Beatrice and Virgil (edition 2009)

Weird. Not terribly captivating. Some elements similar to [b:Life of Pi|4214|Life of Pi|Yann Martel|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266448756s/4214.jpg|1392700], like the prominence of animals, a metanarrative, shock. Not nearly as good, however.
What I don't get is the coincidence? of the taxidermist's seeking Henry out about a book/play that was so similar to Henry's own rejected flip book. Plus the coincidence of the taxidermist being in the same neighbourhood as Henry, but delivering the first letter through the publisher. That was strange.
I also didn't understand why some of the literary devices were over-explained, as if the reader would miss the point (like Burnam Wood coming to Dunsinane...was it necessary to explain that's from Macbeth?). ( )

What begins as an entertaining exercise in "ego" quickly becomes SO much more.

The novel's protagonist is an eerily familiar author who is in a holding pattern following the wild success of his first book --a fabulist narrative featuring animals as the main characters. "Henry" recedes from public life while politely continuing to answer his fan mail which, on one occasion, includes some oddly compelling script-pages from a play-in-progress and a plea for writerly help to complete it.

Henry meets the playwright, a gruff and talented taxidermist, and begins to suspect that the play in question might be an attempt at something he had recently failed to find: a new way to discuss the Holocaust.

The play-within-the-book is largely a dialog between Beatrice, a donkey and Virgil, a howler monkey. It is parceled out to the reader(s) in a disjointed fashion which heightens its dreamlike surrealism, its uncomfortable but thought-provoking beauty, and its author's quiet desperation.

The back-and-forth between Henry and the taxidermist is tense and mysterious and yields vapors of revelation that eventually coalesce into a surprising (and somewhat horrific) ending.

I love the way the scope of this book grows using simple tools and spare prose. Martel artfully explores the difficulties of his core themes without alienating the reader or going too far over her/his head. This is an impressive trick done expertly. Highly recommended! ( )

wow. simply, wow. ( )

This is no Life of Pi, but there is plenty of brilliance in this disturbing, intensely compelling, ugly story. ( )

Intensely interesting and readable, with a powerful ending.

---

p. 7 But behind serious nonfiction lies the same fact and preoccupation as behind fiction - of being human and what it means...

p. 10 A work of art works because it is true, not because it is real.

p. 16 "Fiction and nonfiction are not so easily divided. Fiction may not be real, but it's true; it goes beyond the garland of facts to get to emotional and psychological truths. As for nonfiction, for history, it may be real, but its truth is slippery, hard to access, with no fixed meanings bolted to it. If history doesn't become story, it dies to everyone except the historian."

p. 30 There's nothing like the unimaginable to make people believe.

p. 97 "I wanted to see if something could be saved once the irreparable had been done."

p. 102 "To my mind, faith is like being in the sun. When you are in the sun, can you avoid creating a shadow? Can you shake that area of darkness that clings to you, always shaped like you, as if constantly to remind you of yourself? You can't. This shadow is doubt. And it goes wherever you go as long as you stay in the sun. And who wouldn't want to be in the sun?"

p. 127 "Or that entirely different kind of pain, , the one that injures no particular organ yet kills the spirit that links them?"

p. 128 In that moment the world shattered like a pane of glass, so that everything looked exactly as it had earlier, and yet was different, now clear and newly sharp with menace. ( )