I know that Yann Martel is a great writer. I know he writes with much more talent, ease, and skill than I do. I know he has sold millions of books all over the world. However, this offering from Martel, Beatrice & Virgil, left me with many more questions than answers, but the main one being, "What did I just waste my time reading?". I don't mean that in the harsh way it sounds, but I expected more. For those of you like me who really enjoyed reading. Life of Pi, you will understand that Martel can tell a fine story that begs rereading. However, this book is made of a much different cloth. Let me explain.
Beatrice & Virgil is a story about many things, but it felt like it was a story about nothing. It begins with a writer of considerable fame publishing a book that garnered worldwide fame and recognition. The writer's name is Henry. He follows his success with major research and work towards a second book. This second book is about the Holocaust, but he decides to do it in an odd way. He writes a historical essay and a fictional story and puts them together in a flip book. Everyone from his editors, to his agent, to booksellers, to historians hate the book and reject every part of it. He feels he can't continue life as a writer after putting so much into something that turned out to be fruitless. So..he gives up writing, takes his new fame and money and moves he and his wife to a city that they have longed to live in. Once in this new city, he takes up his time with music lessons, acting, and working at an all-organic, fair-trade cafe. The only writing he does is correspondence to a few fans that write to him through his publishers. One of these letters is from a taxidermist, also named Henry, who begs Henry #1 for help writing a play about a donkey and a howler monkey. He decides to meet him and help him out after much soul-searching, several letters, and an odd short story about a child who kills animals for fun, but finds salvation through the speaking of an elk and then tries to save the very animals he once killed for fun. Henry #2 is an odd fellow to say the least. He is a taxidermist, doesn't want to let Henry #1 see his whole play, is cold and distant, only really wants to meet at his shop, and creeps everyone out except Henry #1. The play he is trying to write is about a donkey named Beatrice and a howler monkey named Virgil. We find out through the story that they are actually characters sewn on a striped shirt and are witnesses to numerous crimes against the useless slaughtering of animals. However, the play has massive undertones that make Henry #1 feel the book is really about the Holocaust. They work on the play, but really to no avail. Henry #2 is hard-headed, doesn't listen to suggestions from Henry #1, is very creepy, and so many pages later, we find Henry #1 deciding to quit his helping. Many months go by, Henry #1 and wife have a baby. He continues his life of playing music, acting, and working. Then he receives a helpless letter from Henry #2 begging for more help and he decides against the wishes of his wife to help him. He meets him at his shop, he tells him to let me him read the whole play, so that they can really work on it. Henry #2 says no. They argue. Henry #1 sees Henry #2 as everyone else does for the first time. He realizes that Henry #2 is really some member of German society that helped in the atrocities of the Holocaust. Henry #1 calls him out on it. Henry #2 reacts and stabs Henry #1. Henry #1 flees after being stabbed several times. Henry #2 watches with an eerie glee as he flees in pain and then burns himself, the play, and the shop up. Henry recovers and decides to write again. End of story. I know, I know. Spoiler alert.
Besides the confusion of keeping up with which Henry was doing what, trying to not tingle and shiver with Martel's need to thrust his intra-religious views into all stories, and not shiver from Henry #1's tolerant and oh' so current, progressive, and open-minded lifestyle, I found myself constantly asking and looking for the real story. Was it about the tortured soul of a writer who is afraid that his talent for writing has left him? Was it about the tortured soul of a taxidermist who hated his life and the atrocities of his youth and was trying to free himself by writing a play? Was it about the messed up world of publishing where only whatever is popular at the time gets access to publication and advertising? Or was it actually a fictional account of an experience that Martel went through because he did write a flip book about the Holocaust, it was rejected by his publishers, he did move he family to a remote part of Canada, and then took about eight years to write this current offering? I have been finished with this book for several weeks and I still don't know what it is about?
Do you? Maybe, I'm just too shallow to get it. If you do know what is is about, leave me a comment. I'd love to read it and learn.
Happy Reading,
David
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