I generally avoid reading or watching anything that vividly portrays the Holocaust; the subject horrifies, disturbs and leaves my mind full of images I can't shake. I did, however, eagerly await Yann Martel's Beatrice & Virgil, both because of all the hype surrounding it and because I remember enjoying Life of Pi.
What I appreciated most about this short novel was its mixture of genres: part autobiography, part fiction; a play within a novel; an existential work and an assertion of faith. It is indeed an allegory, one that sometimes reads too much like Beckett but also one that uniquely grows from a light-hearted fable into harrowing dialogue, culminating in unexpected chaos.
The book is not action-packed, not a page-turner and not even entirely comprehensible. It does, however, question the authenticity of history, the value of art and the eternal prevalence of doubt: "To my mind, faith is like being in the sun. When you are in the sun, can you avoid creating a shadow? Can you shake that area of darkness that clings to you, always shaped like you, as if constantly to remind you of yourself?"
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