"The Villa" & "In Near Ruins"

Hello Readers!

First off, I would like to thank you for taking the time to explore my blog. This year, I'm reading The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje, and I'm very excited to share the story with you.

The novel is set in northern Italy in a villa that overlooks a small town just north of Florence. The novel takes place primarily toward the end of World War II, in 1945, but there are layered narratives of the past that permeate the text. 

The villa itself is a structure marked by war; destruction at the hands of both the Germans and the Allies has turned the villa into a decrepit husk of its former beauty. The villa was once a nunnery, but it became a German stronghold and was later turned into a hospital by the Allies during the war.

The novel revolves around the intersection of characters transformed by the war at the villa. Here is an overview of the characters we learn of in the first two chapters: "The Villa" and "In Near Ruins."

Hana

The Canadian nurse Hana occupies the villa alongside her fellow characters. She is twenty years old in the story, but frequent flashbacks to her childhood and young adulthood are included in the text. 

Hana was a nurse in the villa while it was being used by the Allies as a hospital for injured soldiers. When a horribly burned man, presumed to be English, arrives at the hospital, Hana becomes very attached to him. Her fellow nurses decide to leave the villa in favor of a much safer hospital in Florence, but Hana refuses to leave her patient. The story begins with Hana and her patient, the novel's namesake, living together at the villa. 

Hana feels as though she is trapped by the war. Ondaatje writes: "This was the time in her life that she fell upon books as the only door out of her cell" (7). Hana's confinement is illustrated by Ondaatje's use of the word "cell." The war has prevented Hana from achieving a stable existence, and instead she's been thrust into grievous conflict. Hana's use of books as her means of escape is expanded later in the first chapter: 

"She entered the story knowing she would emerge from it feeling she had been immersed in the lives of others, in plots that stretched back twenty years, her body full of sentences and moments, as if awaking from sleep with a heaviness caused by unremembered dreams" (12).

Her feelings of confinement are so strong that she longs to immerse herself "in the lives of others." Hana's sense of confinement stems from her experience as a nurse during the war. She begins to question the excess of violence and death that the war has brought. Ondaatje writes:

"As the war got darker she received reports about how certain people she had known had died. She feared the day she would remove blood from a patient's face and discover her father or someone who had served her food across a counter on Danforth Avenue. She grew harsh with herself and the patients. Reason was the only thing that might save them, and there was no reason" (50).

The war has hardened Hana, she does not think or feel like normal twenty-year-olds do. She grapples with the motives behind the war, gravely realizing that there is no way out of the suffering that consumed her world.

One morning in the kitchen, Caravaggio, another occupant of the villa, finds Hana weeping. She's described as beginning "to moan so the sound would be a barrier between them, a river across which she could not be reached" (44). Hana's choice to isolate herself expands her struggle with the war. 

She is a character entrenched with the emotional anguish of war.

The English Patient

The English Patient is an unnamed character whom the story revolves around. He's a pilot who fought in the war until a horrible accident,  in which he crash-landed in the desert and emerged engulfed in flames. The incident left him brutally burned and near-death, luckily he was found by Bedouin nomads who had seen his plane crash. The Bedouin tended to his wounds, placing a paste of ground peacock bone upon them.

(Image of a Bedouin Encampment)

While in the care of the Bedouin, The English Patient relishes his feelings of usefulness.

"And he, now in this desert, was sane, with clear thought, picking up the cards, bringing them together with ease . . . and firing each successful combination into the air, and gradually the unseen men around him replied to each rifle shot with a cheer" (21). 

Although he may be forever disfigured, a shell of his former self, he is able to complete tasks that others cannot. He is useful.

The English Patient eventually makes his way to the villa, before the majority of its inhabitants relocate to Florence, and is placed in the care of Hana. The two develop a strong bond, so strong that Hana won't leave him for Florence as the rest of the hospital staff did.

While she is caring for The English Patient, Hana finds his copy of The Histories by Herodotus. The text is complemented by scores of her patient's notes. This is significant because it reveals The English Patient's intelligence. Despite his physical state, The English Patient is proud of his mental abilities. He tells Hana:

"I am a man who can recognize an unnamed town by its skeletal shape on a map. I have always had information like a sea in me. I am a person who if left alone in someone's home walks to the bookcase, pulls down a volume and inhales it" (18).

Although The English Patient experience intense physical limitations due to his injuries, his mind is resolute.

Caravaggio

The last major character explored in the first two chapters is Caravaggio. Like the others, he makes his way to the villa after being involved in the war.

Caravaggio is a thief who worked for the allies throughout the course of the war. He's in his forties during his time at the villa. One of his assignments was to steal documents from high-level German operatives, however, he was caught. The Germans tortured him, cutting off his thumbs, a common punishment for apprehended thieves. In a conversation with Hana he reveals information about how he was tortured:

"The found a woman to do it. they thought it was more trenchant. They brought in one of their nurses. My wrists handcuffed to the table legs. When they cut off my thumbs my hands slipped out of them without any power. Like a wish in a dream" (55).

The pain that Caravaggio faced at the hands of the Germans is a testament to the evil of war. Ondaatje's use of the word "trenchant" in the first line of the quotation emphasizes this evil, and the reader feels deep sorrow for Caravaggio's pain.

Caravaggio's decision to reveal this information to Hana is in stark contrast to his previous actions. After Caravaggio loses his thumbs, he ventures to a military hospital in Rome, where he receives treatment for his injuries. Despite the requests of his caretakers, Caravaggio will not disclose any information beyond evidence that he was aligned with the Allies.

"So the doctors had come back to him, nodded at the bandages on him. A celebrity, after all, wanting silence. A war hero. . . That was how he felt safest. Revealing nothing" (27).

Caravaggio's choice to tell Hana of the circumstances of his disfigurement is highly significant to their relationship. The two are very close. This disclosure reveals that Caravaggio shows great affection for Hana despite the fact that he's more than twenty years her senior. 

A Love Triangle?

Hana's love for The English Patient is made apparent from the very first page. She compares him to Jesus Christ: "Hipbones of Christ, she thinks. He is her despairing saint." (1) Hana's devotion to her patient speaks very strongly to her romantic attachment to him. By describing The English Patient as Hana's "despairing saint" Ondaatje cements the strength of the bond between nurse and patient.

However, Hana's love for her patient proves problematic when Caravaggio enters the picture. At the villa, Caravaggio confronts Hana about her attachment to her patient:

" 'You've tied yourself to a corpse for some reason.'
'He is a saint. I think. A despairing saint. Are there such things? Our desire is to protect them.'
'He doesn't even care!'
'I can love him.'
A twenty-year-old who throws herself out of the world to love a ghost!' " (45)

Caravaggio's jealousy is made apparent through this dialogue. He looks down on the patient because of his injuries, labeling him "a ghost."

It will be interesting to see how Hana will be influenced by this dynamic in the coming chapters.

If you've read this far, I want to thank you. I've very much enjoyed the novel so far and I'm excited to continue updating this blog.

Colby

Works Cited

John Frederick Lewis, 1804-1876. A Bedouin Encampment; Or, Bedouin Arabs. 18411851

Ondaatje, Michael. The English Patient. Vintage Books, 1998.