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chanelearl 's review for:
Beatrice and Virgil
by Yann Martel
I wasn't in a good place to read this book. I may have liked it better 15 years ago. Even though the writing was excellent, especially the drama sections, it was just too violent and heartbreaking for me right now.
Update (one year later): First: a moment from another book. There is a scene in Slaughter-House 5, where a man is hurting an animal. In a book where tens of thousands of people are killed, there is a fairly graphic scene where a horse is mistreated, and I cried for the horse (maybe more than I did for the people). The Things They Carried had a similar scene with a water buffalo. Sometimes violence against animals feels different than violence against people. I think mostly because the animals are helpless to do anything about it.
So, Beatrice and Virgil is full to the brim with violence against animals. Martel uses this violence to help the reader understand the horrible violence of the holocaust (another time when victims of violence were helpless to stop it). And reading about animals being this cruelly treated nearly broke me. And then thinking about how people were also treated that way finished me off.
It is a powerful book. I can't imagine that Yann Martel is ignorant of the effect his book will have on people, and I'm guessing he knows many people won't like the helpless feelings that it can draw out. But I have read quite a few books about WW II and this may be the one that brought out the horrors better than any other.
Update (one year later): First: a moment from another book. There is a scene in Slaughter-House 5, where a man is hurting an animal. In a book where tens of thousands of people are killed, there is a fairly graphic scene where a horse is mistreated, and I cried for the horse (maybe more than I did for the people). The Things They Carried had a similar scene with a water buffalo. Sometimes violence against animals feels different than violence against people. I think mostly because the animals are helpless to do anything about it.
So, Beatrice and Virgil is full to the brim with violence against animals. Martel uses this violence to help the reader understand the horrible violence of the holocaust (another time when victims of violence were helpless to stop it). And reading about animals being this cruelly treated nearly broke me. And then thinking about how people were also treated that way finished me off.
It is a powerful book. I can't imagine that Yann Martel is ignorant of the effect his book will have on people, and I'm guessing he knows many people won't like the helpless feelings that it can draw out. But I have read quite a few books about WW II and this may be the one that brought out the horrors better than any other.