Bookraft

Now readers of Bookraft have already seen our very positive review of Martel's The Life of Pi. So you can imagine that I was at least intrigued by a set of four audio short stories by the author. In a forward to the audio book, Yann tells us that these were the first writings to actually be picked up in the literary press after making many dozens of tries. He professes that these are the best of what was deemed insufficient. In short, he has endeavored to lower expectations on the 4 short stories.

No need. The short stories both stand on their own and supply a fair degree of insight as to the who and what was in the creator's mind when Martel wrote the phantasmagory that is The Life of Pi. We start with The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatos - a tale within the tale of a youth cut needlessly short by AIDS. AIDS acquired in tainted blood - a story chillingly close to many Canadians whose Red Cross Blood Clinics passed on not just Aids but also Hepatitis and a host of other blood borne diseases to transfusion patients in the 1980's.

So Helsinki Roccamatios has the passion of youth cut short and how two best college buddies, each very astute in their unique ways, adjust to one's life taken by Aids, through by fashioning the fictional Helsinki Roccamatios, an Italian family prospering in Finland. In this the structuring of the story within carries its own scaffolding of plausible logic to handle the twists of dying. However, among all the stories this also has most vexing of characters - the sister, the Mom, the car-beating-to-a-pulp Father, the ghosts of neighbours whose actions are only pantomimes - substituting for words, dialog, and glimpses into their souls. So this story is more Poe-like (1 or 2 telling characters) then say Maupassant - who is able to paint dialog seemingly anywhere on the social scale. But the march of history and the Rocciamotos through the 20th century carries its own fascination - and does act as relief for the dying.

"The Time I Heard the Private Donald J. Rankin String Concerto with One Discordant Violin, by the American Composer John Morton" shows Martel's penchant for grandiose titles and vividly imagined scenes. Here, the story is more Maupassant - richer in dialog, and compelling in finding out what are the mysteries behind the concerto and its composer. Some of the scenes are like the Concerto - painted rococo and by golly exquisite and rich works even with the thundering symbology.

The last of the four short stories is notable because it foreshadows some of the phanatsmagoria that is in Pi Patel. "The Vita AEterna Mirror company: Mirrors to Last Till Kingdom Come" moves confidently into the fantastic .. not comic book like with swift deft pencil strokes but carefully constructed near plausibility built yes from youthful eyes. We have definitely passed into the World of scienced fiction - truly plausible and maybe even possible if you want to believe.

I suspect Maupassant and Poe as ethereal reviewers would show maybe begrudging ostensible interest - and then would look to mine not a few gems of ideas - "just for the saving".