The English Patient (2)

Crossing and Setting Boundaries: Personal and National Boundaries

Outline

Plot Summary Chaps 3 – 7

The Novel on the “Margins” of Official History

Starting Questions

Boundaries and Spaces: Broken or Crossed

People on the Margins: International Bastards

Katherine+Almasy (Love and Walls) vs. Hana and Kip (Intimacy and Distance)

Historical Reconstruction of Different Kinds

Plot Summary

(chap 2 –ends with Kip’s arrival)Chap 3 –Sometime a Fire

Kip’s ways of surviving the war (sleeping with a statue) Hana communicating with Caravaggio (remembering Patrick) and Kip (e.g. two bomb episodes bring them closer to each other); Hana reading to EP; EP remembers seeing Hana for the first time; the four of them connected one way or another.

Plot Summary

Chap 4 – South Cairo 1930-1938 EP’s reminiscence of the desert expedition; Clifton and his wife join them in 1936; falling in love (voice dance “If I gave you my life, you would drop it.”);

Chap 5 – Katherine nightmare; their relationship (calmness violence)

her first ride with him; (hates his assumption)

what each of them hates; Almasy's wounds and being disassembled - wall pp. 155-56

Plot SummaryChap 6: the Buried Plane

EP’s story continued –Cairo evenings ask Madox about the hollow at the base of the neck 1937; Caravaggio's intrusion p. 163 –on Almasy EP tells his story to C

• 1942 walks to the well (Clifton’s plane and the buried plane) and then the cave;

• Hana’s question “He thinks you are not Enlgish”; • Story resumed “he” walks into the cave “I” carry her with a tank

of petrol; • 1939 the war began; Madox and everyone else left; Clifton’s suicid

e-murder 171; 172 • The cave 1939 the separation The cave 1939 1942 buried p

lane “he”• (walks to El Taj, gets arrested returns to the cave in 1942 )

EP and Kip sharing condensed milk

Plot Summary –for Next WeekChap VII: In Situ (meaning: in the natural or original position or place 1940) -- Kip’s story of being trained as a sapper; Kip vs. his brother; Erith, where Lord Suffolk die;Chap VIII: The Holy Forest: C Kip; Kip’s experience of defusing bombs; (Next Week) Kip and Hana (217 - ). Chap IX: The Cave of Swimmers -- EP’s story of love re-told to Caravaggio (with two endings/interpretations of the ending) Chap X: August (nuclear bombing) --the endings Kip’s sudden departure, Hana’s homecoming.

War World II

& its Margins

The Roles of the Explorers Scramble for Africa 1880’s - 1913

Two early explorers: David Livingstone (medical missionary), Henry Morton Stanley (a journalist)

(source)

Libyan Desert expedition 1930s – 1939

The lost oasis of Zerzura found by Ladislaus de Almasy (134) (image Totosy)

Almasy –rumors about his cooperation with Nazi.

Caravaggio thinks Almasy is a spy who worked for the Germans and helped another spy, Eppler, cross a part of the desert that "it was assumed, no one could cross."

Wadi Sora,the real "Cave of Swimmers"

Almásy at Wadi Sora in 1933 (source)

North Africa and WWII North Africa -- one main theatre of war in Africa. 1940 -- British begin a western desert offensive in North Africa against the Italians. (source) Feb 12, 1941 - German General Erwin Rommel ( 沙漠之狐 ) arrives in Tripoli, North Africa.

“…[t]he allies came very close to defeat at the hands of the Germans. But by 1943 Germany's Afrika Corps had surrendered. In the same year African troops joined with American and British troops to invade Italy.” (source)

1939 – Almasy back to the cave in 1942

Africa after the War: Independence and wars

1. Pre-modern armies with modern weapons 2. The Consequences of Colonial Boundaries in Afr

ica“Since independence about a third of them [54 African nations] have experienced large scale political violence or war. This does not include those countries which had relatively bloodless military coups or occasional assassinations. What this book does argue is that the ultimate fault lines of Africa’s conflicts are indeed its colonial boundaries.” Today: in Darfur ( 達佛 ), Sudan

Italy as a battleground in WWIIbetween Germany and the Allies

1940 -- Part of the Axis Power (Germany, Italy, and Japan) June 1943 -- Invasion of Sicily, a stepping stone to taking over Italy.

Sept 1943 – Italy surrendered; Oct 1, 1943 - Allies entered Naples, Italy; the Germans staged a fighting withdrawal and settled into a strong defensive position at the Gustav Line . 1944 –Allies bombed the monastery at Monte Cassino; German counter-attacked at Anzio.(April 30 – Hitler commit suicide) May 2, 1945 - German troops in Italy surrender.

Hana arrives with the first Canadian infantry p. 49

Caravaggio in Rome goes to join Hana

Monte Cassino and Tuscany (Villa San Girolamo)

See here for more photos of a Monastery at Cassino!!!

Gustav

Starting Questions

1. Anything you find impressive or puzzling? 2. How are the two parts (before and after WWI

I) of the novel related to each other? 3. How do we describe Katherine and Almasy’s

relationship?

Boundaries & Spaces: National and Bodily Boundary-drawing and breaking by wars, humans

and by nature: Drawing/Tracing spatial/national boundaries; --

desert and mapping pp. 18-19; mapping bombs p. 102; the geographers dispersed as “teams” when the war breaks out 68

Bodily Fragmentation by the war – p. 83 soldiers with “bits of their bodies”; EP 48 burned beyond recognition; Caravaggio’s thumbs; Katherine—”acacia twigs, leaves” 175; Sappers – e.g. “Holy Trinity” 177-78

Boundaries & Spaces: Blurred in Human Existence and thru’ O’s Writing

Interchangeable spaces: p. 167 -- The Gilf Kebir on the rib of EP’s body Spatial Metaphor: Reading, Crossing Interpersonal Space and remembering as a journey (93, 113, 161); books as roads or rivers//body as landscape, veins as rivers. Textual boundaries of :

Histories – “cul-de-sacs [dead ends] within the sweep of history” (119) EP’s writing pp. 97, 172.

Kim – 111 reversal of Kim; 119 Hana’s writing. The Last of the Mohicans p. 61; p. 209

Views of History – multiple, fragmentary

E.g. Herodotus

History of the desert: naming, appearance and disappearance 141

Implied by Hana’s writing, and Ondaatje’s use of many histories and novels (intertext).

People on the Margins of History:

Before the war: Geographer: 138-39 nation-less; 134 &143 no human or financial interest Adultery not in records 145

During the war—Hana – a nurse whose self withdraws from the deaths around her, who watches the white lion. C: used as a spy because he is of Italian descentAlmasy: 163-65 (works for Germany or against); 167 slips between the enemy ; his name 251Kip: anonymous 196; 104 (sleeps under a statue; watches Isaih, Queen of Sheba, p. 70; Virgin Mary); 110 (expecting death)

After the war: EP: 95 – hard to identify(H: like a nomad, a migrant, 14; C: 59- isolated, shedding skins); looks for ‘truth’ in others 117 Beyond representation 112; The International Bastards (p. 176)

International Bastards: Sharing the past and healing wounds

English Patient –tell stories; write on Histories

Read Hana’s dead glances;

Hana – “read” stories; read Kip’s neutral look (178)

Writing them back to “History”-p. 61; p. 209; Kim 118-1

9

Party 112

Caravaggio“Why are you not smarter?”122-23

* Owes him a life; future encounter 209

Kip– Kim, David and

Goliath.

Katherine and Almasy: Love as Destruction

97 betrayals in life // in war; adultery not recorded (betrayals of Clifton and by him); cul-de-sac of Histories 119 Katherine and Almasy: (1) Attraction + Anger + Violence:

Katherine's reading and “studying“ Almasy: p. 144 Katherine’s love: (her dream) -- her attraction to Almasy=fear of possession 150; Her Anger pp. 150-51- wants to slap him, angry at his assumption violation of boundaries bruises

in contrast to Hana’s sense of Kip’s body --rest pp. 103, swim 125, admire his color, play 225

Obsessive Ownership, Mutual Consumption and Wall-Building

Almasy’s contradictory sense of ownership: denies ownership p. 152; cannot bear rejection 156 claims ownership: of the base of her neck; p. 162; of her shoulder 156 feels disassembled 155; wants only to be with her 155 beside himself with jokes and improper language 155

mutual devouring: blood-sucking p. 170

Differences & conflict of will: Katherine’s inner conflicts (sense of guilt) 154; Build walls 155 Separate while trying protect themselves with walls pp. 157-58, suspicion 172 “You don’t want me as anything else” 173

Communication between Hana & Kip

Her need of his support (103); His need of her shoulder (114-15)Intimacy and distance (125 – 27)Hana’s milk-pouring Story-telling & Game-playing:

Kip’s story about his experience with Lord Suffolk Kip about his brother p. 217 Hide-and-Seek in the dark 223-24; Story about his ayah Continents together (225-26)

Historical Reconstruction of Different Kinds:

Caravaggio’s Intrusion –purpose: obsession with the war; wanting to help Hana; tries to find out the facts; interested in Almasy. 251-52 “Let me tell you a story” p. 163; “What Hapend in 1944?” 167 –

EP to Hana: Trying to understand How does this happen? To fall in love and be disassembled? P. 158 “he” the first ending ”What is terrible in what I did” 170 “he” in conflict with her “We talked” in the cave we “slipped into the sky” he is on fire 175.

(Next Week): The Endings

pp. 217 – the end

1. Reconstructing the past

2. Homecoming

Reference Story of Africa http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/13chapter12.shtml

World War II in Europe http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/ww2time.htm

AFRICA’S BONDAGE OF BOUNDARIES: CAN THE SHACKLES BE LOOSENED? http://www.somalilandtimes.net/sl/2005/222/20.0.shtml Totosy de Zepetnek, Steven. . “ The English Patient : Truth is Stanger Than Fiction.” Essays in Canadian Writing 53 (Summer 1994). Libyan Desert images http://www.fjexpeditions.com/frameset/geography.htm