The English Patient Audible Audiobook – Unabridged Michael Ondaatje (Author), Christopher Cazenove (Narrator), Books on Tape (Publisher) (Books on Tape)

I  was delightfully introduced to the world of The English Patient gradually, over an extended period, first in 1996 by being drawn into the story’s richness by Anthony Minghella’s beautiful film and screenplay in the theaters and then again in 2004 when I listened to the author's mellow voice, reading selections of his novel for the Collector’s Series DVD Bonus Material; the sound of his prose simply mesmerized me. I had read ‘The English Patient’ and other Ondaatje stories previously and I'd seen the film several times but Pico Iyer’s vivid Introduction in this Everyman’s Library Edition of 2011 boldly welcomed me back into the depth and the beauty of the author’s words.

I have never read a book that has captivated me in the way that ‘The English Patient’ has. It focuses the reader on the story of five key people from different origins, four of whom the fates of war were sheltering at the end of the Second World War in a ravaged Italian villa with a personality of its own. The tales began early enough to clearly define the origins of these characters and the formation of their values and beliefs. While our period of experience covers no more than a few years, Ondaatje’s introduction to these people is simultaneously both continuous and instantaneous. I could fully feel the hearts and souls of each of these characters at every moment as they lived, felt, loved and evolved around each other. The depth and richness that he infused in each of these characters pulled them together while he shaped them to stand alone on their own merits. While mystery and love surrounded the English patient’s origins, I completely understood his complexities along with those of Hana, Kip and Caravaggio. While Katharine created the source for Almásy’s ferocious passion, Ondaatje’s beautiful style let me feel every moment and emotion of their love, making it both a wonderful and a most enriching experience.

Nature, humanity, war and sensation were also characters that we learned to understand through the precise palate of Ondaatje's prose; you burn with their passion, you smell the villa breathing, the desert vastness overwhelms you, the undetonated bomb is alive, it's Africa, it's antiquity, it's timeless Europe, it's the 1940s, you are living in war, you are there.

Bob Magnant is the author of The Last Transition..., a fact-based novel about Iran. He writes about politics, globalization, the Internet and US policy in the Middle East...