Autobiography of yann martel

It took me a few pages to get used to the writing style presented here - a mix of flashbacks and future shots and short bits that didn't make much sense at the moment. After the first 20 pages or so, I could barely put it down and fell in love with the style. A great book, though some of the events are a bit mystifying and other ones downright tragic and heart-wrenching.

I plan to re-read it as I feel I've missed some things that turned out to be important later. For a brief time, towards the end of the novel, I was actively enjoying reading it. A bit before that, it was at least tolerable. But with the late game-changing plot-twist, the book lost me. The novel is about the life of a person who is biologically born and identifies as a cis man.

There is no surprise, no change of psyche. She just goes "oh huh I'm a girl now. We never learn this person's name, except an offhand mention that it is androgynous and can work for a man or a woman. Before the sex change, we're lead through his childhood and early experiences. This includes his growth through puberty and frequent masturbation. Which I found very tiring to read about.

These themes are discarded after the sex change. Rather, it beings to follow the woman's relationships through her time at university, getting her BA, and life afterward. At one part, when she's 21, she encounters a forty something woman traveling alone in Greece. They hit it off, and soon become lovers. My favourite section of the book is when the unnamed narrator is living with Tito, the first and only person she loves.

I enjoyed hearing about their happiness, loving each other, and how he buys her a hideously ugly bulldog for Christmas. However, this is interrupted when Tito is away on the trip. While going to her office a sparsely furnished apartment where she writes, as the narrator is a mostly unsuccessful author , she lets in a strange man who says he wants to see what it looks like inside.

He beats and rapes her. Afterward, she returns to the apartment she shared with Tito and their dog. The narrator, now a he again, flees with the west, leaving his life and Tito behind, without explaining to Tito why. Earlier, the text established that Tito is straight and not attracted to men, so presumably their relationship wouldn't have survived the second sex change.

Emotionally and psychologically shattered, he loses track of time and events while traveling through the prairies. For some time, his only sexual encounters are meeting with other men in the park, and having cheap hookups which, he mentions his rapist left him with herpes type b, and so I can't help but wonder if he spread this to his subsequent partners.

At one point, he meets a woman and begins a relationship with her. He thinks of himself as a "tepid lesbian," but they stay together. He abandons the novel he was working on before the rape, and I don't think he resumes writing. The novel ends soon after, with the character introducing themself in gender neutral terms by their blood type, that they speak French and English, their eyes are x colour and their hair is x colour, and as a Canadian.

Autobiography of yann martel

I didn't like the book because it was too senseless. So I don't really understand what the point if it was. Miss Adeo. This is a great example of how amazing writing can carry an entire book. I tried to explain to a friend why I loved this book and why they should read it but literally I've no idea how to explain. Yann Martel has a talent for story telling.

I think unlike a lot of readers because I read 'life of Pi' about 7 years ago when it first came out , I wasn't expecting anything like that when I picked this up. This was a story about life, about love, travel, growth, language, friendship, men, women sex, gender, coming of age, trauma, heart break, healing. It wasn't perfect, but it was such a true representation of what it is to be a human being, that I'll take the flaws.

I was intrigued by the aspect of growing up without religion and how that changes the way you view love and the role of men and women. So it's about a man who wakes up when he turns 18 to realise he's now a woman. But this isn't really what drives the plot because Yann almost ignores the 'impossible' aspect of this phenomenon. The protagonist just continues on with life.

The main thing that this event did with the plot was made us realise the subtle every day differences between being a man and a woman. There were many romantic interests but this isn't a romance. It's probably one of the most realistic representations of a life in a book besides the whole sex change event. But it's kind of ruined me for mediocre writing for a while Note there is a very graphic like everything else in this book and horrible rape scene in this book, I don't feel it was necessary at all.

The reason why I wouldn't let this put people off is that although it was horrible, I think it might be quite an honest representation of how rape victims in real life feel. Surprised, pained, angry, sick. Graham Herrli. Self has good characterization and fluid writing, but nothing to hold it all together. The descriptions are vibrant but not thought-provoking.

I enjoyed the use of the novel as a format to adumbrate imaginary stories and novels those "written" by the narrator which would never work as actual books, a technique also found in Slaughterhouse Five and the stories of Jorge Luis Borges. In Self , Martel uses various experimental postmodernistic techniques such as starting Chapter Two on the last page, splitting the internal monologues into two columns in two voices, and segmenting the narrative into lists and plays seemingly without any reason behind their use.

The book as a whole has no sense of cohesion or purpose, no soul. I am seriously at a loss about how to rate this book. I felt almost voyeuristic when reading this at times. I wanted to shake or comfort the main character frequently. There were parts that dragged and dragged. More than once, I considred setting it aside and moving to something else, but then I would remember that beautiful bit at the beginning describing love as fish in his eyes, and I would give it another shot.

And would then find another beautiful snippet that would keep me going. I had to skip over a few things that were too graphic for me. But I reread several parts too, to allow the language to seep into my brain. I have not been so challenged and so rewarded by book on a very long time. The ending oh, well, it broke my heart and then offered me the smallest -- and I do mean Smallest -- thread of hope before the one and only sentence of chapter 2 slammed the door closed.

And I was not allowed to see into this life any more. Just when I wanted to most. This will stay with me a long time, but it rates only a three because for more than half of the book I was disengaged. But having said that, this book is a prime example of why I always try to finish a book once started. Even though it was diificult to get through it, it was worth it in the end.

Self is the book that you're not expecting from an author whose work you have vast appreciation and for whom you have great respect. Where Life of Pi and The High Mountains of Portugal are both spiritual journeys, speculative, searching, and piercing in their expression of language and allegory, Self is raw, meandering, painful, and entirely unashamed in being so.

It is about what it is to seek and to be ; a questing sentience; and what it is to be a specific thing. How you see the world while embodying that idea, and what happens if we decide to grow outside those boundaries and examine the world in entirely different ways. Told entirely from the viewpoint of a single narrator, it follows that person from birth into their thirties.

As is often with Martel, there is a great deal of allegory, though not as much as with Pi and Portugal , much is suggested, very little is obvious, which is perhaps another point to the author - it's a mirror image of the search for self. The integration of several different languages and how they're presented in the book in columns is very effective, creating a metaphor for the blending of personality, and place.

The narrator drifts between genders, lovers, countries, jobs, and ideas. Many portions of the book are practically pornographic, the narrator seeking identity almost entirely in the physical, sexual identity acting as a muse, of sorts, for purpose. But Martel also explores language, love, nationality, craft, trade, art, and education as factors contributing to the whole of a person, and their identity.

The latter are by far the more interesting, exquisitely written as is the norm for Martel, though somewhat marred by the former. While I did find the lewd aspects excessive at points, I do think they serve the larger narrative in establishing the context and tour of the narrator's journey. It also presents some very thoughtful questions.

Yann Martel intentionally used this distinct style to separate himself from other writers. The recurring thematic strands in most of the writings are loss, youth, and morality. Regarding literary devices , he often turns to metaphors , foreshadowing , imagery , and similes to create a unique style. Yann Martel is a dynamic writer who started his writing career at a young age.

However, it is his good luck that he has won awards during his lifetime. In fact, his unique writing style and literary qualities of his masterpieces have brought novel ideas to global literature. His distinctive writing approach and unique ways have transformed him into a giant writer of this age. British Council, Literature. Saskatoon Public Library site.

Retrieved 30 December Chatelaine Magazine , Canada. Retrieved 21 July Retrieved 25 March Martel entry. Yann Martel: in search of understanding. TCS Ontario. Canadian Encyclopedia online. Trent University News. Trent University Youtube Channel. CBC Books. Montanan State University. The Malahat Review. Border Crossings. WorldCat libraries.

Canada Council for the Arts. OK Novels. Retrieved 25 January November Retrieved January 5, Folha de S. January Retrieved February 13, The Poseurs Guide to Yann Martel. Calgary Herald. On Life of Pi, Plagiarism and the Media. Shed Simas. Saskatoon Public Library: Collections, Connections. Yann Martel: Life of Yann. Nuvo Magazine. Yann Martel's follow-up to Life of Pi is a risky fable about genocide.

The Guardian , UK, 5 June Lo Dico, Joy 29 May Independent Reviews: Beatrice and Virgil. The Independent , UK, 29 May Ciabattari, Jane 10 April NPR, 10 April The Globe and Mail. The similarities between the books, however, are few, and nothing came of the charges. Martel is currently based in Montreal, although he frequently lives internationally.

Life of Pi began with some casual reading. They decide