59 pages 1 hour read

Michael Ondaatje

The English Patient

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1992

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Chapters 8-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 8 Summary: “The Holy Forest”

Kip walks from the field, where he has been digging, to the house, holding his hand in front of him, a ladybug crawling on his wrist. Hana meets him and he touches his hand to hers, transferring the ladybug. She walks inside and up to the English patient’s room, where she touches her hand to his foot. The insect crawls up his blackened body.

In the library, Caravaggio accidentally knocks a fuse box off a table and turns as he hears Hana’s yell from the hallway. Kip suddenly slides across the floor and catches the box in midair. Looking down, Caravaggio realizes he owes Kip his life and will never forget that moment. Kip laughs, the awkwardness between them dissipating. Later, Caravaggio tells Kip and Hana about an Indian family in east Toronto whose house he robbed. Hana knows him well enough to almost believe the story. She walks into the library, takes a book off a shelf at random, and writes a passage about Kip, including his thoughts on Lahore and London.

Not long after Kip arrived in Italy, he was sent to defuse a large Esau bomb, which required Hardy to lower him into a pit filled with muddy blurred text
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