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Jim Watkins's Reviews > Beatrice and Virgil
Beatrice and Virgil
by Yann Martel
by Yann Martel
I wasn't going to write a review for this book, but seeing the reviews that have been posted I feel compelled to make some input.
I'm biased, I find that this is another wonderful book by this author. A lot more philosophical and pragmatic, but still filled with great imagery and metaphor. A story about stories. And that's what everyone seems to have missed. This is the exact sequel to Life of Pi, which ended with a pretty brutal section and a reverie on the nature and meaning of stories. This books picks up where "Pi" left off.
WARNING: this book is not for the faint of heart, there are some brutal passages, which I think is necessary, not as a cheap way to make people feel emotion, but to overcome people's ridiculously censored understanding of the holocaust. Most people need a reminder of the reality that people have faced in the past, and that animals continue to face. Every. Single. Day. at the hands of human beings. If people can't handle this reality, and don't want to be exposed to it, get a 12 pack of beer, a joint, and forget about the world.
This book is in many ways like a Kubrick film, most people either totally hate it or totally love it, and that's something I love about it. Most of the haters don't seem to know what the book is about, eventually they'll get it and praise it, it takes a few years for some. But some of the simpler complaints need to be answered in kind...
What did people think? It's a book about animals, and the holocaust. Did no one make the connection that it was gonna get ugly? Another bunch of people, especially those who think literature is for entertainment (Stephen King is entertainment, Hemingway is literature, note the difference) are throwing random words around ("post-modern", "reflectionist", etc...) which are irrelevant because they haven't talked about the meaning of the book at all. Yes he uses ploys that have been used before, so what? Everything written somehow uses methods that other writers have used before. Stop overthinking it and just read the story. You'll find it's actually pretty good.
I'm biased, I find that this is another wonderful book by this author. A lot more philosophical and pragmatic, but still filled with great imagery and metaphor. A story about stories. And that's what everyone seems to have missed. This is the exact sequel to Life of Pi, which ended with a pretty brutal section and a reverie on the nature and meaning of stories. This books picks up where "Pi" left off.
WARNING: this book is not for the faint of heart, there are some brutal passages, which I think is necessary, not as a cheap way to make people feel emotion, but to overcome people's ridiculously censored understanding of the holocaust. Most people need a reminder of the reality that people have faced in the past, and that animals continue to face. Every. Single. Day. at the hands of human beings. If people can't handle this reality, and don't want to be exposed to it, get a 12 pack of beer, a joint, and forget about the world.
This book is in many ways like a Kubrick film, most people either totally hate it or totally love it, and that's something I love about it. Most of the haters don't seem to know what the book is about, eventually they'll get it and praise it, it takes a few years for some. But some of the simpler complaints need to be answered in kind...
What did people think? It's a book about animals, and the holocaust. Did no one make the connection that it was gonna get ugly? Another bunch of people, especially those who think literature is for entertainment (Stephen King is entertainment, Hemingway is literature, note the difference) are throwing random words around ("post-modern", "reflectionist", etc...) which are irrelevant because they haven't talked about the meaning of the book at all. Yes he uses ploys that have been used before, so what? Everything written somehow uses methods that other writers have used before. Stop overthinking it and just read the story. You'll find it's actually pretty good.
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