It’s never going to be easy if you choose to write about the holocaust. Today’s event was a fantastic meeting of minds as John Boyne conversed with Yann Martel about the machinations, inspiration and philosophy behind his latest book, Beatrice and Virgil. John described the “profound, emotional book” as “the most interesting and unusual novel that’s appeared this year”.
On writing about the holocaust
Yann reveals that “Henry is a construct, meant to imitate the Jewish lifestyle”. He didn’t want to “write outside of it, because none of us are outside of it”. Yann argues that if we think about or are in dialogue with events such as the holocaust, then we have an automatic involvement. “I wanted the teller of the tale within the tale to be involved – I wanted the event and the character to be in the same room.”
The unusual approach
When addressing the holocaust, historical realism is the approach most commonly used. However, Yann has moved away using allegory or fable as a basis, with animals as central characters. “I thought – what if I use an animal? I can approach the topic using an animal disguise. Then I immediately felt more comfortable” he says. As he points out, “true writers of fiction – those who intend to tell the truth – are quite rare”, going on to applaud the works of John Boyne, David Grossman and Art Spiegelman.
Animals as characters
Yann explained that he liked using animals as characters because they are “veiled in innocence. When they suffer, we feel for them”. Accordingly, animal characters can be used to convey emotion because “there are no preconceived ideas. A tiger can be just a tiger, or a symbol for something, but everyone has preconceived ideas about a dentist”. Animal characters are an excellent medium through which to tell the story, acting as “mirrors which hopefully help us to see our own humanity.”
What is Stephen Harper reading?
For the last few years, Yann has been sending Prime Minister Stephen Harper a novel every fortnight, because “I believe he has not read a book since high school.” Yann strongly believes that part of the role of a Prime Minister is “to dream about creating a better world” and that central to being able to do this is to be “nourished by a muse”. You can read more about this project on his website www.whatisstephenharperreading.ca – a member of the audience is waiting for an Irish writer to follow suit!
Tags: yann martel
I’m simply sick that I missed this one!
He was excellent. Extremely erduite but also engaging. Next time!
erudite even – just changed my keyboard from Spanish back to English!