I don't want or need Martel to write a Pi sequel. In B&V the graphic animal violence does nothing to serve the story, except to try to give a new voice to the Holocaust and it simply doesn't work.

In Pi we are caught up in moments of graphic animal violence, but it makes sense within that story and is balanced out by deep insights into spirituality. and as a reader, the deeper we got into the play, the less I wanted to see it. But the terse, oblique, removed and socially awkward taxidermist is afraid that Henry will steal his material. Henry sees brilliance in the taxidermist's play and wants to shepherd it. His wife is immediately repulsed by him, the waiters down the street treat him like a leper and he gives everyone except Henry extreme cases of the willies. Both protagonists are named Henry, but usually the elder taxidermist is simply called 'the taxidermist'. When it does shine through it is lovely, especially early in the book (read the 3 page description of a pear) during the play that comes to him in bits and pieces by a struggling writer (also with writer's block) clothed as a taxidermist. B&V reminds me so much of Ian McEwan's The Comfort of Strangers in that it is so short, has a bloody graphic ending that comes out of nowhere and takes place in an anonymous European city. Martel quotes a story by Flaubert in long sentences, so it is hard to really even hear Martel's own voice. Many are mentioned by other reviewers, and even Mr. And the book references waaaay too many other works of literature. Martel had terrible writer's block after Pi (the dreaded curse of the sophomore book, even though Pi is really his second novel) and he wants to write about the Holocaust in a new way. It will always stand as one of the best books of my reading life.īeatrice and Virgil is a jumble: a writer who's book has just been rejected, a play that is occasionally exquisitely written that vibrates with beauty and life, a coming-to-terms with the Holocaust, the revealing of a Nazi war criminal who somehow escaped detection who is allowed to live a silent life of peace, a hungry donkey and the scream of a Howler monkey.īut what does it mean? I don't know. I read Life of Pi when it first came out and then again last week. The main story clocks in under 200 pages, there is tons of white space and the last 8 pages are 'games' that feel lifted from works about the Holocaust ranging from Roman Polanski's The Pianist to Sophie's Choice.

In fact, it is so short, it can hardly be called more than just a long short story. I am shaken with rage as the book is one of the most hateful and ghastly jumble of horrors I have ever finished. I literally just finished Yann Martel's new book Beatrice and Virgil (B&V for brevity's sake) about 10 minutes ago.

Yann martel new book