Slog

News & Arts

Line Out

Music & the City
at Night

« R-71 Will Submit Signatures Saturda… | She's Still Standing! »

Monday, July 20, 2009

Books Today in Book Deals

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 1:58 PM

b641/1248115668-maus.jpg Yann Martel, who wrote The Life of Pi, which is a popular book that is perhaps the first novel to include its book club commentary inside the text, has signed a reported 3 million dollar book deal for his next novel. It is going to be an allegorical story about the Holocaust featuring talking animals. The New York Times has the story:

“I’ve noticed over the years of reading books on the Holocaust and seeing movies that it’s always represented in the same way, which is historical or social realism,” Mr. Martel, 46, said in a telephone interview from his home in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. “I was thinking that it was interesting that you don’t have many imaginative takes on it like George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ and its take on Stalinism.”

I can't wait to see this "imaginative take" on the Holocaust, in much the same way that I want to watch that old, never-released Jerry Lewis movie about a clown in a concentration camp.

Comments (12) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

You mean Roberto Benigni stole the idea for Life Is Beautiful from Jerry Lewis?!

Posted by Bub on July 20, 2009 at 2:04 PM

I found Life of Pi to be unreadable. Maus, however, is awesome. A truly imaginative take on the Holocaust.

Posted by Patti on July 20, 2009 at 2:11 PM

Guh. I hated Life of Pi. Stupid, lame, deus ex machina ending.

Posted by arts&letters on July 20, 2009 at 2:11 PM

WTF?! How dare he rip off Maus!

Posted by cedarthvader

on July 20, 2009 at 2:19 PM

Can he really be that clueless? Seriously?

Posted by Irena on July 20, 2009 at 2:26 PM

Maus rocks esp. in depiction of LonkOiland survivor parents.

And in having the animals wear masks -- mouse pig and cat for Jew, Pole and German....so when mouse is passing as a pole, mouse wears a pig mask...

Freddy the Pig was great, too, but he didn't wear masks.

Posted by PC on July 20, 2009 at 2:33 PM

Local writer Matt Briggs has a blog called "A Boy, a Cat, a Lifeboat" asking authors to contribute their stories to the "open source" story. Seems that Life of Pi was "inspired" by a previous work by Brizilian writer Moacyr Scliar.

So it seems that bestselling author Yann Martel has a little problem coming up with an original idea.

Posted by flamingbanjo on July 20, 2009 at 2:35 PM

This sounds like something from the Onion. If Yann Martel hasn't heard of Maus, he has got to be the most clueless motherfucker alive.

Posted by Greg on July 20, 2009 at 3:52 PM

Hmm. I loved, loved Maus... but... I think that, aside for the depiction of the characters as animals, it was actually pretty much "historical or social realism." The text itself was pretty straightforward/realistic, as were the visuals, with the exception of the characters as animals (and the masks convention, which I agree was awesome) -- e.g., he didn't draw the events as taking place in a mouse hole, he drew them as they happened, but with people-sized animals. I'm not saying it wasn't imaginative, just that it didn't depart from the actual real story of the holocaust very much.

So, while it's a little tone deaf of Martel to talk about his project in the way he did, if he's truly doing something in a non-realism style (not just, hey, the Germans are like snakes! or something) then I wouldn't see it as a rip-off of Maus.

Posted by Julie in Eugene on July 20, 2009 at 6:03 PM

_The Basic Eight_ by Daniel Handler (secret identity of Lemony Snicket) also had book club questions as part of the text of the novel, but they weren't intended for actual book clubs.

Posted by Monty on July 20, 2009 at 7:02 PM

He really has never heard of Maus? Is this guy a total fucking idiot?

Posted by Estey on July 21, 2009 at 5:56 AM

love the cover art choice with the blood red PULITZER PRIZE emblem.
Julie's got some points above, but this canuck from Saska/Saska is too damn hick to be writing about the Holocaust.
Might as well as write a sitcom about the holocaust, or a musical. 'Hogan's Heroes' meets 'Ghetto' but with disney animals like in Robin Hood: the damn thing practically writes itself...

Posted by Rev.Smith on July 27, 2009 at 9:38 AM