Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel
Read for: Canadian Books Challenge
Hmm…I’m not really sure where to start with this one. At first, I didn’t think I liked it, but as I thought about it more and read about it, it’s starting to grow on me.
So, Henry, an author, published a book a few years ago – a super famous, well loved book about animals (coincidence? I don’t think so…) Anyway, he’s got his second book all ready to go when the publishers shoot it down because it’s a little unconventional (ok, a lot unconventional). It’s two books in one – an essay about the Holocaust and a fictional story about the Holocaust. He wants it published as a flip book. Meaning that you would read one part of the book from the beginning to the middle and then you’d flip the book to read the other part of the book from the beginning to the middle again. (Guess who else wanted to write a flip book?) After this disappointment, Henry decides to quit writing and move away to some unnamed big city. There he meets a taxidermist who is writing a play that on the surface is about a donkey and a monkey (Beatrice and Virgil) who live on a shirt just talking, but is actually about “The Horrors” – the holocaust (and other similar “Horrors”).
I’m still not sure I liked the book but I think that Martel accomplished what he set out to do in spite of his publishers not enjoying his original idea (I don’t know the whole back story – I’m just going on other reviews I’ve read -and of course a lot of assumption based on the actual novel). And I like that. And I think that makes it a successful book. It was also pretty short and besides that it was a quick read which also works in its favour. Also, apparently Martel’s original story was about a talking monkey and a talking donkey and it seems he was able to get a lot of their conversations published anyway as they were part of the taxidermist’s play. I love that. (And, honestly, I don’t know if the publishers really did tell him that his flip book idea sucked but I’m assuming because that’s what happened in the book.)
It’s also a smart book, almost to the point of pretentiousness. In fact, it is pretentious but not overly, annoyingly so. There is one scene from the play (the first one Henry reads) where Virgil describes a pear to Beatrice because she’s never seen one before. I really liked it, it was very well written, but somehow it knew it was well written and it came through in the writing. (Make sense?)
I guess I would reccomend it but not as a fast paced, can’t put it down, gripping type of story. More as a story that says something important and also happens to be entertaining.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback.
I wasn’t a fan of this book. I thought it was manipulative and trying to be too clever. I know exactly what you mean about knowing it was well written when you read it. It just seemed to know it was showing off, randomly listing clever literary references everywhere. I did read it in one sitting, but ended up wanting to throw it across the room! I’m pleased you enjoyed it a bit more than I did.
Jackie (Farm Lane Books)´s last blog ..Beatrice and Virgil – Yann Martel
“Life of Pi” is one of my favourite books of all time, but I cannot say the same of “Beatrice and Virgil”. I thought that the idea of a flip book as a concept was really exciting, and found it even more interesting that it was inspired by Martel pitching the same idea for his own project.
While the writing was very well done, especially that of the conversation between Beatrice and Virgil (something that really reminds me of the literary approach used for “Life of Pi”), the ending was almost too insulting. Like Jackie, I wanted to throw the book.. but instead of across the room, out the window!
But I don’t want to dismiss the book altogether, because I am still mentally piecing the story together, trying to find reasons Martel wrote the book the way I did. Maybe I’ll give it another go in the future, but right now, I want to cool off from the aftermath of its horrible ending.
Pingback: Beatrice and Virgil – Yann Martel – Book Review | Pink Sheep Cafe