The English Patient 2

1
The English Patient (2)

• Crossing and Setting Boundaries Personal and
  National Boundaries

2
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
• KatherineAlmasy (Love and Walls) vs. Hana and
  Kip (Intimacy and Distance)
• Historical Reconstruction of Different Kinds

3
Plot Summary

• (chap 2 ends with Kips arrival)
• Chap 3 Sometime a Fire
• Kips 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.

4
Plot Summary

• Chap 4 South Cairo 1930-1938
• EPs 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

5
Plot Summary

• Chap 6 the Buried Plane
• EPs 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 (Cliftons plane and the
  buried plane) and then the cave
• Hanas 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
  Cliftons 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

6
Plot Summary for Next Week

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

7
War World II

• its Margins

8
The Roles of the Explorers Scramble for Africa
1880s - 1913

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

9
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."

10
Wadi Sora,the real "Cave of Swimmers"

• Almásy at Wadi Sora in 1933 (source)

11
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 (????
  ) arrives in Tripoli, North Africa.
• the 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
12
Africa after the War Independence and wars

• Pre-modern armies with modern weapons
• 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 Africas conflicts are indeed its
  colonial boundaries.
• ? Today in Darfur (??), Sudan

13
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
14
Monte Cassino and Tuscany (Villa San Girolamo)
Gustav
See here for more photos of a Monastery at
Cassino!!!
15
Starting Questions

• 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 Almasys
  relationship?

16
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
• Caravaggios thumbs Katherineacacia twigs,
  leaves 175
• Sappers e.g. Holy Trinity 177-78

17
Boundaries Spaces Blurred in Human Existence
and thru Os Writing

• Interchangeable spaces p. 167 -- The Gilf Kebir
  on the rib of EPs 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) EPs writing pp. 97, 172.
  
• Kim 111 reversal of Kim 119 Hanas writing.
• The Last of the Mohicans p. 61 p. 209

18
Views of History multiple, fragmentary

• E.g. Herodotus
• History of the desert naming, appearance and
  disappearance 141
• Implied by Hanas writing, and Ondaatjes use of
  many histories and novels (intertext).

19
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

• 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)

• 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)

20
International Bastards Sharing the past and
healing wounds
21
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
• Katherines love (her dream) -- her attraction
  to Almasyfear of possession 150
• Her Anger pp. 150-51- wants to slap him, angry at
  his assumption ? violation of boundaries ?
  bruises
• in contrast to Hanas sense of Kips
  body --rest pp. 103, swim 125, admire his color,
  play 225

22
Obsessive Ownership, Mutual Consumption and
Wall-Building

• Almasys 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
• Katherines inner conflicts (sense of guilt)
  154
• Build walls 155
• Separate while trying protect themselves with
  walls pp. 157-58, ? suspicion 172
• You dont want me as anything else 173

23
Communication between Hana Kip

• Her need of his support (103)
• His need of her shoulder (114-15)
• Intimacy and distance (125 27)
• Hanas milk-pouring
• Story-telling Game-playing
• Kips 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)

24
Historical Reconstruction of Different Kinds

• Caravaggios 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.

25
(Next Week) The Endings

• pp. 217 the end
• Reconstructing the past
• Homecoming

26
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
• AFRICAS 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