The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios
Here are four unforgettable stories by the author of Life of Pi. Written earlier in Martel's career, these tales display that startling mix of dazzle and depth that have made Yann Martel an international phenomenon.\ Inventive in form and timeless in content, each story is moving and thought-provoking. A Canadian university student visiting Washington, D.C., experiences the Vietnam War through an intense musical encounter. Variations of a warden's letter to the mother of a man he has just...
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Here are four unforgettable stories by the author of Life of Pi. Written earlier in Martel's career, these tales display that startling mix of dazzle and depth that have made Yann Martel an international phenomenon. Inventive in form and timeless in content, each story is moving and thought-provoking. A Canadian university student visiting Washington, D.C., experiences the Vietnam War through an intense musical encounter. Variations of a warden's letter to the mother of a man he has just executed reveal how each life is contained in its end. A young man's fascination with the mirror-making machine he finds in his grandmother's attic is juxtaposed with the reminiscences it evokes from his grandmother. And, in the exquisite title story, a young man dying of AIDS joins his friend in fashioning a story of the Roccamatio family of Helsinki, set against the yearly march of the twentieth century.The New York Times - Janet MaslinSo this novella becomes an odd hybrid: part history, part Roccamatio fiction, part poignantly evoked medical crisis. ("When you're with people who are really sick," the narrator observes, "you discover what an illusion science can be.") And here, at least, Mr. Martel achieves a graceful balance. The seeds of Life of Pi can be found in the engaging narrative voice, in its curious digressions, in its mixture of unexpected playfulness with the gravity of imminent death. Will 1938 be remembered for the Nazi pogroms of Kristallnacht, or for the invention of the ballpoint pen? The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios invents an odd, wishful universe that gives these two options equivalent moral weight.
The facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios1The time I heard the private Donald J. Rankin string concerto with one discordant violin, by the American composer John Morton83Manners of dying131The Vita AEterna Mirror Company : mirrors to last till kingdom come167
\ From the PublisherPRAISE FOR THE FACTS BEHIND THE HELSINKI ROCCAMATIOS\ "Each of these stories is a performance, a high-wire act in which the author sets himself an unusual challenge and dazzles us as he pulls it off. "—The Washington Post Book World\ "With uncommon dexterity, Martel . . . inject[s] real, poignant feeling into cleverly conceived experimental fictions."—Entertainment Weekly\ \ \
