See Joe’s blog for a full article, which appeared in Publisher’s Weekly, and the great variety of comments. Karl will be at Lemuria on May 12th.
Page 209 of 257
“The impulse to draw is as natural as the impulse to talk. As a rule, we learn to talk through a simple process of practice, making plenty of mistakes when we are two and three and four years old — but without this first effort at understanding and talking it would be foolish to attempt to study grammar or composition. It is this vital preparation, this first mouthing of words which mean actual things, that parallels the effort a student should make during the first years of his art study.
There is only one right way to learn to draw and that is the perfectly natural way. It has nothing to do with artifice or technique. It has nothing to do with aesthetics or conception. It has only to do with the act of correct observation, and by that I mean a physical contact with all sorts of objects through all the senses.”
…and that is just the beginning of the introduction. Nicolaides’ The Natural Way to Draw is one of my favorite books, of any sort, of all time. Holding guidance that can be repeated and repeated until they are ingrained into process. This book is not only useful for those who are crazy about learning to draw; it is a great read for anyone who enjoys investing themselves in their craft. Originally published in 1941, this book still stands as a solid benchmark in drawing instruction.
“The Limitation of Preconceived Ideas. In learning to draw, it is necessary to start back of the limitations that casual information sets upon you. Preconceived ideas about things with which you have no real experience have a tendency to defeat the acquiring of real knowledge.”
How money is that? These statements are written with the clear purpose of teaching you how to draw. Those deep implications that are swimming around in your head after reading are just a byproduct of being true…in that deep, philosophical sort of way.
In the eighties there was another book that came along and blew away the drafting world: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. When I was a sophomore in college I was talking to my roommate who was an art major; and I expressed how it would be cool if I could draw. His response was perfect: So Learn. He explained that anybody who is not legally blind and has decent control over their motor-skills can learn to draw. I didn’t believe him. He told me to get Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and a week later I realized he was right after I went from the drawing level of a five year old to a place I thought impossible when I started. So I kept drawing. This book is a nice practical guide to getting started, giving exercises and breaking down very well the process of drawing. Nicolaides takes you the rest of the way.
-John P.
I was looking at the calendar and realized that I had three blogs to do before Mother’s Day (Sunday, May 9) so I thought why not do some suggestions for “Yer Momma ‘n Dem”!! These book suggestions hopefully will be a big hit with someone’s mom, grandmother and/or wife out there….
Savannah Style by Paula Deen and Brandon Branch
With its lush gardens, stately town houses, and sprawling plantations, Savannah is the epitome of old Southern style, and who better to give you the grand tour than Paula Deen, the city’s most famous resident and anointed Queen of Southern Cuisine?
In this gorgeous, richly illustrated book, Paula Deen shares a full year of Southern living. Whether it’s time to put out your best china and make a real fuss, or you’re just gathering for some sweet tea on the porch at dusk, Savannah style is about making folks feel welcome in your home. With the help of decorator and stylist Brandon Branch, you’ll learn how to bring a bit of Southern charm into homes from Minnesota to Mississippi. For each season, there are tips on decorating and entertaining. In the spring, you’ll learn how to make the most of your outdoor spaces, spruce up your porch, and make your garden inviting. In the summer, things get more casual with a dock party. Sleeping spaces, including, of course, the sleeping porch, are the focal point of this chapter. In the fall, cooler weather brings a return to more formal entertaining in the dining room, and in the winter, attention returns to the hearth, as Paula and her neighbors put out their best silver and show you how they celebrate the holidays.
Paula loves getting a peek at her neighbors’ parlors, so she’s included photographs of some of Savannah’s grandest homes. From the vast grounds of Lebanon Plantation to the whimsically restored cottages on Tybee Island, you’ll see the unique blend of old-world elegance and laid-back hospitality that charmed Paula the moment she arrived from Albany, Georgia, with nothing but two hundred dollars and a pair of mouths to feed. And she isn’t shy about giving you a window into her own world, either. From her farmhouse kitchen to her luxurious powder room, you’ll see how Paula lives when she’s not in front of the camera.
Packed with advice and nostalgia, Paula Deen’s Savannah Style makes it easy to bring gracious Southern living to homes north and south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Roses by Leila Meacham
East Texas, 1916 When precocious 16-year-old Mary Toliver inherits cotton plantation Somerset from her father, the first seeds of familial discontent are sown. By becoming the new mistress of Somerset, Mary betrays her mother Darla and her brother Miles, and the Toliver dynasty will never recover. And when Mary and timber magnate Percy Warwick decide not to marry, though fiercely in love, it is a decision which will have sad and tragic consequences not only for them but for generations of their families to come. Set against a panoramic backdrop, Roses is a heartbreaking love story of sex, scandal and seduction. It covers 100 years and three generations of Texans.
In the Green Kitchen by Alice Waters
Alice Waters has been a champion of the sustainable, local cooking movement for decades. To Alice, good food is a right, not a privilege. In the Green Kitchen presents her essential cooking techniques to be learned by heart plus more than 50 recipes—for delicious fresh, local, and seasonal meals—from Alice and her friends. She demystifies the basics including steaming a vegetable, dressing a salad, simmering stock, filleting a fish, roasting a chicken, and making bread. An indispensable cookbook, she gives you everything you need to bring out the truest flavor that the best ingredients of the season have to offer.
Contributors: Darina Allen, Dan Barber, Lidia Bastianich, Rick Bayless, Paul Bertolli, David Chang, Traci Des Jardins, Angelo Garro, Joyce Goldstein, Tanya Holland, Thomas Keller, Niloufer Ichaporia King, Peggy Knicherbocker, Jim Lahey, Deborah Madison, Clodagh McKenna, Jean-Pierre Moulle, Joan Nathan, Scott Peacock, Cal Peternell, Gilbert Pilgram, Claire Ptak, Oliver Rowe, Amaryll Schwertner, Fanny Singer, David Tanis, Bryant Terry and Anna Lappe, Poppy Tooker, Charlie Trotter, Jerome Waag, and Beth Wells.
17-year-old Haley McWaid is a good girl, the pride of her suburban New Jersey family, captain of the lacrosse team, headed off to college next year with all the hopes and dreams her doting parents can pin on her. Which is why, when her mother wakes one morning to find that Haley never came home the night before, and three months quickly pass without word from the girl, the community assumes the worst.
Wendy Tynes is a reporter on a mission, to identify and bring down sexual predators via elaborate—and nationally televised—sting operations. Working with local police on her news program Caught in the Act, Wendy and her team have publicly shamed dozens of men by the time she encounters her latest target. Dan Mercer is a social worker known as a friend to troubled teens, but his story soon becomes more complicated than Wendy could have imagined.
In a novel that challenges as much as it thrills, filled with the astonishing tension and unseen suburban machinations that have become Coben’s trademark, Caught tells the story of a missing girl, the community stunned by her loss, the predator who may have taken her, and the reporter who suddenly realizes she can’t trust her own instincts about this story—or the motives of the people around her.
In an effort to get more reading time I’ve asked my son to step it up around the house and do some yard work. I’ve blogged about what I’ve been reading here and then again two weeks ago here. Of the dozen or so books I’ve written about I’ve finished the Chang-rae Lee, The Male Brain, the Stewart O’Nan book, Matterhorn, several Harlan Coben books, the Brad Watson book, a couple more Lee Child books, and the parenting book about raising boys. I was planning to complain about not getting to read enough but… Anyway, I’ve not been able to even crack the Ian McEwan or the gifted child book although I plan on starting that one tonight. I think I feel like I’m not getting to read enough because I’ve reached one of those ebbs where I was trying so hard to finish a couple of things that I was really committed to that now I feel like I’m not sure where to start next. Here are a few things I’m thinking about getting into:
Morkan’s Quarry by Steve Yates
This is the first novel by a really good friend of mine and of the store. Steve works for the University Press of Mississippi, but most of all he’s a really great guy and really fun to talk with about books. I respect his opinion and am really looking forward to digging into this – I’ve read the first couple of pages, but have been waiting until the signing was a little closer. Plus I’ve been reading on Matterhorn every night for a month.
Sailor & Lula: The Complete Novels by Barry Gifford
I’ve read the first Novel, Wild at Heart, and didn’t realize that I’m a fool if I don’t keep reading. I’ve met Barry a couple of times and he’s truly a treat to get to hang out with – he’s somehow like hanging out with a beat writer, a historian, and your best buddy all at the same time. He’s always read something that you want to read or hung out with someone you wish you could. But more importantly he’s a really good writer which is what we’re looking for isn’t it?
This is supposed to be the big hot book at the end of the summer. It’s published by Knopf and edited by Gary Fisketjon. The author, Adam Ross, is coming to Lemuria the week after the book comes out. It may very well be our July First Editions Club pick, but I’ve got to read it first. It looks really good, violence, love, and death, but I guess we’ll find out – more on that later.
I really enjoyed A Death in Belmont, it’s hard to believe that was four years ago. I felt like I would probably read this book about Junger being embedded as a journalist in Afghanistan, but when I read his review of Matterhorn in the Times I knew that I would read Junger’s book. After reading his review I’ll probably never talk about Matterhorn without referencing Junger.
This is where I am on my Lee Child reading project – it’s his fifth book. I’m almost done and will start Without Fail in the next couple of days. It looks like a really good one – Jack Reacher is the man.
by Kelly Pickerill
This year’s Pulitzer prizes were awarded today! Congrats to the winners!
Tinkers by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press) won for fiction; the judges called it “a powerful celebration of life in which a New England father and son, through suffering and joy, transcend their imprisoning lives and offer new ways of perceiving the world and mortality.”
Definitely a surprise win, Harding’s novel was published by a small, non-profit publisher affiliated with the NYU School of Medicine. It originally sold 15,000 copies. It’s now in paperback, but Bellevue plans on reprinting the hardcover.
The last time a small publisher’s book won the Pulitzer for fiction was in 1981, when Louisiana University Press’s A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole won.
For history, the winner was Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed (Penguin).
In the Sunday NYT Book Review, Joe Nocera reviewed Ahamed’s book about the four bankers who effectively triggered the Great Depression but ultimately transformed the United States into the powerful financial leader it is today, calling it “a grand, sweeping narrative of immense scope and power, describing a world that long ago receded from memory: the West after World War I, a time of economic fragility, of bubbles followed by busts and of a cascading series of events that led to the Great Depression.”
For biography, the winner was a book that’s been on my radar for some time now, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles (Knopf). I’ve always been fascinated by Vanderbilt’s life, how in a pre-financial-regulation America he made the rules up as he went along, ending up one of the richest, most influential men of the 19th century.
The Pulitzer judges called Stiles’s book “a penetrating portrait of a complex, self-made titan who revolutionized transportation, amassed vast wealth and shaped the economic world in ways still felt today” (Pulitzer.org).
The winner for poetry was Versed by Rae Armantrout (Wesleyan University Press).
I’d never read any of Armantrout’s poems before today, but after picking up a copy of Versed and reading a poem here and there I have to say I really like it. I went through an E. E. Cummings-obsessed phase in early high school — I loved the way his poems were a physical picture of their content. Armantrout’s poetry affects me in a similar way — her imagery is furthered by the style of her poems, which are by turns whimsically simple and existentially weighty.
And for general nonfiction, the winner was The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy by David E. Hoffman (Doubleday).
“In the first full account of how the arms race finally ended, The Dead Hand provides an unprecedented look at the inner motives and secret decisions of each side. Drawing on top-secret documents from deep inside the Kremlin, memoirs, and interviews in both Russia and the United States, David E. Hoffman introduces the scientists, soldiers, diplomats, and spies who saw the world sliding toward disaster and tells the gripping story of how Reagan, Gorbachev, and many others struggled to bring the madness to an end. When the Soviet Union dissolved, the danger continued, and the United States began a race against time to keep nuclear and biological weapons out of the hands of terrorists and rogue states” (thedeadhandbook.com).
When you love an author, such as the middle grade author Kate DiCamillo, you read all there is and then often have no idea where to go after that. For those of you who have no idea who I am talking about, Kate DiCamillo is the author of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, The Tale of Despereaux, and her most recent, The Magician’s Elephant. Well, here are two books that I have read recently that I think would be the perfect diversion until Ms. DiCamillo gives us her next book:
The Song of the Whales by Uri Orlev – On beginning this book, I was a bit off put by the main character, Michael, who doesn’t want to play with kids his own age and often spends his time with adults who live in his building. He has just been told that his family is moving to Israel to be with his father’s father during his last time on earth. Michael is worried to begin with, but once he gets to know his grandfather, he realizes he has found an amazing new friend. Michael’s grandfather has a secret, though, a secret that will bring them even closer together: He can take people into his dreams. Michael and his grandfather begin dreaming together almost every night and though life goes on, the relationship that Michael and his grandfather nurture is the most poignant part of the novel. I thoroughly enjoyed this little novel! grades 3rd-6th.
A Nest for Celeste by Henry Cole – This story was adorable. The illustrations were very cute and the 
story had substance as well as history. Celeste is just a little mouse, but she goes on big adventures. She meets Joseph, Mr. Audubon’s helper, who paints the backgrounds for Mr. Audubon’s bird paintings. She escapes from the cat, gets blown away by a storm, goes flying with an osprey, and stands up to Trixie the rat. An endearing story that will be with me for quite some time. Grade: 2nd-5th.
“Let us not take for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than is what is commonly thought small.” – Virginia Woolf
if you’ve never before explored Schott’s Original Miscellany, i highly suggest you do. it’s everything you could ever need to know and even more of what you don’t. simply put it’s awesome.
Golf Stroke Nomenclature
Double Bogey…..+2
Bogey…..+1
Par…..0
-1…..Birdie
-2…..Eagle
-3…..Albatross, Double Eagle
Nouns of Assemblage
a malapertness of peddlers, a spring of teals, a gang of elk, a murmuration of starlings, a suit of sails, a wilderness of monkeys, a doping of sheldrake, a clutch of eggs, a coven of witches, a staff of servants, a field of runners, a sheaf of arrows, a chattering of choughs, a cete of badgers, a bench of bishops, a murder of crows, a bundle of rags, a barren of mules, a pontification of priests, a rag of colts, a walk of snipe, an exaltration of larks, a muster of peacocks, a desert of lapwing, a drift of swine, a stud of mares, a parliament of rooks & owls, a glozing of taverners, a covey of ptarmigan, a business of ferrets, a drunkship of cobblers, a sounder of wild boar, a nye of pheasants, a fall of woodcock, a sege of herons, a herd of curlews
Sneezing
If you sneeze on Monday, you sneeze for danger;
Sneeze on Tuesday, kiss a stranger;
Sneeze on Wednesday, sneeze for a letter;
Sneeze on Thursday, something better;
Sneeze on Friday, sneeze for sorrow;
Sneeze on Saturday, see your sweetheart tomorrow.
Birthstones
January…..Garnet
February…..Amethyst
March…..Bloodstone
April…..Diamond
May…..Emerald
June…..Pearl, Alexandrite
July…..Ruby
August…..Sardonyx, Agate
September…..Sapphire
October…..Opal
November…..Topaz
December…..Turquoise
and it just goes on and on and on…
by Zita
Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
by Seth Godin
Portfolio (2010)
Linchpin is about what the future of work looks like. As you read the book you realize it’s already happening. There are those people around you who have decided that a new kind of work is important and are retraining themselves to do it. These are workers who want to do something that matters. I have tried to extract some of the main points Godin makes in Linchpin.
Linchpins leverage something internal and external to create a positive value. There are no longer any great jobs where someone tells you precisely what to do. Successful organizations are paying people who make a difference: A group of well-organized linchpins working in concert to create value.
A linchpin brings passion and energy to the organization, resulting in getting the job done that’s not being done. This is essential. “Not my job” is not in their vocabulary. Being pretty good is extremely easy; Just meeting expectations is not remarkable.
A linchpin has a skill, not a gift. Linchpins are made, not born, by making internal choices, not being controlled by external factors, using self-determination and hard work. Almost any job can be humanized with mindful awareness.
Linchpins solve problems that people haven’t predicted, haven’t seen and connect people who need to be connected.
Work is a chance to do art. Your art is what you do when no one else can tell you how to do it. It is the art of taking responsibility, challenging the status quo and changing people.
Emotional labor is the task of doing important work even when it’s not easy. Not willing to do emotional labor is a short term strategy.
Linchpins know the rules but break them. Successful people are successful for one simple reason. They think about failure differently. It is essential to learn directly and correctly from your mistakes.
Our system is broken. Being a linchpin is about making a difference, standing for something and earning respect and security you deserve. Work should be fun and it is not something you can fake.
Linchpin: noun: a locking pin inserted clockwise (as through the end of an axle)
I got this email from the American Booksellers Association this morning and I thought I would share it with you!! Independent Bookstores across the country voted on their favorite books and these are the results. I am pleased with them all and know you will be also!! Of course, we are so excited for Kathrine Stockett!!
The American Booksellers Association today announces the winners of the 2010 Indies Choice Book Awards, reflecting the spirit of independent bookstores nationwide and the IndieBound movement.
This year’s winners were chosen by the owners and staff at ABA member stores nationwide in more than four weeks of voting. Book of the Year winners and Honor Award recipients are all titles appearing on the 2009 Indie Next Lists.
The 2010 Book of the Year winners are:
- Adult Fiction: Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese (Knopf)
- Adult Nonfiction: The Lost City of Z, by David Grann (Doubleday)
- Adult Debut: The Help, by Kathryn Stockett (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam)
- Young Adult: Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
- Middle Reader: When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead (Wendy Lamb Books)
- New Picture Book: The Lion and the Mouse, by Jerry Pinkney (Little, Brown)
Kate DiCamillo was voted Most Engaging Author both for being an in-store star and for having a strong sense of the importance of indie booksellers to their local communities.
ABA members also inducted three of their all-time favorites into the Indies Choice Book Awards Picture Book Hall of Fame:
- Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day, by Judith Viorst and Ray Cruz (Atheneum)
- Madeline, by Ludwig Bemelmans (Viking)
- The Story of Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson (Viking)
“Our sincere congratulations go out to all of the 2010 winners,” said ABA CEO Oren Teicher. “Every one of these authors has created a truly unique work that independent booksellers have enthusiastically supported and enjoyed handselling during the past year. We look forward to honoring each of them at the Celebration of Bookselling Lunch at BEA.”
Five Honor Award recipients were also named in each category, except Picture Book Hall of Fame.
Adult Fiction Honor Award recipients:
- Border Songs, by Jim Lynch (Knopf)
- Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin (Scribner)
- The Children’s Book, by A.S. Byatt (Knopf)
- Generosity: An Enhancement, by Richard Powers (FSG)
- Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel (Holt)
Adult Nonfiction Honor Award recipients:
- Animals Make Us Human, by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
- Lit: A Memoir, by Mary Karr (HarperCollins)
- Stitches: A Memoir, by David Small (W.W. Norton)
- Strength in What Remains, by Tracy Kidder (Random House)
- When Everything Changed, by Gail Collins (Little, Brown)
Adult Debut Honor Award recipients:
- The Earth Hums in B Flat, by Mari Strachan (Canongate)
- The Piano Teacher, by Y.K. Lee (Viking)
- The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, by Reif Larson (Penguin Press)
- Still Alice, by Lisa Genova (Pocket)
- Tinkers, by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press)
Young Adult Honor Award recipients:
- Going Bovine, by Libba Bray (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)
- If I Stay, by Gayle Forman (Dutton Juvenile)
- Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld, Keith Thompson (illus.) (Simon Pulse)
- Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic)
- Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson (Viking Juvenile)
Middle Reader Honor Award recipients:
- Al Capone Shines My Shoes, by Gennifer Choldenko (Dial)
- The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly (Holt)
- Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)
- A Season of Gifts, by Richard Peck (Dial)
- Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin (Little, Brown)
New Picture Book Honor Award recipients:
- All the World, by Liz Garton Scanlon, Maria Frazee (illus.) (Beach Lane Books)
- The Curious Garden, by Peter Brown (Little, Brown)
- Listen to the Wind, by Greg Mortenson, Susan Roth (illus.) (Dial)
- Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11, by Brian Floca (Richard Jackson Books)
- Otis, by Loren Long (Philomel)
Most Engaging Author Honor Award recipients:
- Isabel Allende
- Laurie Halse Anderson
- Libba Bray
- Michael Chabon
- Abraham Verghese
All of the Indies Choice Book Award winners and Honor Award recipients are being invited to the Celebration of Bookselling Lunch on Wednesday, May 26, at New York’s Javits Convention Center. The event is free and open exclusively to two booksellers from each ABA member store. Booksellers who would like to attend should register individually as soon as possible via an electronic reservation form on Bookweb.org. Questions regarding the lunch should be addressed to Mark Nichols, ABA industry relations officer, at mark@bookweb.org.
This is going to be a joint blog on Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil which is due to be released on Tuesday, April 13. I just asked Lisa if she was on board for doing something that has never been done on our blog: two staff members reviewing the same book without our knowing what each other is writing. So, here goes!
Nan:
I finished reading Beatrice and Virgil two nights ago and waked in the middle of the night thinking about it and could not go back to sleep for quite some time. This is a very, very, very complex novel. I am keeping my fingers crossed that Yann Martel might come to read from his new novel and sign for us someday, for I would have a multitude of questions for him. I regret that I could not be at the Lemuria signing for Life of Pi in late 2007.It is a huge regret I have, not being here for that reading.
So, how to begin this discussion alludes me, but I guess I’ll just jump in. Beatrice and Virgil is an allegory. And yes, there are animals who talk, specifically the donkey, Beatrice, and the monkey, Virgil. It is correct at this point to think of Dante, if you are, but to think of Hell in a different physical light. We all know that “living in Hell” , or having lived in Hell takes various forms. Having just read Robert Olen Butler’s Hell a few months ago, Beatrice was still on my mind!
Within this novel, however, the narrator, named Henry, meets Beatrice and Virgil at a weird taxidermist’s studio. The donkey and the monkey are “stuffed” naturally, being in this studio. The taxidermist has written a play about Beatrice and Virgil and has enticed the narrator, who is a famous author, coincidentally aligned with Yann Martel the author, himself, to help with a specific question that has occurred during the writing of the taxidermist’s play. Simultaneously, the reader is aware of the parallel story occurring in the narrator’s career, the particular occurrence of writer’s block mixed with severe questions by his publicists and reviewers who have read his new manuscript or galley of his proposed next book. The narrator and author Henry does not realize why these readers do not “get” it! In fact, they keep asking, “What is this story about?” Juxtaposed with this idea, is Henry’s inability to determine what the taxidermist’s point is in his play about a speaking donkey and a speaking, loyal monkey whose disturbing, painful to hear howls halt all life in the forest. In fact, the taxidermist has recorded these howls from “real” howler monkeys in the forest which are as equally disturbing for Henry to hear. Have I said yet that the symbolism is abundant in this novel?
Does Henry have another life and why is he spending so much time with the taxidermist? This is the question which starts plaguing the reader who has been informed that yes, Henry, does, in fact, have another life, one which is rich and full with a wife, a baby on the way, a winsome dog and cat and a very successful career as a writer. But, Henry has been hit at the core: his publicist does not “understand” his new manuscript. The taxidermist, who becomes more and more mysterious, never giving his real name, appears distant, rude, and sinister. Yet, Henry continues to go back to his studio to be read to. Why does the taxidermist insist on reading his play out loud instead of Henry being able to read it while holding it in his own hands? Why does Henry have to sit on a stool, like a dutiful school boy, being read to? What is up with all of this? And, in the midst of all of this “action” , which is indeed very little, throw in allusions to the Holocaust sprinkled throughout.
I’m going to take a stand and tell you, faithful reader, up front that this is a novel driven by thematic implications! Remember, who Virgil and Beatrice are! Remember that evil takes many forms, alluring, disturbing, cunning! Remember that we as human beings can often overlook “evil” when it appeals to our own interests, such as two writers getting together to discuss one another’s writing. (I forgot to mention that the taxidermist had already read Henry’s first book about animals.) Illusions persuade in most questionable and mysterious ways in this unforgettable puzzling novel. Yann Martel won the Man Booker for Life of Pi. Could he be nominated for even win the National Book Award for this novel? Maybe!
Lisa:
I was not a huge fan of Life of Pi. Although I enjoyed reading Pi in a general way, I was disappointed that Martel did not expand on some of themes more thoroughly. I found myself pulled in more deeply to his new book Beatrice and Virgil.
The theme of the relationship between author and reader, both of whom are named Henry, appealed to me the most and this sets up the basic structure of the novel. Henry is a successful novelist and has just pitched his latest work to his publisher. They are not so excited about his idea to bind a fiction and nonfiction work into the same book. The reader really gets a feel for these relationships in the book world: writer to publisher to reader.
The other Henry is a reader of the author Henry. Henry the reader has sent the author a letter requesting his help, with what the letter does not say. He also has sent a copy of part of a play and a short story by Flaubert. The author Henry eventually ends up on the reader’s doorstep as they live in the same town. The reader Henry owns and runs a taxidermy business. As in Life of Pi, animals play significant roles in Martel’s work. I believe it is Martel and Henry the author who both believe that animals have the capacity to deal with heavy themes often better than human characters. Which leads me to another significant part of the novel: Beatrice and Virgil. Eventually, you, the reader, are introduced to them in a play, written by Henry the reader. They also happen to be animals of taxidermy in Henry’s shop.
This book is really a difficult one to write about because it is operating on so many different levels. Also, it was a shocking book to me, one that takes a while to settle, for me to figure out what I think about it. And believe me, there is a forceful coming together of questions and actions until the very last page. Martel puts a lot on the reader. Beatrice and Virgil will make for great discussion.
Let me see if I can sum up with the different levels: the relationship between author and reader; the art and choice of the written genre; how to discuss horrific events such as the holocaust; and I also think there is the consideration of how people deal with actions of horror. Other more abstract considerations as noted on the back cover of Beatrice and Virgil: questions of life and art, truth and deception, responsibility and complicity. I read this before starting the book and didn’t take it very seriously. Martel takes these questions very seriously.
-Nan