![]() ![]() But if that next novel were more playful, less ‘moral,’ less ‘beautifully written,’ then great numbers of his ardent admirers would be sorely disappointed.”Įsthetic judgements like Marchand’s are necessary for the health of literature. Marchand ends with a cautious request: “It would gladden the heart if his next book were a piece of writing that did not take itself quite so seriously…. The English Patient is a “contemporary Gothic romance” he says he means it as an insult. ![]() ![]() Ondaatje is author of more than a dozen books – poetry, novels, a memoir – but Marchand claims the Toronto writer has never been interested in “personality,” and so his characters go without. Everything, it seems, is wrong with The English Patient. In his controversial and quotable 1998 essay “ The English Patient and Other Hams of a Superior Sort,” Philip Marchand gets caustic with Michael Ondaatje. ![]()
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