Picking up the pieces

And so once again there's been a brief interlude between entries – mostly due to not having internet access and partially due to failing to summon up the necessary energy to write something – but the books have still been slowly piling up on the 'to write' list, so I figured I ought to start tackling that log jam before I forget everything. Indeed, my memory is comparable to that of a goldfish at the moment anyway, so I'm not sure if I have anything useful or interesting to say. Which would imply I usually do and frankly I'm not sure that's true. But anyway, to the point...

In an entirely separate and longer running project, I've been trying to work my way through all of the Booker Prize winning novels. I'm not doing badly at it either – barring the first decade of the prize, of which I've read precisely no books, I'm probably about two-thirds of the way through those from 1980 onwards. Which isn't too bad, I don't think. So when I was rummaging through the shelves (or returning the books to their rightful places from the boxes of Moving House), I stumbled across half a dozen unread Booker winners, some of which have been gathering dust for some time. Perfect. Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient was by my reckoning the longest serving of these, so that became my next read.

Interestingly, I felt it had lots of similarities between another Booker winner I read a few months ago, Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger. The narration, the structure, the time period, the striking imagery that felt at once alien and familiar, intimate and looking in from outside. It worked well in both of them as the characters try to put their lives back together, or more, perhaps, to adjust to what has suddenly become normality, after the madness of what has gone before. I liked the fragmentary nature of the structure, encapsulating the way the characters were trying to piece things together. The slow unravelling of mysteries and the way the reader can piece things together for themselves is skilfully done and I can certainly see why it won. Obviously there's an element of subjectivity in awarding prizes, though I think people can usually recognise and appreciate quality, even if it's not their cup of tea or even if they actively disliked it. In this instance, I ticked pretty much all the boxes though. Job's a good 'un.

Book number: 65
Title: The English Patient
Author: Michael Ondaatje
Category: Books that have been sat on my bookshelf for too long