reading notes

by Yann Martel
ISBN: 0151010900

In his prefatory author’s note, Martel refers to the four stories in
this collection as “the best results of my early years as a writer.”
The other results — 16 out of 16 stories rejected, then 17 out of 19
rejected — it will presumably take more than a Booker Prize to
resurrect.

Still, in this collection I can see Martel playing with ideas he would
later make sing in Life of Pi. The first story, the one lending its
title to the book, is the strongest. In it, two college-age men find
themselves bewildered when one of them is diagnosed with AIDS. To pass
the time together as one is increasingly sick, then obviously dying,
they turn to stories, inspired as perhaps only young philosophy
students can be by Boccaccio’s Decameron:

Such a simple idea: an isolated villa outside of Florence; the world dying of the Black Death; ten people gathered together hoping to survive; telling each other stories to pass the time.

Martel doesn’t give us the whole story of the Roccamatios, though. His
narrator, the healthy one, tells us: “Certain intimacies shouldn’t be
made public. They should be known to exist, that is all.” What we get
instead of the whole story of the family the two men invent to span the
twentieth century are the facts behind the stories, the bits left over,
because the “story of the Helsinki Roccamatios was often whispered. And
it wasn’t whispered to you.” Martel is working out what parts of a
story to spell out for readers, what parts to invite readers to create
in their own heads, and asking one of his most interesting questions —
what is it with this human need to believe in the power of stories,
anyway?

The other stories investigate the power of art (specifically, music) in
mundane life, and are more experimental as they play with repitition
and form in the pursuit of meaning.

I’d recommend this book to people who loved Life of Pi and want to see
how Martel worked his way toward writing Richard Parker. People less
interested in charting Martel’s development, or who were lukewarm about
Pi (I don’t agree, but I know you are out there) will want to give this
a pass. For me, it demonstrates that Pi was not a fluke, and it makes
me want to read his next book more than ever.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 18th, 2005 at 7:26 pm and is filed under fiction.