April 13 - The English Patient

On Tuesday, April 13 from 7:00 - 9:00 PM, the Heschel Book Group will discuss Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient.

With  beauty, intelligence, and sensuality, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the lives of four damaged perople in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal,and rescue illuminates this book like flashes of heat lightening.

Topics to consider:

• Prose as poetry
• Ondaatje's use of figurative language
• The colonial perspective and references to Kipling
• The structure of the novel
• The importance of history, both world and personal
• Herodotus as a significant motif
• The influence of the desert
• The use of names, specifically Caravaggio 

The Heschel Book Group is open to faculty and staff, parents, grandparents, alumni, and friends of the Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School. Come and share your insights or just listen to the discussion. It is an informal group, and we encourage you to come. You do not need to make each meeting, nor do you even have to finish the book in time for the group. 

If you plan to attend, please email debra_schaffer@ajhds.com

 

The following dates have been reserved for future book groups:

Tuesday, June, 1. We will meet in Lainer Library at Heschel from 7:00 - 9:00 pm.