The English Patient

By Michael Ondaatje.

"We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography--to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps." --p.261.



*如果因為看了電影英倫情人，想要在原著小說找那種浪漫情調，奉勸各位是不必了。小說的基調冷得多太多了，跟電影基本上是完全不同的作品。