My notes

My first note is on page 14, and at this point I started to feel like the description of the state that the Villa is in represents the state of the characters, Hana and the English patient, themselves, where they are broken down, with no real structure. The English patient has no recollection of who he is but lives on memories, so he is constantly searching for himself, and I get the feeling that Hana isn't staying behind just to be a good nurse. I think she's trying to figure out herself also, which leads me into my next note on page 15, when Hana draws on the floor, playing hopscotch I believe it was called. It was a nice scene to see her reflect on her inner child and let that come out for a little bit but it also leads me to think that maybe, she grew up way too fast in life and is lost as an adult, so she does these things tryin to trace back through her roots as a child to possibly see where she is going in her future. On page 41 I have a note that mentions once again how Hana will not leave the English patient. I am beginning to think that she has suffered great loss throughout her life, whether it was personal or professional, and she is more determined than ever to not lose the English patient, or to make any sort of change in his life. All of this reflects that she hasn't done this in her past and feels like it is a necessity to do so now. Now on page 45, the question I post is Who is the ghost in the Villa? They mentioned a ghost a couple of times and if anyone can clarify that for me it would be sweet. On page 91 I mentioned how Hana might be substituting her father and his death with the English patient and she is trying to make up for something that she didn't do with him before he died. Okay, well you can comment and ask questions and such to my post. Thank you. GIT R DONE

HERE WE GO

Wow, I seriously thought there would be like 9376543867 blogs on here since I've been working a ton of hours all week, but I guess not. Okay, I guess I'll get the ball rolling. I've finished our reading and I took notes, so I'm going to go through some of the questions and comments I have: Well first of all I really like the story right now but the intimate relationships that form were a little predictable to me. I also don't mind the flashbacks to the past experiences each character has because it makes me feel like I am the English patient living in all these memories and flashbacks, trying to find out just who I am. I will make more posts with my notes on specific pages after this one. Can I just write GIT R DONE as my sign off????? GIT R DONE

Here's a link to a site that basically gives a small overview on Michael Ondaatje's life and career. The page starts off with a little biography on him and then an analysis of the theme of his writings. After those sections, there is a list of all his works, including poetry, novels, and even films. At the end there are a couple links to other sites. So yeah, in short, this site give a lot.

Here's a link to the literary encyclopedia info. This site includes a short summary of the book with a biographical link on Ondaatje along with a link to other works by Ondaatje.

Also this link gives background information on the war along with other links to plot, introduction, games, etc.

Due Dates

January 2 - Pg 1- 177; up to section VII
January 11 - Pg 179 - 225; sections VII - IX
January 25 - THE REST!