Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book paints a world where safety is assured in the arms of the dead, and that sure death lurks in the world of the living — unless something is done about it. Gripping yet sprinkled with tender moments, it is a book that promotes the versatility of a youthful imagination.
After two novels were written about the Catholic Church and the Opus Dei movement, American novelist Dan Brown takes a break from stirring controversy in the direction of one religion. In his 2009 effort, complete with the Brown-ian literary formula, The Lost Symbol targets the Freemasons.
The dawn of the year 2010 brought on The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova’s follow-up project to her 2005 debut, The Historian. Echoing the previous formula of simultaneously elaborating on two stories that occur on two separate blocks of time, Kostova shifts her focus from undead legends to the immortality of art.
Like his previous novel, Yann Martel uses animals for allegory once again in his 2010 novel, Beatrice and Virgil. Instead of telling the story of the life of a boy practising three religions at once and how all three helped him when being stranded in the Pacific Ocean for almost a year, Martel explores a even more fragile topic: the Holocaust. Equipped with impressive ideas and approaches, the novel still hides a bit of a surprise. Whether it be a pleasant or unpleasant one is up for the reader to decide.
Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog, in spite of its whimsical title, is not an easy read. It took me slightly longer than the average duration it usually takes me to finish a novel. But after reading it, I’d like to believe the story’s philosophy is not just crafted to entertain the reader, but also to educate, to humour, to open the possibility of empathy, and ultimately, to comfort. Also, Eminem is in this book — sort of.