Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel

Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel

Yann Martel's astonishing novel begins with a successful writer attempting to publish his latest book, made up of a novel and an essay. Henry plans for it to be a flip book that the reader can start at either end, reading the novel or the essay first, because both pieces are equally concerned with representations of the Holocaust. Faced with severe and categorical rejection, Henry gives up hope. He abandons writing, moves with his wife to a foreign city, joins a community theatre, becomes a waiter in a>chocolater a. But then he receives a package containing a scene from a play, photocopies from a short story by Flaubert--about a man who hunts animals down relentlessly--and a short note: I need your help.

Intrigued, Henry tracks down his correspondent, and finds himself in a strange part of the city, walking past a stuffed okapi into a taxidermist's workshop. The taxidermist--also named Henry--says he has been working on his play, A 20th-Century Shirt, for most of his life, but now he needs Henry's help to describe his characters: the play's protagonists are a stuffed donkey and a howler monkey named Beatrice and Virgil, respectively, and Henry's successful book was in part about animals. And though his new acquaintance is austere, abrupt and almost unearthly, Henry the writer is drawn more and more deeply into Henry the taxidermist's uncompromising world.

Beatrice & Virgil gradually grows into something more, a shattering and ultimately transfixing work that asks searching questions about the nature of our understanding of history, the meaning of suffering and the value of art. As we are drawn deeper into their disturbing moral fable, the relationship between the two faltering writers named Henry becomes more and more complex until it can only be resolved in an explosive, unexpected catastrophe.

Yann Martel's astonishing novel begins with a successful writer attempting to publish his latest book, made up of a novel and an essay. Henry plans for it to be a flip book that the reader can start at either end, reading the novel or the essay first, because both pieces are equally concerned with representations of the Holocaust. Faced with severe and categorical rejection, Henry gives up hope. He abandons writing, moves with his wife to a foreign city, joins a community theatre, becomes a waiter in a>chocolater a. But then he receives a package containing a scene from a play, photocopies from a short story by Flaubert--about a man who hunts animals down relentlessly--and a short note: I need your help.

Intrigued, Henry tracks down his correspondent, and finds himself in a strange part of the city, walking past a stuffed okapi into a taxidermist's workshop. The taxidermist--also named Henry--says he has been working on his play, A 20th-Century Shirt, for most of his life, but now he needs Henry's help to describe his characters: the play's protagonists are a stuffed donkey and a howler monkey named Beatrice and Virgil, respectively, and Henry's successful book was in part about animals. And though his new acquaintance is austere, abrupt and almost unearthly, Henry the writer is drawn more and more deeply into Henry the taxidermist's uncompromising world.

Beatrice & Virgil gradually grows into something more, a shattering and ultimately transfixing work that asks searching questions about the nature of our understanding of history, the meaning of suffering and the value of art. As we are drawn deeper into their disturbing moral fable, the relationship between the two faltering writers named Henry becomes more and more complex until it can only be resolved in an explosive, unexpected catastrophe.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781400069262
ISBN 10	1400069262
Title	Beatrice and Virgil
Author	Yann Martel
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Spiegel & Grau
Year published	2010-04-13
Number of pages	197
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.