Hollys Response to the English Patient

For starters...I had seen the movie before I read the book, and found it slow.
THE BOOK WAS BETTER!!
In saying that, The English Patient is still not one of my favorite books that we have covered in this class.
Probably my favorite aspect of the book is that which is also probably the most confusing. I really liked how the story line jumps from the different characters. I feel that this provides greater depth and personality to the characters and their backgrounds. I am conciously trying to compare the movie to the book at this point, since some of you have not seen it yet, so I will be omitting that from my response until next week!
I am not sure if I find the imagery so spectacular because i have seen the movie and already have images in my mind as I read the story, or if Ondaatje provided these images for me as i read. I am interested to watch the movie again and see how close the images in my mind came to the actually film.

As i read the book, I found myself curious about the way sexuality is brought up in the characters lives. The abrupt terminology used to describe either sexual body parts or sexual acts does not seem to fit with the rest of Ondaatje's writing. I am curiuos about why its portrayed in this way. For example, Hanna says "dont touch me if your going to try and fuck me," and the very first page of the book describes the naked English Patient's "penis sleeping like a seahorse." ok, so is there anyone else who LITERALLY laughed out loud when they read that? I did, and i will not forget it anytime soon. i think that Ondaatje's could have chosen to illuminate sex in the story because of the time period- but for me, it feels as if some other writer slipped sex into the story in order to make it more hollywood. There are times where the writing is smooth and well fitted with Ondaatje's writing style in the rest of the novel, so my question is, why so abrupt in other parts?