Beatrice and Virgil – Yann Martel (2010)

Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel, published in 2010, is an allegorical novel exploring the Holocaust through an unconventional lens. Following the massive success of Life of Pi, Martel presents a thought-provoking and unsettling tale about a writer’s encounter with a taxidermist and his two peculiar animal characters, Beatrice the donkey and Virgil the howler monkey. The novel blurs the lines between fiction and reality, art and atrocity, in a deeply philosophical meditation on suffering, memory, and storytelling.

Plot Summary

Henry had once tasted success. His last book, a bold fusion of fiction and nonfiction exploring the Holocaust, had been met with rejection. Editors dismissed it as unpublishable, and a scornful bookseller mocked his attempt to use imaginative storytelling for such a weighty subject. The failure gutted him. The joy of writing drained away, leaving him hollow. He and his wife, Sarah, left their home behind and settled in a new city, seeking change, perhaps even solace.

In this city, far from the literary world that had turned its back on him, Henry built a quiet life. He took music lessons, joined an amateur theater group, and worked at a chocolate shop. He answered letters from readers of his previous work, careful to keep his responses warm but brief. It was in one of these letters, an unassuming envelope among the usual correspondence, that an odd request arrived. Inside was a photocopy of The Legend of Saint Julian Hospitator by Gustave Flaubert, with passages highlighted in glaring yellow, particularly those detailing the senseless slaughter of animals. There was also an excerpt from an unfinished play and a cryptic note: I need your help. The name at the bottom was barely legible, but Henry could make out the first part. It was his own name.

The letter nagged at him. The marked-up Flaubert text, the play, the strange appeal for help—there was something insistent about it. The address was not far, only a long walk through twisting city streets. One afternoon, he set out with his dog, Erasmus, a simple plan in mind. He would drop off a polite reply and be done with it. But when he reached the address, he found himself standing before a taxidermy shop. The name above the door read Okapi Taxidermy, and in the window, a lifelike okapi stood frozen mid-step in a lush painted jungle. It was exquisitely preserved, eerily real.

The taxidermist was an old man, thin and deliberate in his movements, his manner strangely formal. He recognized Henry’s name at once, pleased that his letter had been received. He led Henry into the back room of the shop, where the walls were lined with silent creatures—birds in mid-flight, foxes poised as if startled by an unseen sound, a bear’s head frozen in a permanent snarl. The air smelled of chemicals and dust, the scent of things preserved beyond their time.

The man had written a play. That was why he had reached out. He needed guidance, he said, from someone who understood the nature of storytelling. The play was a dialogue between two animals—Beatrice, a donkey, and Virgil, a howler monkey—who lived together in a world of quiet suffering. They spoke of hunger and fear, of a great and nameless violence that surrounded them. Their world was fragmented, full of gaps and unfinished thoughts, as if something terrible had happened, but neither could say what.

The play disturbed Henry. The conversations between the donkey and the monkey were filled with dread, yet nothing was stated outright. The suffering was abstract, lingering in the spaces between their words. The taxidermist, calm and measured, seemed unaware of how unsettling it was. He wanted to know if Henry thought it was good. If it worked. If it was worth continuing.

Despite himself, Henry returned. Something about the play held him captive. He sat in the taxidermist’s workshop, watching the old man work, listening to him speak about the animals he had preserved, their bodies stiff with an unnatural life. They discussed the play, though Henry found it difficult to say what he really thought. There was cruelty in it, an inescapable darkness. The way the taxidermist spoke of suffering—detached, almost clinical—made Henry uneasy.

As the visits stretched on, the lines between the play and the real world blurred. Henry felt trapped within its grim allegory, the animals’ conversations growing heavier, more unbearable. The scenes became darker. The suffering of Beatrice and Virgil was endless, their trials absurd yet horrifying. There was a passage where they listed things that had been done to them—atrocities spoken in a strange, disjointed rhythm, as if their pain had been cataloged. Henry could no longer ignore the truth. This was no simple play. It was an echo of something else, something vast and unspeakable.

He confronted the taxidermist, demanding to know why he had written this. The old man only smiled. He had been waiting for Henry to see it.

One night, Henry arrived at the shop to find it locked and dark. Something was wrong. Through the glass, the okapi stood motionless, its black eyes vacant. Henry hesitated, then knocked. A moment later, the door creaked open. Inside, the taxidermist was waiting. His expression was unreadable. He led Henry past the worktables, past the unfinished animals, into the dim back room where he did his preserving.

There, in a pool of weak light, lay a cat—Henry’s cat, Mendelssohn. It was still, its fur sleek and undisturbed, its body perfectly intact. Yet there was no breath. No movement.

Horror took hold. The taxidermist watched him closely, his hands at his sides. He had found the cat outside, he explained. Dead already. He had simply done what he always did—preserved what would otherwise be lost. But Henry knew. The truth was in the way the man spoke, in the way he stood so calmly beside the lifeless animal.

Fear seized him, a fear unlike anything he had ever known. He backed away, words failing him, his mind unable to make sense of what had happened, of what it meant. He turned and fled, running through the streets, the taxidermist’s quiet gaze following him.

He never went back.

The days passed in a daze. He held Erasmus close, watched Sarah as she moved through their home, felt the weight of something he could not name pressing against his chest. The world outside moved on, unaware. He wanted to tell someone, to explain what had happened, but he did not know where to begin.

One afternoon, the taxidermist’s shop burned. Flames swallowed Okapi Taxidermy, black smoke curling into the sky. The fire was devastating, leaving behind little but charred wood and broken glass. The okapi, the birds, the foxes—all of it turned to ash. The taxidermist himself was gone. No one knew what had become of him. He had vanished, leaving nothing behind.

Henry did not seek answers. Some things, he knew, were meant to remain unknowable. But the weight of it stayed with him—the play, the animals, the way the taxidermist had looked at him that night. The world continued as it always had, but beneath its surface, something dark and silent waited.

The past was never truly past. It lived on, preserved in the spaces between words, in stories left unfinished, in things too terrible to name.

Main Characters

• Henry L’Hôte – A successful author struggling with his next book, Henry is drawn into a mysterious relationship with a taxidermist whose work echoes dark historical themes.
• The Taxidermist – A cryptic and unsettling figure, he seeks Henry’s help with a play he is writing, revealing disturbing parallels to the Holocaust.
• Beatrice (the donkey) and Virgil (the howler monkey) – Fictional animals within the taxidermist’s play, their dialogues serve as an allegorical exploration of trauma, survival, and cruelty.
• Sarah – Henry’s supportive wife, who provides a grounded contrast to his increasingly unsettling interactions with the taxidermist.

Theme

• The Nature of Storytelling – The novel examines how fiction can confront historical atrocities, questioning the limits of artistic representation.
• The Holocaust and Memory – Through indirect metaphors and allegory, Martel explores the difficulty of comprehending and expressing the horrors of genocide.
• Cruelty and Human Nature – The taxidermist’s eerie world and his animal characters force readers to reflect on the depths of human violence and moral indifference.
• Art as Witness – The book raises questions about whether art can sufficiently bear witness to historical suffering or if it risks trivializing the past.

Writing Style and Tone

Martel’s prose is precise, philosophical, and layered with symbolism. His style shifts between straightforward realism and unsettling allegory, creating an atmosphere of quiet dread. The tone is deceptively calm, even whimsical at times, but beneath it lies an undercurrent of horror, ambiguity, and ethical complexity. By interweaving metafictional elements with sparse, haunting dialogue, Martel crafts a deeply unsettling meditation on trauma and storytelling.