Sunday: The English Patient

Finished The English Patient, another Michael Ondaatje humdinger. As he did in Divisadero, he has stories in stories but this time comes back and finishes the one he starts with, at least with two of the four main characters. And that would be Kip, the Indian Sikh, and Hana, the nurse from Canada. They were the youngsters, each right around twenty. Then there were the old guys, the English Patient himself; and Caravaggio, a friend of Hana's father, a thief by inclination. Each of them in their forties. Unlikely setting - a monastery in Italy in 1945. Kip is the sapper, a demolition man, who is in the area defusing unexploded bombs. A couple of love stories here; a bunch of periphery characters who are interesting; a little history of the '30s and the research going on in the deserts of North Africa. All terribly interesting. One of the interesting items: the English Patient and one of his associates would carry but one book with them as they headed off into a desert on some kind of trek. The books: the English Patient had Herodotus; and Madox, his associate and fellow researcher, took with him Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

From amazon.com and the links above:

In The Histories, Herodotus chronicles the rise of the Persian Empire and its dramatic war with the Greek city-states. Within that story he includes rich veins of anthropology, ethnography, geology, and geography, pioneering these fields of study, and explores such universal themes as the nature of freedom, the role of religion, the human costs of war, and the dangers of absolute power.

Persian Empire - hmmm, that would be like Iran. Might have some insight for those dealing with problems in that area today. And

Married to a powerful government minister, Anna Karenina is a beautiful woman who falls deeply in love with a wealthy army officer, the elegant Count Vronsky. Desperate to find truth and meaning in her life, she rashly defies the conventions of Russian society and leaves her husband and son to live with her lover. Condemned and ostracized by her peers and prone to fits of jealousy that alienate Vronsky, Anna finds herself unable to escape an increasingly hopeless situation.

Have read Anna Karenina several times and can vouch for Madox's good taste. Herodotus received some of my time in college but not enough to remember. Might have to give Herodotus another try.

As for Michael Ondaatje. Two thumbs up on his story telling.