Name: Beatrice and Virgil
ISBN: 9781921656255

Yann Martel

Destiny can take many shapes. For Henry, a writer struggling to finish a book about the Holocaust, it arrives in the form of a puzzling envelope from a stranger. The envelope takes him into a taxidermist's workshop. Filled with lovingly preserved animals from all corners of the globe, this place is unlike anywhere he has ever been. Among the hundreds of stuffed animals are Beatrice and Virgil- a monkey and a donkey, they are also the characters in a play the taxidermist is writing. When the taxidermist asks Henry for help with the play, he is drawn in. But what is the play actually about? What have the animals suffered at the hands of the author? Who is he? And what does he really want from Henry? With the imaginative reach and spirit that helped Life of Pidelight over seven million readers around the world, Beatrice and Virgil asks profound questions about violence, kindness, and the power of stories to change us.

Beatrice and Virgil

a novel

Patrick Book

This book felt a little half-baked up until an ending that was intentionally shocking and intentionally-provocative. I honestly don't know what to make of it. Most of it seemed so pointless and insular until the whiplash-inducing climax (which seemed to completely contradict the tone and pace of everything before it) that I probably wouldn't have gotten through it if this wasn't such a brief novella. It felt very reactionary, like there was a lot of Martel in the main character. Even if that's not the case it came off as some pretty intense navel-gazing. And the allusions throughout the book were surprisingly obvious, like turning every page should have resulted in a huge cartoon mallet with the word "holocaust" written on it popping out and hitting you over the head in case you missed the point. 

I don't known this is coming off pretty harsh but I'm a little mixed up about this one. I honestly don't know if I liked it or hated it.

Donald

** spoiler alert **
           I have not read 'The Life of Pi', but following its immense popularity I understand why this book has received such negative reviews. This is a bleak book and a difficult book, but its difficulty is not in the prose or the length (it is written simply and very short). It is difficult because it is suffocating.

The Hungarian writer mentioned but not named on page 151 is Imre Kertész, and in many ways this book, to me, was an attempt at explaining what it means to read and think about Kertész and his view of the world during and after Auschwitz.

The character Henry can be read in several ways. The most disturbing reading is that the protagonist is wrong, and Henry is a Shoah survivor, not a former Nazi collaborator. This reading transforms the stabbing and self-immolation, but I don't know what it transforms them into. And if the protagonist is right, what then?

This book will be rediscovered and read favorably someday. I hope that Martel does not see the reaction and smaller book sales and then shy away from the project he has begun here. There is so much still to write about the Horrors and our inability to communicate.

Anastaciya

One of the strangest books I've ever read. That's it.

luke albert

Olivia

Christopher McCabe

Ryan Mateyk

Stefan R. Schmid

Szymon

Daniel Tao

Jonathan Grunert

Kevin. j Mercil 

Alex Buchner

Susanna Robinson

Bergen Anders Nelson Eickhoff

When Henry receives a letter from an elderly taxidermist, it poses a puzzle that he cannot resist. As he is pulled further into the world of this strange and calculating man, Henry becomes increasingly involved with the lives of a donkey and a howler monkey--named Beatrice and Virgil--and the epic journey they undertake together.