All reviews for Beatrice and Virgil (2010)
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I was interested in this book because it was Yann Martel and I wanted a good yarn. I appreciated the banter between Henry and the taxidermist and how Henry helped the taxidermist with his problem. What I loved about this book was the scene with the pears, the pieces where Henry is asked to describe certain characters in the taxidermist's play, and seeing the process between a writer and someone who is stuck with their writing. I marked out quite a few places to use for working with my authors, and I do believe I would recommend this book to them for learning purposes as Martel does do a great job with his show over tell and the descriptions of the scenery and characters, while at the same time, walking through the process through his characters eyes (and pen).I know there is a lot of frustration over the Holocaust piece and the way it was represented. I do feel like Martel was trying to do what Henry speaks of, represent the Holocaust differently, but whether or not it works, I can't say for sure. Part of me felt like it had purpose, and part of me felt like it was the easiest piece of history to symoblize and partially disguise on a wide scale.I think Martel is a masterful story teller and this particular novella did not quite meet the magical and wonderful world I was wanting when I picked up his book. It almost felt like he was trying to create something philosophical, and parts of it felt like there was way too much thought into making it something that in the end, it wasn't. If I look at the book from just a reader standpoint without thinking about how it could impact the authors in my publishing house or be used in writing lessons, it wasn't mind blowing, and it wasn't a dissapointment. It just was.
I was expecting strange, since I'd read Life of Pi. Animals, violence, not unanticipated. I was unprepared, however, for the level of violence and the pointlessness of that violence, and I never quite grasped the reason for the two, or perhaps three--depending on what you count--books-within-a-book. In the end, I was unsure how to distinguish my horror at the murderous fantasies of the fictional character from my horror at the murderous fantasies of the human writer behind the novel. This book had all the shockingly brutal aspects of Life of Pi and none of its beauty. I'm not sure I'll read another Yann Martel.
Interesting.......more than a touch of 'waiting for Godot'.