The facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios and other stories

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Ambitious flops

No "Life of Pi"

Tedious!

New, different, and worth reading

Early works that shows sparks of what Martel can achieve

The facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios and other stories
Yann Martel
Manufacturer: Amazon Remainders Account
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Martel, Yann | ( M ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Given the spectacular success of Canadian writer Yann Martel's bestselling novel Life of Pi (winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize and Amazon.com's Best Book of 2002) it's no surprise that his early short story collection, The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, would attract new readers. Originally published in 1993, these four well-crafted stories have been slightly revised by him for this new edition (the book's first publication in America). Only one of these stories, "Manners of Dying," reads like apprentice work, but even this piece is highly accomplished and full of interest. Every page here shows the development of Martel's stealthy, understated prose (think Paul Auster with a Canadian quietude). In fact, the title story begins so calmly and matter-of-factly that the opening pages feel almost listless. A college senior describes his budding friendship with the freshman he has been assigned to shepherd through the first months of the school year. When the new friend is diagnosed with AIDSs (it is the mid-1980s, and this is a more-or-less immediate death sentence) the emotional stakes gradually increase, not only in predictable ways, as the reluctant narrator is drawn further into his friend's life, but in the jokes, arguments, and revelations brought to light by their collaboration in a sparkling intellectual game--a story the friends write together, in alternating turns--that provides a delicate scaffold for the private drama of death. --Regina Marler

Book Description

The appearance of a young storyteller with a unique fictional voice is cause for celebration. Yann Martel's title story (described as "unforgettable...a truly stunning piece of fiction"*), won the 1991 Journey Prize to universal acclaim. The intensely human tragedy that lies at its heart is told with a spare, careful elegance that resonates long after it has ended--and is matched through all the stories by an immediacy an dazzling freshness.

Customer Reviews:

Ambitious flops.......2007-03-11

This is a collection of a novella and three short stories. The novella is about a college student dying of AIDS who is attended to by his roommate. To pass the time, they invent stories about world events and an Italian family in Helsinki. We learn very little about the family and nothing about Helsinki. It is a good refresher course in 20th century events as well as the process of slowly dying, but it is surprisingly flat emotionally. I loved the second story, about a fellow visiting Washington, D.C. and happening on the premiere of a string concerto by a Vietnam veteran. The third story is nine versions of a letter sent by a prison warden to a mother describing the last hours in the life of her son. It exposes a range of possibilities as to how people might face their execution. I am drawing a blank on the final story after only two weeks, if that tells you something. Read the second story, period

No "Life of Pi".......2006-12-27

As a fan of Life of Pi and a bigger fan of the short story genre, I had high hopes for Yann Martel's collection of four (individually) award-winning stories. The oddly titled first one, which shares its name with the book, follows a just-graduating college student's friendship with a first-year schoolmate, who finds out once he's already quite sick that he's suffering from AIDS, acquired as a result of a post-automobile accident transfusion. The elder student proposes that they write a story about the fictional Roccamatio family of Helsinki, the men providing details for alternating years, for the 1901-2001 time period. The friendship works, as do the (generally sad) facts about the family and the world, but the connection between the two is beyond comprehension, at least mine. The second, which I disliked the least (barring references to a female hygiene product) concerns a man who, while on a visit to NYC, during which he tries to cram as many off-the-beaten-path activities into his stay, stumbles upon a concert to be held in a run-down building by run-down people. His intrigue with the violinist composer, an alcoholic veteran of the war in Vietnam, leads him to the man's place of work, where they ponder the man's musical career and skills and the meaning of life. The third, Manners of Dying, is actually a collection of letters written by a prison warden to the mother of an executed death row inmate. The letters, with specifics about the son's requested final meal, behavior during his final hours, and death, differ slightly in small but significant ways. By far the worst is the final story, about a man who, while visiting his grandmother, finds her mirror-making machine and gets to see the "pictures" of her life in them. The reader, unfortunately, must suffer not only through the story itself, but also see the word "blah" written over 1000 times. Those, like me, who enjoy quirky stories but didn't these, might try Haruki Murakami's Blind Willow Sleeping Woman, or Martel's novel, Life of Pi.

Tedious!.......2006-09-07

The names of the stories in this collection should serve as a warning: here there be pretentiousness.

I can recommend the second story, "The Time I Heard the Private Donald J. Rankin String Concerto with One Discordant Violin, by the American Composer John Morton." The others, especially "Manner of Dying," were pretty pointless. The last two stories in this book were written primarily using a word processor's copy/paste function, ergo they are a waste of time.

I thought Life of Pi was great and deserving of the hype, so Martel isn't on my black list; However, this early work is less polished and shows only glimpses of his talent.

New, different, and worth reading.......2006-08-10

Concise, exact, strange and engaging. It's hard to describe Yann Martel's writing, but it leaves the reader with a feeling, a deeper sort of understanding of the world, or perhaps a recognition of the confusion by it.

In this collection of four totally different novellas, Martel turns bits and pieces here and there into four, complete-yet-not-complete, first-person accounts. The plots are vague, the emotions are present but not overdone: they are what create the stories in the end.

Readers expecting another "Life of Pi" will be disappointed. Not only is this not a novel, but it's also a different style than Martel's best-seller. It's not so much the story but everything behind the story.

Martel chooses his words well; he raves over the meticulous art of punctuation; and the corollary is a mix of light-heartedness and humor in the face of despair and hopelessness. It's a strange combination, but everything about Martel's book is strange. The characters and their stories come out of nowhere; then they leave you behind with a turn of the page.

The novellas come in order of longest to shortest, but in all of them, carefully, Martel sprinkles specific details about. He sees writing as not the flow of endless words, but as an art, and with close attention paid to the syntax, punctuation, and dialogue, he ties threads of life together into four delightfully different and unique stories that end quickly on the pages but linger in the reader's mind.

Early works that shows sparks of what Martel can achieve.......2005-06-04

I have not read "Life of Pi" yet, but I have heard so many good things about that novel that when I saw this collection of short stories in the bookstore I was intrigued. I started browsing through the foreword, and immediately came to the conclusion that Martel has an innate ability for writing that places him in a select group of authors. That is why I decided to read this book, which contains four stories from the early stages of his career. When I compare the writing used in these stories with the one in the foreword, I cannot help feeling that the author has evolved considerably, but the stories still show early signs of a great writer.

The topics of these short works are highly unusual, which I believe makes them interesting overall, but at some points I found myself feeling that the author was trying to be unique to the extreme, and therefore, going overboard. The first story is the one that gives name to the collection, and the one I found to be the most touching. In this narration, the author presents the account of his relationship with a friend from college and the events that unfolded after this friend was diagnosed with AIDS. Martel shows a natural ability for reaching the heart of the reader with its vibrant descriptions of the emotions the characters experience when faced with such an enormous tragedy. Maybe the fact that the story is based on a real life event, that the author had to face, helped him with making it so vivid.

The other three stories use as topics a peculiar concert in Washington DC with references to how the Vietnam war affected the life of many, a collection of letters with different outcomes regarding the termination of a prisoner waiting for his death sentence, and a machine that makes mirrors by feeding on stories. As you can quickly realize, none of these have as a topic one that you are likely to find in works by other authors, and that makes them unique and valuable based on the author's imagination. The fact that the writing is not as polished as one would like is just evidence that the author was in the process of discovering himself and searching for the style that suited him best. It is extremely interesting to see how Martel wrote before becoming famous, and this is enough reason to make the book worth reading. - 3.5 stars.

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The Facts Behind Helsinki Roccamatios

Manufacturer: Hancourt, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0739455311

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Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios

Manufacturer: CANONGATE BOOKS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GTEJNY

La Historia De La Familia Roccamatio De Helsinki/ the Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios

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La Historia De La Familia Roccamatio De Helsinki/ the Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios
Yann Martel
Manufacturer: Destino Ediciones
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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"Yarn-spinning is also highly recommended": Yann Martel's framing narratives.(The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios and Other Stories )(Critical essay): ... An article from: Journal of Literary Studies

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"Yarn-spinning is also highly recommended": Yann Martel's framing narratives.(The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios and Other Stories )(Critical essay): ... An article from: Journal of Literary Studies
Karen Scherzinger
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Literary Studies, published by Thomson Gale on June 1, 2006. The length of the article is 7213 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: "Yarn-spinning is also highly recommended": Yann Martel's framing narratives.(The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios and Other Stories )(Critical essay)
Author: Karen Scherzinger
Publication: Journal of Literary Studies (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 22 Issue: 1-2 Page: 54(16)

Article Type: Critical essay

Distributed by Thomson Gale

The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios

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The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios
Yann Martell
Manufacturer: Harcourt
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJQ2WC

Book Description

A fantastic new Warhammer adventure from the Black Library's favourite author. A pirate captain long-thought dead returns to claim his ship. Now reformed, and with a letter of marque from his masters, he embarks on his new mission - to hunt down the vile zombie pirates that are plaguing the high seas.

Customer Reviews:

good marine adventure.......2007-09-18

it was a very good book of warhammer I enjoyed it from cover to cover. Thougth I am a native spanish speaker and had to look up in the dictonary some of the naval words, I got envolved with the story and read it in only 2 weeks

Argggg Mateys!.......2007-04-20

I loved it,from beginning to end the book is good and action packed,only complaint i have is it was too short,looking forward to another book.

Pulp-style action with Real Literature production values.......2007-04-08

I picked up Fell Cargo because of its obviously piratical title. This book has maybe the best back cover hook of all time:

"Long believed dead, pirate Captain Luka Silvaro returns to reclaim his ship and embark on a deadly new mission. But the high seas are now more dangerous than ever, and the captain and his scurvy crew of rogues must face pirates, curses, sea monsters and even worse foes. Can Silvaro and his allies track down the dread Butcher Ship and defeat her gruesome undead crew before they too are turned into mindless zombies?"

Who could turn that down?

So I got the book. Devoured it in two days. It has a density of incident that would make Edgar Rice Burroughs blush. In 250 pages, there are four major naval engagements, each involving at least three ships and each ending in a bloody boarding action. There is a treasure map, a stowaway, a voodoo ritual, a prophetic dream, chum in the water, kidnapping, a witch, a sea serpent, a cursed mummy, and a case of hidden identity revealed at the dramatically appropriate moment. Duels of honor decided with swords, drugged wine, sharks, walking the plank, abandoned death ships, and vampire feedings (yeah, that's right) each appear more than once.

Oh, and zombies. Fighting pirates!

Now, here's the crucial part: I read the whole book without gagging once. Years of grading student termpapers have given me an unusually low tolerance for bad writing. I suffered through Robert Jordan's Eye of the World, and Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule, but I'll go no further. I don't care what happens in the second book (or the twelfth, in Jordan's case), if I have to slog through prose that bad to find out.

But back to task: Dan Abnett's writing is, er, _good_. That is, at no point did I wince or groan, and twice I was so moved that I copied down passages into my "favorite quotes" files.

In conclusion, you can go to bed with Fell Cargo and not feel guilty in the morning. I'm going to go read a ton more of Abnett's books, and you should, too.

A near miss.......2007-02-22

With abnett at the helm this book could have been a classic. Abnett has a great feel for the details. But the Fell Cargo "universe" is not well fleshed out and much of the plot seems less designed to tell a story than to speed the book to a quick conclusion.

Great Book but Short.......2006-12-29

Great Pirate book. If you like the High-Seas, it is a must read mate. The book ending was a bit predictable, but the ending could have been better if the book was longer. It seems that, like a good movie, it had to be wrapped up rather quickly so that explains the quick end. Other than that, the book was a great read. Don't expect "real" pirates etc, this is after all a fantasy book in the warhammer world.

The Bulletin Number 74 November Barry Fell America B.C.And A Cargo Cult In Archaeology

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The Bulletin Number 74 November Barry Fell America B.C.And A Cargo Cult In Archaeology
John R.Cole
Manufacturer: N.Y.S.A.A
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NKRUNM

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Fell Cargo
Dan Abnett
Manufacturer: GAMES WORKSHOP (ABS)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000K7LWQO

Book Description

Elmo Freem has just gotten the worst haircut of his life. Not even a baseball cap can hide the mess on his head,and, worst of all, school starts tomorrow! Help arrives in the form of two space monsters, who suggest a visit to Moog-Moog, an amazing intergalactic barber. Elmo and his cat, Leon, travel through the galaxy for their appointment with the Great Moog-Moog, whose own changes color with every move he makes. But will Moog-Moog's scissors, clippers, X-ray blowgun, and outer space magic be enough to fix Elmo's hair disaster in time? Read this wacky romp to find out!

Customer Reviews:

OH MY HAIR!.......2007-07-25

This kid gets a terrible hair cut and cannot face school with it. Aliens come and take him to the great barber Moog Moog. He tries to fix it but ends up making it worse. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, the boy tells a lie about how it really does look much better. Overall things work out despite the boys horrific hair.

Not all haircuts end up bad.......2003-03-17

This is a very good book. It has everything that it needs to keep a young reader interested. Elmo has a very great imagination. I think that kids that read this book will like that. Everything starts with a bad haircut, but it all turns out pretty good. There are some very unexpected things that happen. It is a very fun book to read. The pictures also are very good in helping you really imagine the story. I would defnitely recommend this story to all kids. That is why I gave this book 5 stars.

Every bad hair day has its silver lining.......2000-07-10

For Elmo, not much can brighten the prospect of starting school with a horrible hair cut, so he pulls on a stocking cap and hunkers down in front of the last-night-of-summer-space-monster-movie.

The rest of us luck out though, when some fellow green-headed aliens drop in for a drink and take Elmo off in search of the most famous barber in the galaxy.

This charming book has a witty text and beautiful illustrations. Such a pity it's out of print!

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Moog-Moog, Space Barber

Manufacturer: Scholastic, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GX1OII

Book Description

He wanted to know where our world comes from and where it was going.

He wanted to understand how the remote stillness of the heavens relates to the erratic, ever-changing events here on earth.

Above all, he wanted to know if the answers to these questions would bring him closer to a higher authority.

So Einstein put God in the Equation

"Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science," Albert Einstein once said, "becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe -- a spirit vastly superior to that of man." This mysterious component, which Einstein called a "cosmological constant," would eventually work its way into his world-shattering theory of relativity. In this way, explains acclaimed science writer Corey S. Powell, Einstein was creating a formula for a new kind of "sci/religion," one in which God was a factor, denoted by the Greek letter Lambda, and one that would pave the way for an entirely new gnostic era in the history of human spirituality.

Customer Reviews:

What Does the Fat Lady Sing? (Or when?).......2006-08-31

Corey S Powell has written an excellent popular account of a major scientific discovery.

One that if confirmed promises to open up new vistas of investigation and deepen our theoretical understanding of the universe.

To properly tell his story, Powell first backs up a little, and sketches a brief account of the history of observational astronomy and its interplay with theoretical physics - the celestial mechanics of Newton. He then moves forward to the genesis of a new cosmology.

Some readers may be put off by the title. or, more specifically, take issue with the author for introducing "God" into what should be a scientific discussion.

I admit that at times I found Powell's "sci/rel" trope occasionally cloying; e.g., his description of Cecelia Payne-Goposchkin as a "sort of Mary Magdalene in the shadows of the sci/religious miracles" of two cosmological advances affecting first Arthur Eddington, then, later Harlow Shapley (p119).

Nonetheless, I feel that Powell has endeavored to heal a kind of psycho-linguistic breach in our language - and consciousness.

Cosmology had fractured into (a) scientific cosmo-genesis, and into a religious nullity.

The latter having perhaps mythological or "poetic" significance, but otherwise empty of scientific content.

Even if the premises upon which the book is based - the interpretation of the Mauna Kea data, introduced at the start of the book - are shown to be erroneous, the idea of creation - and, our place in it - re-emerges in Powell's book from the obscurity of a secularism that occasionally over-reaches.

The main burden of the text is to lay out the science behind the work of principally two teams of scientific collaborators studying Type Ia supernovae.

The significance of their work was announced in Science's "Biggest Breakthroughs of 1998"
(18 Dec issue).

Powell's careful preparation gently leads the reader to a heightened understanding of the theoretical issues involved. In so doing, he neither tarries too long, nor plunges heedlessly ahead of the lay reader.

One wishes that the author had provided a "further reading" reference to magnetic monopoles directed to a general audience (something along the lines of Scientifc American Frontiers).

Also Powell misconstrues the force of the weak anthropic principle. The latter serves as a simplifying assumption. In that sense it may serve to guide research. It is a crude heuristic - a tool.

Even in its strong "participatory" form it does not (indeed, cannot) "brush aside the flatness problem, the horizon problem, and [questions about] the origin of structure in the universe," as the author suggests on p.193.

Just before picking up "God In the Equation" I happened to read de Santillanna's Crime of Galileo.

Powell alludes briefly to Pius XII's somewhat embarrassing sally into the sci/religious controversy.

When, November 1951, the Pope burbled about the Big Bang, he trespassed onto the reservation of 1893, which officially validated Galileo's assertion that it would be impious to suppose that God
"may have laid pitfalls for men by establishing contradictory [scientific and religious] truths."

Is Mr. Powell himself likewise guilty of trespassing - in this case, onto the religious reservation -
when he talks about the Church of Einstein?

This begs a question: Is knowing the universe the same as knowing God?

Note that this is distinct from the matter of faith.

We take on faith the veracity of "things unseen."

But it is also faith that sees the creation (as it is; as "given") as at once exemplar and indicative
of divinity.

As sublime.

Powell strays perilously close to religious revisionism.
(A revisionism without apologetics, however.)

The author seems to exhibit a mixed mind.
And it may be that this ought not be condemned.

I found myself moved when he wrote about the "spiritual power of Einstein's equations."

And untroubled.

Wow! A real mind-opener........2004-04-30

I can't recall ever reading another book quite
like this one. Most of the books about science and
religion I've seen fall into one of two categories.
They either try to make the case that scientists are
secretly religious people, or else they try to argue
that science leaves no room for faith. Powell takes
the discussion in a very different, more subtle
direction, one that reminds me of some of Daniel
Dennett's ideas. In essence, Powell argues that
spirituality is an integral component of the way
humans process information about the world--even if
the people doing the processing are cosmologists who
openly describe themselves as atheists. That
perspective puts a whole new spin on Albert Einstein's often-puzzling use of the word "God" as something interchangeable with the laws of physics. It also explains why, in his later years, Einstein was so committed to the idea of a cosmic religion.

Alas, Einstein was an idealist and I'm afraid Powell
may be too. His dream that science can reform religion
of its more destructive impulses looks just like
that--a dream. Religion seems to be doing just fine in
the Middle East, not to mention in Mel Gibson's bank
account. But Powell's analysis of how the scientific
process works is both original and eye-opening. I also
really enjoyed his sweeping history of cosmology, full
of clear explanations and surprising details. The
section on the early history of the big bang, in
particular, covers territory that I've never head
about before. (The father of the big bang was an
obscure Russian meteorologist--who knew?) This book
does an amazing job explaining what we know about the
universe and how we know it. If it also helps advance Einstein's pacifist agenda, so much the better. Truly inspirational.

A Distorted View of History.......2003-09-13

With his invention of sci/religion, Powell appears to have abandoned historical reality for a mystical journey of misinterpretation of relativity and the reason Einstein originally thought it necessary to invent the cosmological constant. In my judgement, this book is neither good physics, accurate reporting nor good writing.

a provocative mix of science and philosophy.......2003-01-24

It's hard to get much bigger than the themes in this
book: how did the universe begin, how will it end, and
is there any way to find spiritual satisfaction
through science? Amazingly, this writer pulls it off.
The first part of the book covers historical ideas
about the universe, bringing people like Galileo and
Newton to life as complex, passionate thinkers. The
later chapters get into modern cosmology, covering the
big bang and some of the current far-out ideas about
"dark energy" and other universes.

Reads like a colege student's homework.......2003-01-13

I hold a degree in physics and am currently in the process to become a priest so I read this book with great interest. I was not impressed with Powell's writing. I was put off by the numerous instances of exaggeration and projecting unknown personal motivations on historical characters. Powell's argument flowed like papers I wrote in high school and college with gross shading of facts and very little honest apprasial of opposing viewpoints. I also had a hard time accepting the cumbersome sci/religion as a real word. I hope it never catches on. There are much better texts on the thrilling topic of science and religion than God in the Equation.

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