What about Beatrice and Virgil?

The top plant is good; bottom plant is not good - the plant critic.

--“Except for luminous moments, the book's language lacks luster, and the symbols positively crash.” Michael Autrey, special to The Oregonian.

--“Beatrice and Virgil is so dull, so misguided, so pretentious that only the prospect of those millions of Pi fans could secure the interest of major publishers and a multimillion-dollar advance.” Ron Charles, The Washington Post.

--“This novel just might be a masterpiece about the Holocaust…. somehow Martel brilliantly guides the reader from the too-sunny beginning into the terrifying darkness of the old man’s shop and Europe’s past. Everything comes into focus by the end, leaving the reader startled, astonished and moved.” Published in Deirdre Donahue, USA Today.

--“Extraordinary…. A novel that is ambiguous and inscrutable — but also provocative and brilliantly imagined.” Adam Woog, The Seattle Times.

What do you make of these four quotations from reviewers of Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil? Agnes and I just read it. We both loved Life of Pi and were looking forward to his latest book. Agnes asked me what I thought of Beatrice and Virgil; I said, “7 out of 10.” She said “That’s where I’d put it too.” A friend lent us the book; she said she couldn’t put it down.

“There’s no accounting for taste.” So when one reader loves a book and another hates it, this comes as no surprise.

But when 4 professional reviewers are so far apart in their assessment of a book’s quality, one has to question their skill, their motives or both.

Beatrice and Virgil is a book where the sentence, “It’s sort of like . . .” has no ending. It’s innovative, breaks new ground while it breaks old rules of novel writing. Perhaps new rules of novel reviewing are called for.

I have a theory. When a novel is as symbolic, as allegorical as is Beatrice and Virgil, the readers who “don’t get it” either fly into a frustrated rage and pan it mercilessly, or they praise it fawningly in hopes that others will assume they “got it.” Most of us get it in part, don’t get it in part, and end up judging it on the basis of whether or not it “tasted good.”

Then there’s that other temptation: harsh criticism has the inherent quality of suggesting that the critic is smarter than the one being criticized.

A good piece of art has the power to heighten the observer’s perception of the world. I think Beatrice and Virgil has the potential of doing this for at least some readers.

An Evening with Yann Martel

Scene from "The Keeper" coming to the Station Arts Centre March 3-14

It was a great evening; most people I talked to agreed. Yann Martel came to the Station Arts Centre and he and his wife and their baby mingled with about 50 or 60 of us in a fund-raiser to kick off the project to re-roof the library. The library board had done a great job; good food, some local poets reading and words from a great author. A summary doesn’t do it justice, of course. Two high school students read from their poetry and a member of our writers’ group enthralled the audience with imagery that literally pings off people’s experiences of life.

Martel’s wife, Alice Kuipers, read from her novel—about to be published—and then it was Yann’s turn. Yann has set himself a project to send Stephen Harper a different book every two weeks along with a letter suggesting why he—as Prime Minister—ought to read this book. Martel reminded us that when Canada’s political leaders were all asked what their favourite book might be, Harper chose Guiness Book of World Records, a book most of us enjoyed—when we were twelve! He read us several of his letters to the PMO.

Yann’s view is that fiction reading is essential to the balanced development of every person. He says that in the reading of the novel, one allows an alternative view into one’s consciousness and lives with it for a while. Sort of a walking-for-a-time in another’s shoes. What this provides is a moral, ethical exercise, an accepted invitation to reconsider one’s own worldview and an opening of the door to honest dialogue.

I agree. In a recent interview I did with the local paper, I said that I consider the art of the short story to be a natural progression from the parables used to teach in earlier times. Stories are not only that, of course. At their best, they also offer relief from the sameness of our days, recreation of our spirits and repeated reminders that the world is a whole lot bigger and provides many more possibilities than our day to day striving would lead us to believe.

In other words, a person who does not read voraciously and who doesn’t have a history of appreciation for novels and short stories can hardly be fit--in at least one aspect--to lead a nation. Something is bound to be missing, and it may be the most vital element of all.

If you don’t know Yann Martel, read Life of Pi, winner of the Man Booker prize of 2002. It’s scheduled to be the basis of a movie soon.