May 28, 2011

Beatrice & Virgil



"Fiction and nonfiction are not so easily divided. Fiction may not be real, but it's true; it goes beyond the garland of facts to get to emotional and psychological truths. As for nonfiction, for history, it may be real, but its truth is slippery, hard to access, with no fixed meaning bolted to it. If history doesn't become story, it dies to everyone except the historian"
(Beatrice & Virgil by Yann Martel).

Maybe you read Life of Pi maybe you didn't.

If you did read it please do not, unlike general tendency, make preconceived opinions about Beatrice & Virgil.

This work of fiction (non-fiction - hmmm?) is nothing short of a heartbreaking work of art. An original and engrossing view of the holocaust told through the eyes of two characters in a play - a donkey and a howler monkey, clinging to "empty happiness" and friendship in a time of sheer horror. The play, written by a taxidermist while he is coached by a professional writer, is a work of historical ingenuity written within the larger context of a modern setting.

Beatrice & Virgil tears at your heart and keeps a piece for its own. A tax paid by the reader for a rare and original glimpse into a world we should never forget rests in our past. Do not assume you can read this book, coming in at less than 200 pages, without forever being changed by what lies within.

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