"An allegory of the Holocaust involving a writer and a taxidermist. Original, if flawed and somewhat self-indulgent, therefore disliked by many professional critics. I appreciated what he was trying to do and enjoyed it and recommend it despite all that. (When in doubt, borrow from your public library first).
appreciated for the important work that it is.'"
Thank you for the feedback, Sandra. I tend to agree. I think the most important thing about this book is that it encourages discussion. Never a bad thing. I personally would have preferred that the taxidermist had had no direct connection with what went on there and that Martel had kept the question to: Is it okay to use the Holocaust as a metaphor? because I think that’s the more important question here, how our perspective has changed over the years, and I think he muddied his own waters a little by how he chose to wrap things up (which I didn’t talk about in the review even though I was dying to). But, yes, a thought-provoking book.
Martel has always seemed to me to be an accidental success (rather like this character Henry). His writing style is incredibly heavy-handed and obvious; it just clunks along telling you things you're supposed to know. I never finished "The Life of Pi," which after awhile just felt like reading children's alphabet blocks.
Sure, we can agree that it's a matter of taste in style, that his writing style is just one choice among many. But Martel keeps defending his style as intentional when it just reads as inept. Is it intentionally inept? Martel himself, by defending his style in public, opens the door to the criticisms that have been made of his style. It seems a naive and amateurish move. But he keeps making that same move.
Martel seems to think that art's purpose is to be didactic, to teach, to raise questions. I'm not convinced of that by his arguments. This is not to say that all didactic fiction is bad, just that this is ham-fisted didactic fiction, and that Martel's justifications for it are unconvincing. I wonder if Martel ever wrote something just for the pleasure of writing, that didn't have a didactic purpose. If so, I've never seen it.
That the book is about something doesn't excuse it being poorly executed: in other words, it's the classic beginner's mistake of thinking that if the subject matter is important enough then it's okay if the writing is poor. That's the same mistake a lot of political (politicized) poetry and fiction often makes. That being thought-provoking excuses bad writing.
Good writing might have framed the didactic points even better. And so we arrive at the aspect of Martel's ham-fisted style I find most problematic: Time after time he sets up what could be a beautiful metaphor, a lovely analogy—but then he has to explain it, he has to tell us what it is, he has to demystify it. (This was the biggest flaw in "Pi.") As if the reader was too stupid to understand the beautiful metaphor, here let me explain it to you. That's the difference between an effective didactic style (like in "Maus") vs. an ineffective style (like in "Pi"): the lovely metaphor gets turned into a dull lecture. That's another beginner's mistake that Martel not only keeps making, but he keeps defending it too. Again, is he being intentionally sophomoric, intentionally inept? Is this all a game he's playing?
And since Martel himself effectively paraphrases the purpose and content of the book in a paragraph or less, I feel no need to go read the book itself.
I remember a bobby telling me and my class (think I was eight) that horses can't vomit. They brought this huge poppo in for us to pat. Scared the bug eyes out of me as, a short time previously, a foal left by the gypsies in the field by our house chewed my sleeve (my gran had knitted that cardi) and I thought it was going to eat me. I ran and cleared a six foot fence.
I'd like very much to read this book.
An excellent review. You cover so much and are so thorough that I can't help wondering as I'm reading your reviews if you have other outlets for them besides your blog. Are they published somewhere else?
I wrote a response to a letter to the editor once because a man had referred to a bird having a bowel movement. It was a Mormon-owned newspaper so he couldn't say the other expression. I wrote in, "Ha. Birds don't have bowel movements. They "vent" from their cloaca." My high school self felt so indignant and righteous.
I’m wondering, Art, if Mantel is not a bit like Mitch Albom, another of those love-‘em-or-loathe-‘em writers who writes in a simplistic style. As I said I’ve not read Life of Pi and so I’ve judged this new book based purely on its own merits. I don’t think he succeeds in his goals. I’d love to say that it’s a flawed masterpiece but it’s not a masterpiece. What it was for me was interesting. It made me think and in that regard I didn’t feel like I’d been cheated at the end. I think he botched the ending but since I’ve decided not to reveal all in this review that’s all I’m going to say here.
I agree that he does feel a need to state the obvious. As soon as I read “striped shirt” I knew what he was on about. But the question for me was whether he succeeded in using the Holocaust as a metaphor and I don’t think he did. Too many people still think the book is about the Holocaust that our understanding of the Holocaust is deepened by what we see the two animals go through when it should be the other way round. It works in expressions like the ‘Rwandan Holocaust’ because we’re using what happened to the Jews and others to come to terms with what happened to the Tutsi.
Whether the book succeeds as a whole there are interesting bits in it. If a copy comes your way I’d still check it out. At the speed you read it should only take you a couple of hours.
I did think the criticism about the donkey was missing the point, Rachel. An interesting fact in passing but I’d never have thought to check it. I’d be interested to hear what you thought of the book if you ever get found to reading it. So many books, so little time.
I think you’ve asked me this before, Kass. No, I don’t post my reviews anywhere else with the exception of the monthly review I do for Canongate for their World Tour. I post my review on their site and then eventually I repost it on my own. Sometimes the one on my site is an expanded review.
I was at a publishing talk recently, Jim, and there is a big drive at the moment to publish more accassible literary fiction - would explain the over egging you describe - basically because the market for high end lit fic is so small. Also, not all readers are as well read as you and many of your bloggers yet want to be - but wherre do they decide to begin their reading - how far back - to "get" the lit allusions?
I will definitely be getting this book but the reading pile is high and it may take me some time to get back with a response.
I guess I just can't believe you do this much work for no pay.
I suppose the real question here, Rachel, is: What decides if a text is literary or not? I guess the simplistic way of looking at it is that it’s the degree of style that’s employed. Mainstream fiction is concerned with telling a story, tying up loose ends. Literary fiction generally leaves more scope for the reader to contribute. I think calling literary fiction ‘serious’ does a disservice to all the other writers out there implying that they’re not serious about what they do.
So what is “accessible literary fiction”? Some sort of no man’s land between the two? I wonder if the simple answer is that it’s a regular novel that doesn’t fit into the popular categories of Romance, Horror, Crime, War and so on. I’m reading a book at the moment set in the Mesolithic Age but at the end of the day it’s still a story with a beginning, a middle and an end and the only different thing about it is that it uses multiple narrators. The language is straightforward but I suspect that it’s still just going to be ‘a story’ which is how I basically draw the line between ‘literary’ and ‘general’ fiction – if I finish a book and feel like I just read a story then I usually decide it’s not a work of literary fiction.
And I’m far from well read. Very far indeed. I’ve read probably less than 500 books in my whole life. Not that I’ve kept a list. Actually I did have a list in my twenties but I lost it.
And, Kass, I never went to university and, as I’ve just pointed out to Rachel, I’m not very well read. I’m too old to be jugged getting a degree. This is my degree. I’m educating myself. That’s the payoff. I’m improving as a writer and becoming more knowledgeable at the same time.
Even at the speed I read, though, there's a matter of choosing what to read, and what not to. There are some books that I just don't want to read. In some cases, such as this one, because that's two hours I'll never get back that I could have spent reading something I actually liked and wanted to read. There are other books that I don't want to read just because I can only read so many deep, dark, depressing novels about the fragmentation of postmodern daily life, filled with characters either adrift or bored or lost—which is what most literary fiction seems to be anymore. If there isn't an existential crisis, it's not a literary novel anymore. Not to mention that the vast majority of literary fiction is dominantly about urban angst, as opposed to small-town verities.
It makes one think of the great if hoary old joke: Q. Why did Ernest Hemingway's chicken cross the road? A. To die. Alone. In the rain.
I love that joke partly because it's a savage parody of Hemingway, whose short stories I actually do like re-reading; but also because it epitomizes a lot of literary fiction's attitude towards life anymore.
By contrast, yesterday I read a great John D. McDonald novel, one of the Travis McGee series of mysteries. The writing style in McDonald is so much better and more fun to read than almost anything being published today in mainstream literary fiction; I was transported, and the novel stayed with me the rest of the day. It was "The Turquoise Lament."
The difference, Art, is that I didn’t find I’d wasted my time on this book and it’s stayed with me for all its faults. I choose to believe that Mantel is sincere in what he does and that goes a long way with me. I’d be upset if I thought he was trying to put one over on me. It may well be though that he turns out to be a one hit wonder and I’m rather disappointed to see that he’s continuing with animals in his next book. He’s going to end up like M. Night Shyamalan if he’s not careful. He certainly doesn’t seem in a rush to churn out books to capitalise of the success of Life of Pi and I see that as a good thing.
As for whether contemporary literary fiction has backed itself into a corner and only deals with characters that are either adrift or bored or lost you’re probably right. The difference again is those books appeal to me. Hell, I’m trying to write one.
I’ve only read one book by Hemingway, a novel, which I wasn’t impressed with. I suspect the subject matter was a part of the problem but from what I’ve read about him I don’t think there’s much he’s likely to have written that I’d been too keen to read even if he did win the Nobel Prize.
I appreciate the in-depth review. And I'm glad to know the book is short, so good chance I'll read it (if I can get past the talking animals). I doubt I'd tackle a long one in which the Holocaust figures at all. Just can't go there again. I enjoyed Helsinki Roccamatios a lot, and Life of Pi is still high on my list of respected works... perhaps because I did make it to the end, which I thought was brilliant. I was tempted to stop, as Art did, but for different reasons. For me the biggest flaw was the sitcom-style dialogue in two key scenes.
As for Martel's didacticism, it's true it could be done better, but it could also be done so much worse. I see him tackling deep philosophy in entirely unpredictable ways, which I like. And, while I can also find stylish crime fiction ala McDonald much more "transporting," in the end it doesn't satisfy me because it doesn't serve anything I care about. I may be more like you, Jim, and choose flawed work that tackles important thought over perfect work that just aims too low for my taste.
As I said, Brent, I’ve not read Life of Pi, and I have mixed feelings now if I want to read it. The talking animals I could take or leave. It’s not something you see very often outside the world of cartoons – the film A Man and his Dog being a noteworthy exception. The fact that the author is a taxidermist makes it believable probably more so than Pi; this is a man who has only written one thing in his life – he is not a writer in the same was Henry is, not even an amateur – and so he has written about what he is familiar with. He has given the stuffed animals around him a voice. That I get. That he chose to use the Holocaust as a metaphor for what he wants to say on behalf of his animals is the contentious issue here. And this is where I think a lot of people have got the book back to front. The book is not about the Holocaust per se but the taxidermist uses to Holocaust to help us understand his message. That he has lived through the rise and fall of the Nazis is what muddies the waters for me. I’d rather he only knew about it as the rest of us do through the media.
Some of the dialogue in this book . . . the banter to be honest . . . could be straight out of a sitcom but then what is Waiting for Godot but an episode from a sitcom that goes on an infinitum?
I have no problems with didacticism. Writing doesn’t need to have a plot but it does need a point. If that point turns into a moral then I can live with that.
No offense to anyone, and the argument that "it could have been done better, but it could also have been done so much worse" is just not an argument that's ever going to make we want to read something. LOL It's an excuse for bad writing, and it still doesn't make me want to read the book.
I'm glad you didn't feel reading the book was a waste, and that you got something out of it. I think that's great. For me, though, Martel's track record doesn't put this new book even on the bottom of my list.
As for Hemingway, if you ever did decide to spend some time there, I'd recommend the short stories over the novels any day. They're much better, perhaps because they ARE shorter in form.
And if you think McDonald is aiming low in terms in literature, or literary quality, wow LOL, I can't tell if that's the usual anti-genre snobbery or just if you haven't read any McDonald. Calling is escapist lit is also dead off the mark. LOL For one thing, McDonald wrote "literary fiction" too.
Art, you're right, I haven't read McDonald. I love things like the way Paul Auster subverted the detective genre with The New York Trilogy. And Raymond Chandler was big for me when I was young. But now, I have to confess to genre snobbery. I actually don't like that trait and I have a sincere interest in recovering from it. So I would appreciate you saying a few words regarding what The Turquoise Lament is "about" -- beyond crime or plot. I'd like to try it.
No problem, Brent, but you might want to have a wee read of Art's latest post on his own site.
I enjoy reading the book review a lot and after reading this I can't wait to go and buy the book. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Essay Papers. I hope you're not disappointed.
Thanks for your review, I enjoyed it and the comments as well. I found you through the Blog Carnival.
Thanks Man of La Books for dropping by and also for following me. Always appreciated.
I loved Beatrice & Virgil and I really appreciated reading your thoughts too. Thanks.
And I appreciate you taking the time to drop a comment too, dbs. Hope to see you again.