Yann Martel’s new book courts controversy
Yann Martel, currently on tour in the U.S. to promote the illustrated edition of Life of Pi, shared details about his new book, A 20th-Century Shirt, which he says should be due in fall 2008.
The book is actually a novel and an essay rolled into one and will be published in an unconventional “flipbook” format, with each element printed upside down and back-to-back.
More provocative is the content of the novel, in which Martel says is essentially a retelling of the Holocaust in less “historical” terms:
The point I make in my essay is that I am not so much interested in the Holocaust itself — well, I am interested, just not in this book — as its representations…. And in the essay, I discuss how the nearly singular representation of the Holocaust is always in the same mode, and that mode is historical realism and social realism.
…
We don’t allow ourselves that liberty with the Holocaust. You know, a Holocaust Western, a Holocaust science-fiction movie, a Holocaust comedy, a Holocaust set in Bolivia, all of these feel like oxymorons to us. So in the essay, I discuss many things, but one of them is “Why do we limit our representations of the Holocaust so much?…”
Oh, and here’s a run-down of the plot:
History has to become story, and the Holocaust hasn’t. I discuss that in the essay, and then in the novel, I try to do a non-historical representation take on the Holocaust. It’s a story featuring a monkey and a donkey, and it’s set on a shirt. And the shirt is both a shirt and a country. So it’s a very far cry from your standard Holocaust story.
Here’s a hunch. While this may remind some of Martel’s signature magical realism, it may not have the same appeal of Life of Pi when applied to the Holocaust. If this Quillblogger knows anything about culture wars, it’s that “history has to become story”-style relativism is bound to touch raw nerves.
. . . a Holocaust Western, a Holocaust science-fiction movie, a Holocaust comedy. “Why do we limit our representations of the Holocaust so much?…”
Um, because it involved the murder of six million men, women and children?
I think Quill should get Stephen Harper to review this book.
I, for one, can’t wait to read Martel’s newest work. I don’t think his representation of the Holocaust will diminish the significance of the event.
Let’s wait until we read the book shall we? I actually saw Martel speak in person a few nights ago and he talked about this new work and I think his approach sounds interesting and in line with the highly imaginative train of his writing. What is a good book for but to make us think? He’s a very passionate speaker about the power of books, indeed he acts upon it as evidenced by his current Harper campaign.
A new Yann Martel novel could be about yak dung and it would still be interesting. I sincerely doubt he will re-write the Holocaust in the same way revisionists have, He will certainly make us see it in a new light. And as EmmaB says, we should wait and see what the best writer of the past 20 years has to say.
rather than pre judging a book that no one has read yet, why dont we praise a writer who is willing to
willing to take a difficult subject and create a new peice of literature that will appeal to a wider audience?
rather than desensitizing people to, what is ultimately a great tradgedy, maybe we should be applauding
a writer that has the balls to take a subject such as this and turn it into something origional.
did nobody read ”god knows” by joseph heller?
Here is the rest of the interview that Mr. Stuart Woods chose to omit. He’s creating his own “controversy” by making Martel look like a bad guy.
“We don’t allow other, more metaphorical representations of the Holocaust. It’s unlike, let’s say, war, which easily subjects itself to metaphor, so that we can take the reality of war and easily turn it into a comedy, or a romance, or a thriller, or a documentary drama. We can set it anywhere—so a drama about the Second World War could take place in Kansas, in Bolivia, in Samoa, or in the Arctic. It can be translated to another planet, and become a science-fiction movie that is a metaphor for the Second World War. War subjects itself to transportation in a way that we find acceptable. Whether it’s true to the reality of war is something else. But even if it isn’t, we find it acceptable that art and war can mix. And we feel that through all its incarnations, the overall result will be a sounder understanding and appreciation of war. Whether that’s true is something else.”
While the Holocaust is still a touchy subject, there have been countless wars that act, as Martel states, as a metaphorical basis for other works. Good on him. He’s got a great mind and again, i’d like to stress that Mr. Woods lies of omission left out the part that explains Martel’s motivations and explanations. Shame Mr. Woods. Shame.