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Bookish Quotes
"These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves."
Life of Pi
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Life of Pi
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Life of Pi tells the story of Piscine Molitor -- "Pi" -- Patel (named first after a Parisian swimming pool, then later after 3.14), who was raised in his father's zoo in Pondicherry, India. At the age of sixteen, Pi finds himself cast adrift in the Pacific Ocean in a 26 foot lifeboat when the ship carrying his family and their menagerie to their new home in Canada unexpectedly sinks four days out of Manila. Pi travels the "narrow road" of the Pacific equatorial counter current for 227 days with only Richard Parker -- a 450 lb. Bengal tiger -- for company. The story of Pi's accidental voyage with Richard Parker works so well, on so many levels. It would be engaging enough as a book about animal behaviour, since Martel resists -- to the poignant conclusion of the novel -- the temptation to anthropomorphize Richard Parker (his name notwithstanding!). As an adventure story, it brings to mind Robinson Crusoe. As an odyssey and a fable it borrows from Aesop, Homer, the Old Testament and William Blake, to name only a few obvious reference points. Most compellingly, Life of Pi is a remarkably moving account of a spiritual journey. Pi had inclinations in this direction even before the shipwreck (before finishing high school he'd already signed on for three Major World Religions), but his experience at sea consolidates at a deeply personal level all that he'd learned about God -- and godliness -- from books. I think this passage from Chapter 74 will be with me for some time: I practiced rituals that I adapted to the circumstances -- solitary Masses without priests or consecrated Communion hosts, darshans without murtis, and pujas with turtle meat for prasad, acts of devotion to Allah not knowing where Mecca was and getting my Arabic wrong. They brought me comfort, that is certain. But it was hard, oh, it was hard. Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love -- but sometimes it was so hard to love. Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation and weariness, I was afraid it would sink to the very bottom of the Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up. At such moments I tried to elevate myself. I would touch the turban I had made with the remains of my shirt and I would say aloud, "THIS IS GOD'S HAT!" I would pat my pants and say aloud, "THIS IS GOD'S ATTIRE!" I would point to Richard Parker and say aloud, "THIS IS GOD'S CAT!" ... And in this way I would remind myself of creation and of my place in it. But God's hat was always unravelling. God's pants were falling apart. God's cat was a constant danger. ... God's ear didn't seem to be listening. Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression. I thank God it always passed. A school of fish appeared around the net or a knot cried out to be reknotted. Or I thought of my family, of how they were spared this terrible agony. The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving. Life of Pi was awarded the 2002 Booker Prize (deservedly, in my view, though Martel faced some heavy competition, including Carol Shields' Unless, Tim Winton's Dirt Music and William Boyd's Any Human Heart). You can read the Guardian's May 2002 review of Life of Pi here, the New York Times's here, the Independent's here and Salon's here. (Top left: meerkats) |
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Released 6 yrs ago (6/10/2005 UTC) at Mangez Mangez coffeeshop in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada WILD RELEASE NOTES:
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