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The Histories by Almàsy
In his acclaimed novel The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje creates the character Almàsy, who is inextricably intertwined with the life and work of the great Greek historian, Herodotus; his work The Histories can always be found with Almàsy, even surviving the plane crash that charred and burned his entire body. Most notably, Almàsys copy of The Histories is filled beyond capacity with his own personal information, including maps, articles, and personal reflections or thoughts and narrations upon pieces of the text; it is basically a chronicle of his life, absent of any explicit identification. This peculiar book is mentioned as early as page 16 and is most widely explored Chapter IX, The Cave of Swimmers, in which The Histories plays a prominent role in his downfall. The story that he chooses to ignore of his Histories is unearthed by Katharine and awakens in him a dangerous passion that begins a chain reaction. It is also interesting that one may draw a number of parallels between the life of Herodotus and that of Almàsy; for example, they both were men of no nation, eternally wandering, and forever recording their observations of their journeys.
Almàsys copy of The Histories by Herodotus is, in reality, written as much by Almàsy himself as it is by Herodotus because he fills it with other assorted things and removes things that he disagrees with. It seems as though Almàsy uses this book (which is, significantly, often described as a notebook) to define himself in some meaningful way, as he always talks about the material that he includes into his book:
He speaks in fragments about oasis towns, the later Medicis, the prose style of Kipling, the woman who bit into his flesh. And in his commonplace book, his 1890 edition of Herodotus Histories, are other fragments maps, diary entries, writings in many languages, paragraphs cut out of other books. All that is missing is his own name. There is still no clue who he actually is, nameless, without rank or battalion or squadron. The references in his book are all pre-war, the deserts of Egypt and Libya in the 1930s, interspersed with references to cave art or gallery art or journal notes in his own small handwriting. There are no brunettes, the English patient says to Hana as she bends over him, among Florentine Madonnas. (96)
This excerpt from the novel makes several things abundantly obvious about Almàsy and his connection with Herodotus Histories. The Histories, being the core text into which all other relevant information he inserts, is, for Almàsy, a very foundational building block in his personal definition of himself and his philosophies. As is consistent with critics throughout the ages, however, Almàsy does not accept the idea that everything Herodotus has said is true. There are many historical records of critics accusing him of embellishing instances and conjuring up false documentations of journeys that hed never taken (Kitson 1). Nonetheless, it is obvious that, because his experience in the desert has conditioned him in such a way to detest the cities of nations, his only connection with the world of cities was Herodotus, his guidebook, ancient and modern (246). To compensate the text that is supposed lies, when he discovered the truth to what had seemed a lie, he brought out his glue pot and pasted in a map or news clipping or used a blank space in the book in order to rewrite The Histories into his own history (246).
Almàsys journeys in the desert became a great educator in his life and taught him many things. He said of the European and African explorers who came to the desert, we were German, English, Hungarian, African all of us insignificant to them. Gradually we became nationless. I came to hate nations (138). The desert the areas explored and written about by Herodotus thousands of years ago was an amorphous entity, one that was eternally changing and could not be claimed or owned (138). Empires rose and fell in the desert, given a hundred shifting names, and with each passing people, no trace was left, covered over by the sand; there is a vast mystical property to the desert in its seeming timelessness that attracted Almàsy to abandon the clothing of countries (139). Ultimately, he says I didnt want my name against such beautiful names [of the desert]. Erase the family name! Erase nations! I was taught to hate such things by the desert (139). In this way of erasing all of his external forms of personal identity with the absence of name and country, Almàsy resorts to an internal identity, that of the desert in his Histories and his accompanying biographical scraps. He defines himself through the journeys that he has had and the things that he believes, because these are the things that actually tell you about a person, not a name or a country.
What is perhaps most interesting in Almàsys Histories is not his own personal additions and omissions, however; it is the parts that he simply ignores in the original text by Herodotus that come to play the most crucial role. One of these parts in particular comes to dominate Almàsys life (albeit a chapter he may want to omit) and is the subject of Chapter IX of The English Patient. Geoffrey and Katharine Clifton join Almàsys expedition at one point; one of the most striking features of the couple is Geoffreys persistent praise of his wife. She, being an avid reader, asks to borrow Almàsys Histories, and she chooses to read a particular story to the company. After Katharine reads the story of Candaules and his wife, Almàsy inevitably finds a parallel between his own situation with the Cliftons and Candaules, his wife, and Gyges. Ultimately, Gyges has to kill Candaules and claim his wife in order to save his own life. This story is a part that, Almàsy says, I always skim past [. . .] It is early in the book and has little to do with the places and period I am interested in (233). This story of love and lust has never intrigued the objective and emotionless mind of Almàsy because he detests ownership and labeling. The parallel between Geoffrey Clifton and Candaules in their gloating over their wives and the conclusion of Candaules tale, however, had awakened his sense of passion for Katharine. While she may not have intentionally evoked these emotions in Almàsy, the story had turned the page on a new chapter of their lives. Almàsy would often open Herodotus for a clue to geography, but by opening to a section he had long ignored, Katharine had done that as a window to her life, as well as his (233). This window, however, this chapter in his life does much to destroy him, both mentally and physically. There is a great emotional struggle between the two, and Katharine is even physically violent. He also risks his life and is captured by the English army when he goes for help after her plane crashes in the desert. Three years later, when he returns to find her dead body, he flies away in a plane with her and it catches fire and crashes in a fiery disaster upon the desert sands. Katharine, whether directly by inflicting pain to him or indirectly by mentally forcing him to commit himself to her, is responsible for the destruction of Almàsy because she caused him, through her love, to deviate from his life as defined by The Histories. The story that sparked their relationship was ignored by Almàsy for a reason, and Katharine made him experience it.
More than simply his Histories, Almàsy can largely be defined with Herodotus the person as well, beyond simply his writings and records of his journeys. Almàsy spends several years exploring the desert, mapping out lost and hidden places, occasionally based on hints and clues extracted from Herodotus Histories. He says that there is, after Herodotus, little interest by the Western world towards the desert for hundreds of years. From 425 B.C. to the beginning of the twentieth century there is an averting of eyes (133). In this respect, Almàsy is the continuation of the exploration begun by Herodotus, validating the records from which he finds evidence and erasing those for which he believes to be lies. He too, like Herodotus, was a man of no nation. The tyrant Lygdamis of Halicarnassus evidently exiled Herodotus from the land, and soon after began his exploration of the vast deserts, including Samos, Athens, and Thurii (Kitson 1). Almàsy became enraptured with the desert, as did Herodotus, where he and his company were a small clutch of a nation, [. . .] mapping and re-exploring (138). He became passionate about the desert, a place of faith, where one disappears into the landscape. He had learned the limits and boundaries of nations like Herodotus and wished to escape them entirely, erasing his name and his nation. Herodotus, too, provides very little information about himself outside of his name. They both choose to identify themselves with their actions and their journeys, and not titles with no merit such as citizen and ones name (Kitson 1).
Almàsy, however, has many other influences, from excerpts from the Bible to new clippings regarding journeys he has undertaken or means to undertake. These bits of foreign texts, as well as his informal journal entries in the margins of the text and the pasting over of false information, effectively serve as supplementary biographical texts to The Histories. Almàsy has re-written the book into something that is largely his own; it has become The Histories by Almàsy. It no longer is a chronicle of the journeys taken by Herodotus, but the journeys, ideas, and thoughts of Almàsy, because even the original text is marked and filled in by Almàsy as an addendum and personalization of the original work. There is not a page unmarked by the hand of Almàsy.
Ondaatjes The English Patient serves as a host for one of the most intriguing characters in modern literature in the form of Almàsy, a man with a rich history and no identification, whose life and history is contained within a highly personalized and marked 1890 copy of The Histories, the seminal work by the Greek historian Herodotus. He follows the journeys detailed therein and goes everywhere with it. Even the parts that he chooses to ignore come to dramatically change his life, such as the story of Candaules, which leads to his destruction. There are also many parallels between Almàsy and Herodotus himself.
Works Cited
Kitson, John. Who is Herodatus? HerodotusWebsite.co.uk. 12 Dec 2003. 27 Apr 2005. <http://www.herodotuswebsite.co.uk/Whohe.htm>
In his acclaimed novel The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje creates the character Almàsy, who is inextricably intertwined with the life and work of the great Greek historian, Herodotus; his work The Histories can always be found with Almàsy, even surviving the plane crash that charred and burned his entire body. Most notably, Almàsys copy of The Histories is filled beyond capacity with his own personal information, including maps, articles, and personal reflections or thoughts and narrations upon pieces of the text; it is basically a chronicle of his life, absent of any explicit identification. This peculiar book is mentioned as early as page 16 and is most widely explored Chapter IX, The Cave of Swimmers, in which The Histories plays a prominent role in his downfall. The story that he chooses to ignore of his Histories is unearthed by Katharine and awakens in him a dangerous passion that begins a chain reaction. It is also interesting that one may draw a number of parallels between the life of Herodotus and that of Almàsy; for example, they both were men of no nation, eternally wandering, and forever recording their observations of their journeys.
Almàsys copy of The Histories by Herodotus is, in reality, written as much by Almàsy himself as it is by Herodotus because he fills it with other assorted things and removes things that he disagrees with. It seems as though Almàsy uses this book (which is, significantly, often described as a notebook) to define himself in some meaningful way, as he always talks about the material that he includes into his book:
He speaks in fragments about oasis towns, the later Medicis, the prose style of Kipling, the woman who bit into his flesh. And in his commonplace book, his 1890 edition of Herodotus Histories, are other fragments maps, diary entries, writings in many languages, paragraphs cut out of other books. All that is missing is his own name. There is still no clue who he actually is, nameless, without rank or battalion or squadron. The references in his book are all pre-war, the deserts of Egypt and Libya in the 1930s, interspersed with references to cave art or gallery art or journal notes in his own small handwriting. There are no brunettes, the English patient says to Hana as she bends over him, among Florentine Madonnas. (96)
This excerpt from the novel makes several things abundantly obvious about Almàsy and his connection with Herodotus Histories. The Histories, being the core text into which all other relevant information he inserts, is, for Almàsy, a very foundational building block in his personal definition of himself and his philosophies. As is consistent with critics throughout the ages, however, Almàsy does not accept the idea that everything Herodotus has said is true. There are many historical records of critics accusing him of embellishing instances and conjuring up false documentations of journeys that hed never taken (Kitson 1). Nonetheless, it is obvious that, because his experience in the desert has conditioned him in such a way to detest the cities of nations, his only connection with the world of cities was Herodotus, his guidebook, ancient and modern (246). To compensate the text that is supposed lies, when he discovered the truth to what had seemed a lie, he brought out his glue pot and pasted in a map or news clipping or used a blank space in the book in order to rewrite The Histories into his own history (246).
Almàsys journeys in the desert became a great educator in his life and taught him many things. He said of the European and African explorers who came to the desert, we were German, English, Hungarian, African all of us insignificant to them. Gradually we became nationless. I came to hate nations (138). The desert the areas explored and written about by Herodotus thousands of years ago was an amorphous entity, one that was eternally changing and could not be claimed or owned (138). Empires rose and fell in the desert, given a hundred shifting names, and with each passing people, no trace was left, covered over by the sand; there is a vast mystical property to the desert in its seeming timelessness that attracted Almàsy to abandon the clothing of countries (139). Ultimately, he says I didnt want my name against such beautiful names [of the desert]. Erase the family name! Erase nations! I was taught to hate such things by the desert (139). In this way of erasing all of his external forms of personal identity with the absence of name and country, Almàsy resorts to an internal identity, that of the desert in his Histories and his accompanying biographical scraps. He defines himself through the journeys that he has had and the things that he believes, because these are the things that actually tell you about a person, not a name or a country.
What is perhaps most interesting in Almàsys Histories is not his own personal additions and omissions, however; it is the parts that he simply ignores in the original text by Herodotus that come to play the most crucial role. One of these parts in particular comes to dominate Almàsys life (albeit a chapter he may want to omit) and is the subject of Chapter IX of The English Patient. Geoffrey and Katharine Clifton join Almàsys expedition at one point; one of the most striking features of the couple is Geoffreys persistent praise of his wife. She, being an avid reader, asks to borrow Almàsys Histories, and she chooses to read a particular story to the company. After Katharine reads the story of Candaules and his wife, Almàsy inevitably finds a parallel between his own situation with the Cliftons and Candaules, his wife, and Gyges. Ultimately, Gyges has to kill Candaules and claim his wife in order to save his own life. This story is a part that, Almàsy says, I always skim past [. . .] It is early in the book and has little to do with the places and period I am interested in (233). This story of love and lust has never intrigued the objective and emotionless mind of Almàsy because he detests ownership and labeling. The parallel between Geoffrey Clifton and Candaules in their gloating over their wives and the conclusion of Candaules tale, however, had awakened his sense of passion for Katharine. While she may not have intentionally evoked these emotions in Almàsy, the story had turned the page on a new chapter of their lives. Almàsy would often open Herodotus for a clue to geography, but by opening to a section he had long ignored, Katharine had done that as a window to her life, as well as his (233). This window, however, this chapter in his life does much to destroy him, both mentally and physically. There is a great emotional struggle between the two, and Katharine is even physically violent. He also risks his life and is captured by the English army when he goes for help after her plane crashes in the desert. Three years later, when he returns to find her dead body, he flies away in a plane with her and it catches fire and crashes in a fiery disaster upon the desert sands. Katharine, whether directly by inflicting pain to him or indirectly by mentally forcing him to commit himself to her, is responsible for the destruction of Almàsy because she caused him, through her love, to deviate from his life as defined by The Histories. The story that sparked their relationship was ignored by Almàsy for a reason, and Katharine made him experience it.
More than simply his Histories, Almàsy can largely be defined with Herodotus the person as well, beyond simply his writings and records of his journeys. Almàsy spends several years exploring the desert, mapping out lost and hidden places, occasionally based on hints and clues extracted from Herodotus Histories. He says that there is, after Herodotus, little interest by the Western world towards the desert for hundreds of years. From 425 B.C. to the beginning of the twentieth century there is an averting of eyes (133). In this respect, Almàsy is the continuation of the exploration begun by Herodotus, validating the records from which he finds evidence and erasing those for which he believes to be lies. He too, like Herodotus, was a man of no nation. The tyrant Lygdamis of Halicarnassus evidently exiled Herodotus from the land, and soon after began his exploration of the vast deserts, including Samos, Athens, and Thurii (Kitson 1). Almàsy became enraptured with the desert, as did Herodotus, where he and his company were a small clutch of a nation, [. . .] mapping and re-exploring (138). He became passionate about the desert, a place of faith, where one disappears into the landscape. He had learned the limits and boundaries of nations like Herodotus and wished to escape them entirely, erasing his name and his nation. Herodotus, too, provides very little information about himself outside of his name. They both choose to identify themselves with their actions and their journeys, and not titles with no merit such as citizen and ones name (Kitson 1).
Almàsy, however, has many other influences, from excerpts from the Bible to new clippings regarding journeys he has undertaken or means to undertake. These bits of foreign texts, as well as his informal journal entries in the margins of the text and the pasting over of false information, effectively serve as supplementary biographical texts to The Histories. Almàsy has re-written the book into something that is largely his own; it has become The Histories by Almàsy. It no longer is a chronicle of the journeys taken by Herodotus, but the journeys, ideas, and thoughts of Almàsy, because even the original text is marked and filled in by Almàsy as an addendum and personalization of the original work. There is not a page unmarked by the hand of Almàsy.
Ondaatjes The English Patient serves as a host for one of the most intriguing characters in modern literature in the form of Almàsy, a man with a rich history and no identification, whose life and history is contained within a highly personalized and marked 1890 copy of The Histories, the seminal work by the Greek historian Herodotus. He follows the journeys detailed therein and goes everywhere with it. Even the parts that he chooses to ignore come to dramatically change his life, such as the story of Candaules, which leads to his destruction. There are also many parallels between Almàsy and Herodotus himself.
Works Cited
Kitson, John. Who is Herodatus? HerodotusWebsite.co.uk. 12 Dec 2003. 27 Apr 2005. <http://www.herodotuswebsite.co.uk/Whohe.htm>
