Back in 2002 Yann Martel shot to international literary fame when he won the Man Booker Prize for his second novel, The Life of Pi. Following this it became an international bestseller, and in the release of his new book Beatrice & Virgil Martel he’s managed to continues his animal entwined storytelling.
Allegorical and centred around our understanding of the holocaust, Beatrice & Virgil focuses on the story of a novelist that receives a manuscript for a play from one of his readers, only to discover the main characters are based on a stuffed monkey called Virgil and donkey called Beatrice. Obviously.
However, I doubt that everything will be as it first appears, if The Life of Pi is anything to go on. With the concept of evil and our storytelling interpretation of it at the books heart, it’s likely to be layered with double meanings and hidden truths.
The big question is whether or not Yann Martel’s new novel is a nugget of class in itself or a piggy back ride on the success of the big tiger he created back in 2002. With only one other novel to his name other than The Life of Pi, Beatrice and Virgil could be either the making or the breaking of the Canadian novelist. Hopefully it’ll be ace.
