’s,
and the present day France. So, again noted the preoccupation with traveling across space
and time the shear blaring of boundaries, the idea of travel journey and emigration.
A Divisedaro is influenced by the literacy's styles of Joseph Conrad and Kawabata the Japanese
writer; Ondaatje has also done short movies plays and photography.
So, again to just do a quick recap, most of his themes a deal with constricts of identity,
among the post colonial feminist and Greece theories of the 1980’s and 1990’s. There
is an increasing concern with the relation between literature and the larger socio political
contexts within which it develops. We familiar with theories like adverside who wrote the
seminal work Orientalism, and also the works of Gayatri Chakravarthy's Pibeth and Holy
baba. So, these theories postulate that English
culture exist not simply as a representation of elegance and higher culture, but also as
a reflection of massive enterprise of hegemonic influence and self validation of the colonizing
elates, and this is something that was also refer to not exactly the post colonial work,
but if you look at the kind of dominance that the ruling class, or the kind of control that
the ruling class at the elate people exert over the so called smaller people, then this
idea was explode in great depth and detail in the remains of the day as well.
As we were talking about it, when we were reading the novel that the remains of the
day need not be a novel about races per, say, but it is all about how human beings control
one another, how they exerts certain kind of authority and power over those who are
powerless, thus a rendering them completely you know almost impotent, the English patient
also is very, you know, when we read the English patient we cannot ignore the post colonial
theory, and post colonial theory of course, is concerned with examining the mechanisms
and processes through which the colonizing powers persuaded the colonized to accept a
foreign culture as something which is better than their own native way of living.
Suppose, colonial theories focus on the discourses and articulation of voices of those who were
formally colonized, here we come across a very popular term the binaries; the term binary
which means the exact opposite of a particular term, for example, black and white, good and
evil, sewage and civilize. So, Edward sign in oriental’s describes at length that the
west’s construction of the orient the so called east, it projects all the things that
the west considers negative, so this means that all the things and there you know when
we talk about a slash the binaries, so on the right hand side of the slash, an exist
in a binary opposition to whatever exits in the orient.
So, the orient becomes the place where body as oppose to the mind exist evil and not good,
ignorance as oppose to enlightenment, and feminine as oppose to the masculine they reside.
So, by just apposing all these negatives on the orient side according to other side, the
west positions its self has infinitely better or superior and positive, so one of the major
concerns of the English patient is also exploration of these so called binaries. Colonial literature
of course, is heavily influence by the post colonial theory, so if some of you who are
interested in that particular idea can look it up. In Canadian literature as its true
of the most literature form of colonies, the idea of the nation, you know what constitutes
a nation exerts a powerful influence in the context of, particularly, in the context of
globalization, the problematic histories and political functions of literary nationalism
assume new meaning, and urgency. So, Canadian literature remains a vital site where we can
locate discussions of complex socio political relations.
One of the major aspects of, you know, we were just talking about the idea of post colonialism,
and then the romance of names in the English patient, and also the very interestingly,
it deals with the idea of body. So, various bodies are described at length, in cultural
studies will look at the construct of bodies, what do bodies mean to ourselves and to at
the people, how do people perceive bodies. And here as I was just reading it to you,
the man lies on the bed his body expose to the breeze, and he turns his head slowly towards
her as she enters, every four days she washes his black body beginning at the destroyed
feet, she wets a wash cloth and holding it above his ankles is squeezes the water on
to him looking up as he mama seeing his smile, above the shins the burns are worst beyond
public boon. She has nursed him for months and she knows the body well, hip bones of
cries, she thinks he is her despairing saint, he lies flat on his back no pillow, looking
up at the folia is painter on to the sealing is canopy of branches and above that blue
sky, so look how tenderly the body of a burnt man is described.
So, we have the women, the setting is villas san giromo Tuscany Italy, we have a women
looking after a burnt man, the severely burnt man who is so destroyed - so damaged - that
he cannot even move, for his basic necessities also he needs the help of this women. So,
who is this woman, we are not told their names so far, this woman is Hana, a French Canadian
nurse, who cares for a single patient, so she is nurse by profession, and she is attending
to the needs of severely burnt patient which we have just seen. And neither he is, so badly
burnt that one cannot recognize his face, or his identity or his nationality, he is
absolutely, but so it could also be a metaphor, for you know doing away with the constraints
of all physical boundaries, because after all the English patient is also about exploration
about cartography, about maps and territories, and also about national and personal identities.
So, by making the hero totally burnt character, so badly burnt that one cannot even ascertain
his nationality; Michael Ondaatje's perhaps driving home a particular points. Most people
believe in the villa that this man this burnt man is an English man.
However, his not English at all his real name is count Laszlo de Almasy, he is a Hungarian
a member of the royal geographical society which is the group of cartographer, so create
maps of the north Africa dessert, especially, shortly before the outbreak of the second
world war. So, count Almasy is not an English man, he
is a Hungarain cartographer, but he has managed to a blur or concealed his identity, so well
that no one can make out that his not an English man. So, Hana the women that we just looked
at, she is a nurse, and she has seen worst human destruction, she also had, you know,
a string of her own personal problems, that we will be looking at, but at the movement
we find here dealing with patients and she has seen severely damaged bodies, people who
would die within an hour of getting admitted in the hospital, she has tended to them, she
has witnessed as a nurse during combat, the specific war related deaths of several of
her own near and dear people. She is just 20 years old, and she remember
soldiers coming to her in bits and pieces, that is Ondaatje’s sentence - on Ondaatje’s
line - falling in love with her just for an hour also before dying, she is a lovable person,
she is kind and generous. She is extremely maternal just 20, but she embodies everything
which is maternal, compassionate and kind, and people fall in love with her including
the English patient, so severely damaged is Hana because of her personal tragedies that
it takes a while for her to recognize love when it comes.
So, coming to Hana, as the war near sits end, Hana welcomes the solace that she finds in
taking care of a single patient, that is our single patient in the of villa's san Giramo.
So, it is here that the English patient who comes to trust Hana starts confiding in her
and slowly unravels his personal history or personal story which he had never ever told
anyone before. So, we are to remember that English patient is a burnt man is also under
the influence of heavy doses of morphine which Hana administers to him periodically to alley
his pain. So, his narration is a non-linear, intermittent and full of gaps, so these fragmented
narratives, these fragmented stories make up for the story of English patient.
The entire narrative covers almost 7 years as we have just seen 1930-1938, and it is
constructed and reconstructed from the ever shifting multiple points of view. So, what
do we see here, we find discussions of nationalities and identities which are interconnected in
the English patient, functioning together to create a web of structures that tie the
characters to certain places and time, despite their best efforts to evades such constrains,
for example, count Almasy, all his life he had been desperately trying to elude the hoses
of nationality. So, much that he prefers to live in a dessert, live a life as scholar,
a cartographer, and almost blurring his identity no one could ever make out that he is not
an English man and this is something that he has chosen to do.
This is how he forges his identity through his works and through his interactions with
other people. So, this is not an identity which he has inherited, he has chosen this
identity, and the environment in the novel, the descriptions are such in the novel, that
they add to the idea, they lend credence to the idea that a national identities can indeed
be erased. So, in a way this is an argument, the entire
novel is an argument for erasing these manmade boundaries, I will take you to page 116, sorry,
page 16 where what happens to names, and as well as what happens to identities, how fragile
they are and how they can be consumed at any moment, this ideas given very beautifully
on page 16. He describes the wings, he is an explorer,
his specialties cartography of desserts and here we find him describing the dessert winds.
So, look at the names, and look at also the preoccupation with the identities that come
along with the needs, there is a world wind in Southern morocco - the adjudge against
which the fellahin defend themselves with knifes, there is the Africo which has at times
reached into the city of Rome. So, there is this dessert wind which comes from somewhere
in Africa and which can reach Rome, so you see this dessert - this wind which comes from
Africa which has an Arabic name and it reaches Rome.
So, what makes for an identity how do you define boundaries that are the question? The
alpe the all wind out of Yugoslavia the arific also which is scorches with numerous tongues;
these are permanent winds that live in the present tense. So, these are those winds that
are still going on, and these names still survive, there are others less constant winds
that change direction, that can knock down horse and a rider, and realign themselves
in anticlockwise, the best rose leaves into Afghanistan for 170 days bearing villages.
So, you see national identities can be erased such is the force and power of these winds
arising from the desserts of Africa, they reach Afghanistan, they reach Rome, and in
Afghanistan they can be villagers and what happens to the identities of those villages
and the people. There is the hot dry gublee from Tunis, which roles and roles and produces
and nervous condition the hubbub, a Sweden dust storm the dresses and bright yellow walls
a 1000 meters high and it followed by rain. The hermartine which blows an eventually drowns
itself into the Atlantic in, but a sea breeze in north Africa, some words that just side
towards the sky, night dust storms that come with the pool, the come scene dust in Egypt
from march to may named after the Arabic word for 50.
Blooming for 50 days the ninth plague of Egypt that to out of gibrato which carries fragrance,
there is also and there is a big blank, there is no name, so we do not know the identity
of this wind, and it is these secret of wind of the dessert whose name was erased by a
king after his son died within it. So, name has been erased but you cannot erase the wind,
you see the wind may not bare a name, it has been detector, a king, a ruler has the power
to erase that erase names, but you to erase the so called surface identities, but you
cannot erase the inherent force of nature. Although it exist namelessly, and a blast
out of Arabia the measure violent and cold south westerly known as bur bus, as that which
plucks the poufs, the Bishaba a black and dry north easterly out of the caucuses, black
wind the simian from turkey poison and wind used often in battle as well as the other
poison winds the Simon of north Africa and the Solano with whose dust plucks of rare
petals causing greenness other private winds travelling along the ground like a flood,
blasting of pain throwing down telephone poles transporting stones and statue heads the Hampton
blows across the Sahara fill with red dust despair entering and coagulating in the locks
of riffles. Malines call this red wind the sea of darkness, red sand fogs out of the
Sahara were deposited as north as day when producing showers of mud.
So, great this was also mistaken for blood; blood rains were widely reported in Spain
in 19 no one, there are also always million of tones of dust in the air just as there
are millions of cubes of air in the earth and more living flesh in the soil, warm, beetles
underground creatures, than there is gracing and existing on it, heredities recalls the
death of various armies and gulfed in the Simon who were never seen again.
One nation was, so enriched by this evil wind that they declared war on it and marched out
in a full battle at array only to the rapidly and completely entered, does it storms in
three shapes the whirl, the column, the sheet. In the first the horizon is lost, in the second
you are surrounded by voicing gins, the third the sheet is copper tinted, the nature seems
to be on fire. So, various faces of the nature; nature not
just the calm, the pleasant one, but also it violent and destructive aspect, everything
exists and coexists with names and sometimes it may not have names, but still it has the
power, it has the force. Environment is also such that it can engulf identities and erase
nation and engulf it is people, so then what constitutes identities - the question remains.
The importance of the villa san gioroma so important because that the place also functions
as a sight where national identities are unimportant as people connect to each other.
For example, kip, the Sikh from India who has been participating in the war, he so becomes
emerged in the idea of western society, that for a long time he becomes oblivious to his
own identity; count Almasy as we have already seen he has no sense of identity or national
identity as well, and then of course, we have Hana who considers herself a global citizen
rather than a French Canadian person. So, these ideas recur, they sort of form a lake
motive in the structure of the English patient. So, while we were talking about the acoustics
of body, you know, you have erase the damage body of count Almasy which has erased all
signs and symbols of any identity, we have kip who bares his you know these his religious
identity quite well, you know, he is a Sikh, so all the hallmarks and all the defined features
are there but he is still, he considers himself more of a westerner than a person from anywhere
else. So, his dark and lath body also becomes a
subject of discussion, especially for Hana and then we have the Vilyui body of Katherine.
So, her body that too is a sight for which is extremely significant and monumental, so
these are the ideas that we will be or these are themes that we will be looking at in greater
detail and greater depth, and we continue with our discussion of the English patient
in the next class; thank you very much.