Discount Shopping Online :: Books Self : :

Self
by: Yann Martel

Used Price: $7.03
Third Party New Price: $12.01

Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780571219766
ISBN: 0571219764
Label: Faber and Faber
Manufacturer: Faber and Faber
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: April 07, 2003
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Sales Rank: 412871
Studio: Faber and Faber

Related Items:

Editorial Review:

Product Description:
A fictional autobiography of a young writer which takes the reader to Canada, Portugal, Greece, Turkey and elsewhere. This story of love, sex and ambiguity is the first novel by the Canadian author of the award-winning short-story collection, 'The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios'.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Not his masterpiece, and yet...
While "Self" does not resemble "Life of Pi" on the surface, the two novels make me think of siblings who look completely different but share some mannerism or whose voices sound the same over the phone. This is not to say that a novel must be beautiful to be good, but "Life of Pi" was the beautiful one. Both novels in a different sense involve identity morphing, the hidden nature of the self and its survival. Both point out the casual ubiquity of cruelty and how it is intertwined with society.

I understood "Self" as a novel about loss, what remains of one's identity after all else is stripped away, including one's idea of home, the thing that remains constant in the wilderness of a life. But the narrator is so open, guileless, without the instinct to reserve anything, that the eradication of the self is also suggested.

All of the characters form part of the strange wilderness of this ... Read More

Rating:

- Riding The Coattails of Success - Sellout
I loved Life of Pi. But this book felt like a sellout. I felt that the only reason this book was published was because Life of Pi was so successfull and the gods thought to capitalize on that success. I'm extremely dissapointed in Yann and will think twice about buying anymore of his books.

Rating:

- crazy2bhere is full of it!!!
I enjoyed this book very much just as I enjoyed Life of Pi and his collection of short stories titled The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios. All are worth the read. There is another review on this forum by "crazy2bhere", to whom I would like to say: GET OFF IT. Where do you rank among authors? Perhaps you can divulge your name so readers can google YOU. Strangely, it seems you take Yann Martel's success personally and bitterly and your review annoys me. Everyone is certainly entitled to his own opinion but I find your criticism excessive.

Rating:

- Yes for most Yann Martel fans
While this book is a very different type of read from Martel's later "Life of Pi" (which was excellent), it does seem to foreshadow one of the central themes in "Pi" - in particular, the theme of the incredible power of tragedy to transform us and our perceptions of the people around us. In this book, tragic events literally transform the gender of the protagonist (twice) and thus his/her perception of and interaction with the world. In "Pi," tragedy transforms Pi's recollection of reality in his attempt to live with his losses on a daily basis. While the gender transformation is not handled as well in "Self" as in "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides(also highly recommended), I would certainly recommend this book to Martel fans who are interested in seeing the development of this very talented writer.

Discount Shopping Online Books and Publications

Books : Self
Books and Publications Average Rating:

Search the web for info about Self

Discount Shopping Online Books and Publications

Books : SelfBooks and Publications Average Rating:

Search the web for info about Self

Books : Self
Books and Publications Average Rating: