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3.35 AVERAGE
3.35 AVERAGE
A bit pompous at times, though I can't tell if it's just the characters or the author himself. I'd give 3.5 stars if I could.
I am honestly unsure of how to feel about this book. While it wasn't a disappointment, it did leave something to be desired in the overall message of the story. Martel weaves a surrealist portrait of grief through three snapshots of loss, each decades apart, intertwined by their connections to a small Portuguese village. The first story, regarding the strange, grief-driven behavior of a widower named Tomas, sets the tone as almost a comedy of errors, while the following two stories slow the pace to an almost sluggish reflection on the nature of grief, humanity, and solitude. While the tenuous connections between the three separate stories are not nearly as fleshed out as they could be, Martel's language itself is enchanting, with rich descriptions of the Portuguese scenery carrying the story. Overall, while I think this story could flourish even more with a second or third reading, the magical realism of Martel's story overcomes the message behind his works, and the themes regarding humanity vs. animalism are lost in the messiness of the plot and the lack of conclusions.
I really liked life of pie, but I was a bit skeptical when I first read is description of this book, but I decided to give it a go.
Well it's a big fat DNF, omg I was dying of boredom, and that was just part one, I couldn't subject myself to finishing it, so I'm giving up on it, hence the one star rating.
Well it's a big fat DNF, omg I was dying of boredom, and that was just part one, I couldn't subject myself to finishing it, so I'm giving up on it, hence the one star rating.
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
The story meandered a bit too much and didn’t have much plot although things happened. It is not an overall memorable book but was pleasant enough to read, if a little odd.
This was such a slog for me. Likely because metaphors and allegories often fly right over my head. I really enjoyed the Life of Pi - likely because I found the story really interesting. This story wasn’t very interesting. I’m hoping that the story will make a bit more sense once I read some of the interpretations of it.
(3.8): "grief is a disease."
i thought i would hate this. i started out hating this, in fact. magical realism has never been my cup of tea. it always feels like a fevered dream, the kind you come out feeling disoriented and confused, the ground shifting beneath your feet, and the air around you cotton and smog all at once. but this is the kind of fevered dream i could get lost in: over-blown sunshine, green for miles on end, the vivid descriptions of nature, snatching the solidity from around me and in its place comes the high mountains of portugal. like all things abstract, you don't have to understand it. at the heart of this book is a seed of grief that bursts into life like foliage. that i can take that image away with me is all i need. from dust to dust, ash to ashes. homeless, homeward, home.
"we are risen apes, not fallen angels." I think this sentence will be one of my favorite for the rest of my life.
Chimpanzee is the main element of the book which is divided in to 3 main sections. The three main sections tells us the story of three different times where three different people live with some or the other loss in life.
Part-1 was about Tomas who is grieving the loss of his wife and son and goes on to a journey to High mountains of Portugal in search of a very old antique crucifix (which is actually a chimp!).
Part-2 tells a story of a Pathologist Mr.Lozora who also lost his wife and hallucinates about her coming and visiting her. Both are mad about Agatha Christie! He too finds a chimp in the body of a Man from High mountains of Portugal.
Part-3 is about a senator Pete Tovy and his love for a Chimp Odo. And he decides to sell everything and live with the chimp in High mountains of Portugal.
I am still in doubt with the spiritual side of the book , maybe even Yann Martel is too. Everywhere there is a inclination of faith in a superpower and also a joke on it. This book is somewhere in between on Spiritual aspect.
Yann Martel has always taken up animals in his books and he IS really good at it. I would say that this book is wise , sad, tranquil, a mixture of magical realism where author touches many aspects of life and do not conlcude or give opinion on any of it.
Chimpanzee is the main element of the book which is divided in to 3 main sections. The three main sections tells us the story of three different times where three different people live with some or the other loss in life.
Part-1 was about Tomas who is grieving the loss of his wife and son and goes on to a journey to High mountains of Portugal in search of a very old antique crucifix (which is actually a chimp!).
Part-2 tells a story of a Pathologist Mr.Lozora who also lost his wife and hallucinates about her coming and visiting her. Both are mad about Agatha Christie! He too finds a chimp in the body of a Man from High mountains of Portugal.
Part-3 is about a senator Pete Tovy and his love for a Chimp Odo. And he decides to sell everything and live with the chimp in High mountains of Portugal.
I am still in doubt with the spiritual side of the book , maybe even Yann Martel is too. Everywhere there is a inclination of faith in a superpower and also a joke on it. This book is somewhere in between on Spiritual aspect.
Yann Martel has always taken up animals in his books and he IS really good at it. I would say that this book is wise , sad, tranquil, a mixture of magical realism where author touches many aspects of life and do not conlcude or give opinion on any of it.
Martel, who wrote the Booker-winning "Life of Pi", is back with an animal allegory of sorts, a device he uses in "Pi", and the equally captivating "Beatrice and Virgil". But whereas those two books moved me to tears, with their distillation of human nature, this one went right over my head.
Divided into three parts, with a male focaliser in each, the story moves from Lisbon in the early twentieth century, then thirty years later in a hospital in the city, to modern-day Canada which starts the third part, and finally back up to Portugal. All three focalisers have suffered familial losses, and each deal with it in different but connected ways. Tomas copes with his loss by adopting a strange gait, which I couldn't help but feel was too obvious a metaphor which is explained by Tomas himself quite early on as an objection to God, and belaboured throughout his quest for a holy relic which he hopes to make good his protest.
The second part that features pathologist Eusebio is more engaging with the psycho-religious discussion with his wife on the parallels between Agatha Christie's mysteries and the bible. The magic-realism of the latter part of the story also shows Martel's creative imagination in full force.
By the time the third part came round, with the promised linkup of the threads of the disparate narratives, I expected a denouement no less mind-blowing than the one in "Pi". Alas, I felt frustratedly underwhelmed, and the feeling puzzled me. Martel's writing was no less luminous than that seen in his previous works, and his ability to inhabit the moment that gives no inkling of the very next thing that is about to happen still gave me quite a few page-turning moments. He also has a naturist's sensitivity to the psyche of animals that is conveyed in scintillating prose. However, I just could not get at the larger picture that he seems to be hinting at, and in the end, the opacity just stumped me. Maybe I need to re-read this to get its hidden message, but I'm half afraid to find out that this was all there is in the first place.
Divided into three parts, with a male focaliser in each, the story moves from Lisbon in the early twentieth century, then thirty years later in a hospital in the city, to modern-day Canada which starts the third part, and finally back up to Portugal. All three focalisers have suffered familial losses, and each deal with it in different but connected ways. Tomas copes with his loss by adopting a strange gait, which I couldn't help but feel was too obvious a metaphor which is explained by Tomas himself quite early on as an objection to God, and belaboured throughout his quest for a holy relic which he hopes to make good his protest.
The second part that features pathologist Eusebio is more engaging with the psycho-religious discussion with his wife on the parallels between Agatha Christie's mysteries and the bible. The magic-realism of the latter part of the story also shows Martel's creative imagination in full force.
By the time the third part came round, with the promised linkup of the threads of the disparate narratives, I expected a denouement no less mind-blowing than the one in "Pi". Alas, I felt frustratedly underwhelmed, and the feeling puzzled me. Martel's writing was no less luminous than that seen in his previous works, and his ability to inhabit the moment that gives no inkling of the very next thing that is about to happen still gave me quite a few page-turning moments. He also has a naturist's sensitivity to the psyche of animals that is conveyed in scintillating prose. However, I just could not get at the larger picture that he seems to be hinting at, and in the end, the opacity just stumped me. Maybe I need to re-read this to get its hidden message, but I'm half afraid to find out that this was all there is in the first place.