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 Summary
Chap 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
suicide-murder 171; 172
• The cave 1939  the separation The cave 1939 1942 buried
plane  “he”
• (walks to El Taj, gets arrested returns to the cave in 1942 )
EP and Kip sharing condensed milk
Plot Summary –for Next Week
Chap 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.
1939 – Almasy back to the cave in 1942
“…[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)
Africa after the War: Independence
and wars
1. Pre-modern armies with modern weapons
2. The Consequences of Colonial Boundaries in
Africa
“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 WWII
between 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.
Hana arrives with the first Canadian infantry p. 49
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.
Caravaggio in Rome goes to join Hana
Monte Cassino and Tuscany (Villa
San Girolamo)
Gustav
See here for more photos of a Monastery at Cassino!!!
Starting Questions
1.
2.
3.
Anything you find impressive or puzzling?
How are the two parts (before and after
WWII) of the novel related to each other?
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 nationless; 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 descent
Almasy: 163-65 (works for
Germany or against); 167 slips
between the enemy ; his name
251
Kip: 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
Hana – “read” stories;
stories; write on
Histories
Read Hana’s dead
glances;
read Kip’s neutral look (178)
Writing them back to
“History”-p. 61; p. 209; Kim
118-19
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