Life of Pi ~ Yann Martel ~ 2/03 ~ Book Club Online Export

	Life of Pi by Yann Martel
After the sinking of a cargo ship, a single solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the surface of the wild, blue Pacific. The crew of the surviving vessel consists of a hyena, an orang-utan, a zebra with a broken leg, a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger and Pi Patel, a 16-year-old Indian boy. The stage is set for one of the most extraordinary pieces of literary fiction in recent years, a novel of such rare and wondrous storytelling that it may, as one character claims, make you believe in God. Can a reader reasonably ask for anything more? *from the publisher*
Links of Interest
	About the Author Yann Martel Q & A Yann Martel: how I wrote Life of Pi	Bengal Tigers Pondicherry tourist guide Pondicherry: Riviera of the East
SF Gate review Review from curledup.com PopMatters' Review
Discussion Schedule
February 1 to 10: Author's Note & Chapters 1 to 36 February 11 to 17: chapters 37 to 65 February 18 to 24: chapters 66 to 94 February 25 to 28: chapter 95 to the end.

Questions for Consideration

Final Questions

Richard Parker disappears into the Mexican jungle never to be seen again by anyone. Was Richard Parker ever real?

Is Pi's other story any more believable than the one he has already told us?

Do you believe only in what you can see?

Does this book have a happy ending?

How would you rate this book? From 1 to 5 how many points would you give it?

Previous questions

Comments? Write Nellie Vrolyk and Jo Meander

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Hello everyone!

I hope you will be able to join me in a discussion of this marvelous book. It is full of humour and adventure; and I became so caught up in the story while I was reading that I at times forgot it was not a real story.

Nellie

Nellie I may be interested but it is according to my schedule - just now I am up to my ears and cannot think beyond January 4, 2003 - I've heard good things about this book.

Thanks for posting, Barbara! Let's get through the holidays first and then think about other things

It is a very good and different book from any other I've read.

Hi Nellie!

I read it this past summer...most unusual and good!

The author Yann Martel was on NPR this morning.

http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=878087

Hi Nettie! I hope you will have a chance to join us in discussing this book.

I have no speakers for my computer so I couldn't listen to the interview at the link you so kindly provided for us.

I will try, Nellie, but I must admit, my memory of stories sure weakens over time and I gave the book away after reading it...

Well, this is interesting. Good for you, Nellie. If the timing allows, I might like to join you on this one.

Thank you Chazz! You are very welcome to join us in this discussing this book.

Why Chazz, ahahah WELCOME, we'd love to have you in discussing this book, hopefully it will make a quorum.

ginny

Today I picked up Life of Pi at our local library. for three weeks I've been waiting for 7 Sisters and it is out on loan until the 23rd of this month. Groan.

Charlie, I have sorely missed you and your infinite wisdom. Welcom back!

Charlie, is it really you? If so, I'm definitely IN. This book is #1 in Fiction here in San Francisco.

ALF, I hope you'll be joining us in discussing this book?

Sarah, welcome! Have you read Life of Pi?

Ginny, thank you for stopping by...

Nellie, will check out this book...have heard good things about it. The Booker Prize winners are always different, on the edge - but always "winners." The blurb in the heading says it all! hahahaha...Hope to join in!

Nellie, thanks for the welcome. I haven't read it yet, but have put a hold on it at the library. It is the #1 bestseller in hardcover here in San Francisco, so I may have a bit of a wait...

It is captivating and here is what Powells sent today on it. Life of Pi

Welcome, Joan! I do hope you will be able to join us

ALF, thank you for the link to the review. It catches what the book is about very well.

Sarah, this is a fun book to read and at the same time gives one a fair bit to think about - you'll enjoy it, I'm sure.

Oh Sarah, you'll love it, it's meaty, it's meaty, it's mighty, mighty meaty! I've read about 75 pages thus far and have marked I numerous pages. It's a great study in interfaith dialogue and I've learned more about zoology than I ever cared to know. I love walking thru life so far this young 16 yr. old boy.

Nellie, everything seems to indicate a good read. An enjoyable, 'fun' read. But very 'meaty'!! nevertheless. I can see where a 450lb Royal Bengal Tiger would take care of that! Might even make believing in God a necessity!

I can't pass up an opportunity to read and discuss this prize-winning book in the company of all of you. I must admit it comes at a very good, opportune time. I would like to sign on when the Pequod sails, taking Captain Ahab on his vengeful mission. To be able to say that I have been to sea, that I know something about...well, that's what I would like to find out. I'm hoping that Life of Pi, and 'bobbing on the surface of the wild blue Pacific', for all that long time, with a tiger yet, well, what's a whale after that? Does this approach make sense. Or would it all be too much for this landlover?

Jonathan

Hooray, we have Jonathan aboard our lifeboat.

Hello Jonathan! Welcome to the discussion!

ALF, I like that idea of us all being in the lifeboat!

I'd like it a lot better Nellie, if we didn't have that darned Tiger to worry about.

Me too, ALF. But with that comes another 'worry'. No tiger. No story. And doesn't the tiger play a strange role in the great scheme of things?

I finished the book this afternoon. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm going to have to skip back thru it to make notes for myself as it was only a 1 week loaner from a participating Library.

Sure wish I had done that, Alf. I read it at least 6 months ago and my memory is lacking...

I just got my copy of Pi and am SO excited, can hardly keep from sitting down and reading it through. But then, I haven't put away all the Christmas decorations...candles still in the windows... Just reading the reactions on the cover...by the way, I was able to get a paperback printed in Canada for a few dollars less that the Barnes & Noble site. The paperback won't be released here in the states until May. If you want the address, email me and I'll share it with you...

Listen to what I'm reading on the cover...

"Life of Pi is a terrific book. It's fresh, original, smart, devious and crammed with absorbing lore." Margaret Atwood (one of England's primo writers)

And this: "The stage is set for one of the most extraordinary pieces of literary fiction in recent years, a novel of such rare and wondrous storytelling that it may, as one character claims, make you believe in God. Can a reader reasonably ask for more?"

I CANNOT WAIT TO READ THIS BOOK AND HEAR YOUR REACTIONS TOO!

I'm sure it did not receive the Booker Prize for nothing...I am certain this will be a rewarding experience for all of us. Glad to see so many of you on board...

Nettie, will be in Kill Devil Hills the last week of August...the whole extended family has rented a big place for a week. Would love to get in touch with you for a stroll on the shore...we can talk about Pi and what effects it had on our lives...

ps Can't thank Nellie enough for bringing this exciting Canadian author to our attention. Not because the book won prizes, but because she found it to be such an enjoyable book!

Hello Joan! It is nice to see such enthusiasm for this book. You must have the same paperback copy that I have - I live in Canada so naturally I bought it from a Canadian store.

But there is an error in the Atwood quote: she is a premier Canadian writer and not an English one.

Have you begun reading yet?

Oh, no Nellie, the publisher didn't make that mistake...I did! I thought she was British! I added "primo British writer"...could have been confusing with Margaret Drabble.

Haven't read beyond the introductory pages which explain how Yann Martel came by this story in the first place. In a way, he seems to be getting credit for someone else's story. Do you think?

That is a gorgeous heading!

You all are really getting me excited to read this book. Can't wait!

Joan, I'll have to do some investigating into the author to find out more about him. But I have one or two ideas about this story; still rather nebulous at this point; which I will share later on.

Hi Sarah!

Sarah, it will be great having you join us. Buy the book! Every week it climbs higher on the best seller list. It will be impossible to get in from the library. Do you want to get it cheap? I can send you an address. This lady gets the paparback printed in Canada (she lives in NY) ...the paperback won't be released here until May.

Nellie, I'd love to know more about this author. Want me to surf for a link? Is he will known in Canada, or is this a first novel? Curious minds want to know about a young man who has been compared to some of the greatest writers of our time.

Joan, feel free to surf around for some links on Martel. Help of any kind is always much appreciated!

Here are some that I found:

http://www.randomhouse.ca/newface/martel.php

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,6000,848131,00.html

http://www.powells.com/fromtheauthor/martel.html

It seems that Life of Pi is the third book he has written.

Nellie...those are great links! I love the interview. His favorite book is The Divine Comedy!) Let's keep them in the discussion heading?

The third one dealing with his inspiration for the book...I wouldn't recommend reading until you've read the Author's Notes ...see if you are any smarter than I was - which wouldn't be difficult...

Joan, I'll stick them up in the heading in a bit...

I had the feeling from reading his words on what inspired the story, that Martel did not really know how he came up with the ideas for what he ended up writing, because his explanation seems disjointed, and sort of 'after the fact' to me. I could be wrong, of course.

Nellie, I'm reading the book (really like it!) and keeping up with posts. I hope to be of some help in discussion.

In the latest issue of Book Magazine, Yann Martel muses on the novelist's fondest dream and worst nightmare - the reviews. One wonders if Yann might have written such a mini-marshmallow before the somewhat unexpected success of his book. One wonders also what impact the tempest ("the stupid scandal", he calls it) about the similarities between his and Moacyr Scliar's Max and the Cats had on his mindset. My, my. You can almost feel the heat come off the page (or in this case, the screen) as he responds to a question about plagiarism in the Guardian Q&A.

Despite the obvious sore spot, his explanation of the creative spark, the imagination, has a ring of truth to it. Besides, there's noting like a good literary dust-up to sell more books.

Chazz...thanks for the links. So there was/is a "stupid scandal" ...over plagarism, huh? I must admit that after reading the Author's Notes in the beginning, that I was feeling somewhat cheated that this story was lifted from someone else's experience, not the creative work of the author...maybe I shouldn't say that much, huh? Some of you haven't started reading the book as yet.

Just want to say that I am getting a kick out of reading about this guy. and everything he writes. Isn't it refreshing to come across an author who sounds like NO ONE ELSE? I liked this from the review you included...

Seeking happiness in your Good Art will lead you nowhere. There is no link between the Good Life and Good Art. Work on being a good person as you work on being a good writer, keeping them separate, and—likely as not—you will become better at both.

There is no link between the Good Life and Good Art.

Can the reader take a hint from this advice, I wonder? Should we? Can we keep the author and the author's life (as we know it) separate from the works? Is it even desirable? But we do, don't we?. T. S. Eliot? Ezra Pound?

I must admit, I have a difficult time separating the author from his work. Always have had this problem. No, it problably isn't desirable. What's the solution? Read the work before learning anything about the author?

I do too. I fancy that it doesn't hinder my appreciation of the work on a certain level. But if I have a certain amount of negative knowledge about an author, it does affect my ability to warm up to their work. And my filter will turn on, making it unlikely that I'd support that particular author through buying his or her books.

Except in rare cases, I don't think there's anything about an author's personal life and views that doesn't inform their work in some way. It may not be apparent at first, but as a body of work grows, don't we see the person clearer? Even if we're not meant to?

The works may stand on their own, and the author may compartmentalize the writing life and the personal life - but the one truly informs the other on the most basic level nevertheless.

Interesting thoughts on an author -any author? - and his or her work. I think that there is always something of the author in a story because the author must in some way picture himself/herself in the situation he/she puts the characters in order to make the character's reactions and actions believable. Fiction always comes from the author's imagination, after all.

This will be a very fascinating book to discuss.

I agree Nellie...and want to confess something. After reading the first fifty pages, I just HAD to go check this author's age and background, his writing, his philosophy sounded so much like an older man...

Hi! Joan, Nellie, everyone here. I just came from having dinner with my daughter's family and on a table in the living room I saw "Life of Pi", my SIL is reading it and he says he likes it very much. I might borrow it when he is finished.

Éloïse

Eloise! Do try to slip Pi off the coffee table into your purse before you leave? It is such a good read on so many different levels...but in the end you are left scratching your head...and you feel the need to talk it over with someone else. At least I did! The more the merrier...

Hello Eloise! I agree with Joan wholeheartedly on the 'sneaking it off the coffeetable'!

I've never read a book like it!

Dan, my SIL read me a few pages in the car today. This book looks like I won't be able to wait until he's finished, I will just take it off his hands for a few days and read it. The reason he bought it is because Pondicherry India is the home town of my daughter and Dan's close friends. The few pages he read to me were so good, I understand that this author is being compared with the greatest.

Yann Martel lives here in Montreal and even if Yann might not be a common French name, Martel is a very common here. I read in his bio that he was born in Spain.

Eloïse

I just returned to Cayman and bought the Life of Pi while in the states. I look forward to reading it over the next couple of weeks and in joining the discussion.

Welcome, George, This is one very interesting book...

My library lends it for 7 days at a time... I've had it once. so I need to get my name back on the list so I can have it for the first week of February.

Hello George, nice to see you. Enjoy the book.

Eloise, how interesting that your daughter's and Dan's friend comes from Pondicherry!

...and nice to learn that Pondicherry is a real, not a fictitious place! I'm having a hard time separating fact from fiction here.

George...good to have you join our merry menagerie!

I am also pleased to hear that Pondicherry is real. I know what you mean, Joan, about the reality and fiction overlap. I'm sure we will be discussing that.

I get the impression that the author is very honest and forthright. I can't for the life of me see what Margaret Atwood finds devious about the book. And not at all surprised that Martel is unhappy when he sees dubious quotes on the cover of his book. Of course Pondicherry is a real place. Leave it to a hungry author, abetted by his hungry young hero, to choose a place that sounds so edible. And yes, there really are nine columns of Patels in the Toronto telephone directory. Including one P M Patel!

The first time I hear Pondicherry, was in French and it sounded like Pondichérie. I thought how delightful to give such a beautiful name to a town/city and I heard it was as beautiful as its name is.

Nellie about 15 years ago my very young daughter Isabelle worked in a restaurant in Ste. Agathe. She became friends with a girl who later went to France to live and there she met an Indian man who was a student at the Sorbonne in Paris and he came from Pondicherry. They married and came back to live near Ste. Agathe. This family decided to all go back to Pondicherry a few months ago, incidently it used to be a French Protectorate and the second language there is French as opposed to being English in the rest of India. I was awed by this French Canadian woman going to live permanently in India and the children and her will have to learn the Tamoul language. His father owns property there and as the custom demands the eldest son should take over his father's profession.

I must find out more about Yann Martel because he lives in Montreal what his background is. It intrigues me.

Eloïse

Hello everyone! We are learning such interesting facts...

Oh, yes, Eloïse....I found I just had to read the links on his biography after getting started...the science, the theolgy...had to learn more. And the French territory...Pondicherry, that was so important. Such a coincidence that your daughter knows people who actually live there now. Maybe if questions arise in the discussion about Pondicherry, your daughter could ask her friend. Are they cyberconnected?

Now all we need is to find a zoo keeper to join us! Jonathan, double-dog dare you to call the P Patel and ask for "Piscine"...

Here you will find everything you want to know about Pondicherry, the French Riviera of the East.

PONDICHERRY click on the picture and it gives you its origins, how long the French occupied it and a nice map of the city located right on the Bay of Bangal.

Does not that sound like "Thousand And One Nights" movie of long ago?

Eloïse

Eloise, that is a nice link to info about Pondicherry, I'm going to put it in the heading with the other links.

I suppose I should tell that I removed the '=' that was at the end and got the link to work in that way.

Joan, I am sure that if they are not connected to the web now, they will soon be and perhaps I can even write to them, I have known them well for a long time too.

Eloïse

Nellie, you were looking for a good Pondicherry link - and here it is. This is a great one, Eloise. I see the map...and there is a railway station on it to...and churches. Did Y. Martel spend time in Pondicherry. I will guess he did.

Here's something else that you might find interesting...

"Swimming is the sport for your health and the future. Paris has been known to have some historic pools since the Roman times. The Piscine Deligny, a Belle Epoque floating pool in the Seine in front of the Orsay museum sunk and Molitor, now closed for renovation, which was Henry Miller and Anais Nin's favorite pool in the 30s, are now replaced by a modern park of pools run by the Ville de Paris. They are quite fantastique, and we have the list to prove it." Molitor Piscine

I've just had a very interesting conversation with a well-spoken Indian gentleman who denied, with a chuckle, that he was the boy in the lifeboat. My own curiousity, as much as Joan's dare, helped me to overcome the hesitation to commit an invasion of a stranger's privacy. Not at all, he assured me. Had he read the book? Indeed. Had he enjoyed it? Very much. Did he have any opinions or suggestions which might be useful in a group discussion of such a fabulous journey? No. Each one must travel that Way alone. How was the book received by the folks back in India? Very enthusiastically. Some are referring to the book as the Zookeeper's Bible. Others were even talking of the 'bodhi' rock at Matheran 'not far from Bombay', as the place of Yann Martel's Enlightenment. I suggested that Martel was only claiming inspiration while he was sitting on the rock. Specifically: 'suddenly my mind was exploding with ideas'. To which he replied: one man's inspiration is another's enlightenment...or revelation. Did he feel then that the book had the ring of truth about it? All 57 varieties, he replied. Was he suggesting a mongrelization of the truth with that? Certainly not. My suggestion incensed him, it seemed. Well then, what about the talk of bamboozlement? Was that advice to the reader about the need for discernment? Possibly. Just as likely a pi-ism on the author's part as a reminder to himself to stay in the Way of Truth. I got a very strange answer from him when I reminded him that in some circles, Toronto is spoken of as the Safed of the New World. To that he replied that Isaac Luria would supply a meaningful key to unlock a good part of the mystery of the Book.

From the Enlightened One, 'May Richard Parker always be at your side.' Doesn't that sound guruish? J

Oh Jonathan, I love that. Love the fact that you call "P" Patel too. Sound so philosophical...very much like our Pi. We all probably have a Richard Parker in our lives...just need to identify the characteristics and make the most of that knowledge.

Can't wait to get going with this discussion...will be away until later next week. Warmer clime, but this will certainly be something to look forward to...Jonathan, there is no one quite like you!

Joan, as you may have seen I already have Eloise's link in the heading!

Jonathan, how marvelous that you spoke to the P M Patel in the Toronto phonebook and had such a nice conversation.

I am going to look up this Isaac Luria and see what I can find out about him.

The friends who have moved back to Pondicherry from a small town in Quebec have written a long email accound of their struggle to adapt in Soureshes' home town. Soureshe has spent a week in his father's rice fields learning the business and the rest of the family is trying to adapt to Indian life not without a struggle.

If you want to know something about that area I will ask and I am sure that they will be very happy to oblige even if I doubt that they read Life of Pi.

Eloïse

Welcome to the Life of Pi

This is a book like no other I have read and I look forward to your thoughts and opinions on it.

Let the discussion begin!

Nellie, Joan P., and,I believe, Eloise, too: Thank you for getting us in gear to appreciate this reading and discussion even more than I had hoped! I am well into the adventure, rereading the first part and starting the second. The clickables you have provided and the great questions should keep us on track. Patel's account of how the book came to be is very important. He tells us right away about reading another "failed" novel, and how the experience fanned the flame of his own imagination. I don't believe he says anything about a real Patel or a real interview, such as the one that goes on in the novel, interlaced with the action in italicized chapters. I take the narrator to be the fictional Patel, and the information he is giving the writer to be that Patel's own biography and adventure. So this is fiction, but he has transformed the reality of his knowledge of two human experiences: the natural world, which includes him and the rest of us, and the spiritual awareness he finds so accessible. They are Matel's realities, and his fiction is infused with his passions and convictions aboout both of them.
Defining that elusive element that brings a story to life sounds like the life-long task of literary critics, but what the heck! Maybe the universal elements he includes that build the bridge from a made-up story to the human heart create that spark. I think that's the stuff we will be discussing, if we don't get side tracked into whether or not he's trying to hide his story and character source! I hope we don't do that!

Hello everyone!

Good post, Jo!

I see two narrators in this first part of the book: the one presented in the italics seems to be a fictionalized version of Yann Martel himself, and the other is Pi Patel.

I like this bit from the Author's Note:

"That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence?

I think this is something for us to keep in mind as we look at this story. What do you think?

I see two narrators in this first part of the book: the one presented in the italics seems to be a fictionalized version of Yann Martel himself, and the other is Pi Patel.[Nellie]

Nellie, I particularly liked this device because it allowed the nature of Pi Patel to be revealed by himself - but paralleled with the revealing done by the shadow author. In this way, Martel allows the reader to be informed by the impressions of the author - but as well by the character directly. This does a few things. It engages the reader more fully. But it also gives the reader a sense that he "knows" this Pi Patel as well as the author. An absurd idea of course, but one we fall for hook line and sinker. And that's a good thing (to coin a phrase).

Jo, I agree we shouldn't be side-tracked by the "controversy" (such as it is) surrounding the source of inspiration here. I should point out though, that the "failed novel" crack is one of the things that incensed Scliar. It was really no such thing. Having read all about this teapot dome scandal some months ago, I was somewhat surprised to find Mr. Scliar nodded to in the "Author's Note." That's important in the scheme of things, and I don't recall having read that before in the accounts of the contretemps.

I am finding the discussion of this book as fascinating as the book itself. At the moment I am confused by the material in italics, but I suppose that will become clear. I assume that it is the author himself writing the introduction and he does it in such a way as to make the reader believe that what he is about to read is a factual account of a real person. But this is a novel - so what is reality? The author interweaves reality and fiction in his introduction. But the question remains, what is reality? As to Pi's name and pronunciation - I pronounce it Pi with a long i because in the book, Pi introduces himself to his classmates using the Greek letter Pi. He does this to avoid the embarrassment of using the correct pronunciation of Picene. While Pi has much significance in mathematics, there seems to be no connection to the name of the young boy. He just used Pi in order to get people to say his name in an acceptable way. I wonder what his parents called him. I did find some other material on the web regarding Pi which looked interesting but have not been able to locate the New Yorker article that was quoted. The questions you pose are wonderful and a number touch on topics that I noted while reading. Now I will go back and see what I wrote.

I am still waiting for my copy of Life of Pi to arrive, so that I can catch up with the rest of you. Meanwhile, I am thoroughly enjoying all of the posts that have just been made. They are not only very interesting, but they also show a great deal of insight.

Chazz, are the articles on this touchy subject accessible on the net?
The two voices, interviewer in italics and interviewee in first person narration, make the relationship between them seem real and make me want to believe Pi's story. Thinking of it as being what the interviewer heard and then wrote down for us is somehow more engaging than a more direct telling would have been. Alternating the two of them lets me imagine the author making efforts to befriend Pi, , listen to him, and absord the details of his experiences and ideas.

Jo, I linked them earlier in this message.

Charlie

Chazz, I agree that the two narrators device gives us the feeling that we know Pi Patel as well as the author. What is more, it adds a sense of reality to what we know to be fiction, and aids us in suspending our disbelief.

The 'failed novel' mentioned in the Author's note seems to have been one of Martel's own novels, or at the least it may be nothing more than an imaginary novel written by the fictional version of Martel.

George, great first post! Good question on 'what is reality?' I think that Martel pushes the boundaries between fiction and reality a great deal in this book.

I also pronounce Pi as 'pie' because I don't think that Pi himself would accept 'pea/pee' as an acceptable pronounciation. He did, after all change his name from Piscine to Pi -as in the pi=3.14- because his schoolmates were calling him 'Pissing'. I liked the firm way he took charge of the change to the short version of his name, by going up to the blackboard and writing down what he wants everyone to learn -his 'new' name 'Pi Patel'.

Hello and welcome, Akon! I hope you jump in as soon as you have the book and have read some of it.

Jo, check out the Martel links in the heading because they touch on the matter in question as well.

I find it interesting that Pi begins his story with the three-toed sloth.

More later...

While I was visiting my daughter and SIL, of course Life of Pi was still there sitting on the table and he is reading it. I leafed through it and understood this back and forth movement of the author's French/English train of thought as he was trying to explain the confusion over the pronounciation of the name. Funny that he even chose such an outlandish first name as Piscine and immediately felt he had to explain why he had to shorten it to Pi. Very mysterious.

My SIL's sister who is a doctor knows Yann Martel very well as they both work in the same hospital in Montreal.

Eloïse

What an interesting observation about Martel as an author, and on the style and matter of his book. Along with the good questions in the heading and the excellent points already made in the posts, we should do justice to this remarkable book.

The story, and whose story is it anyways, certainly gets told in the strangest way. Half a dozen 'narrators' have a hand in it, beginning with the author himself, who readily admits that his own stories don't sell. (Isn't the 'failed novel' a reference to Scliar's Max and His Cats, about which Martel is so ungracious?) By happenstance Martel is given an opportunity to research and report someone else's story. While remaining a part of the story himself (Author's Note and italicized chapters) he permits the main character to tell his own story. Not the character himself, as it turns out, but an older self, remembering and reliving the events. Confirmation comes with the documentation resting in the archives at the Japanese Ministry of Transport.

That such things can happen, and have happened, are attested to by Moacyr Scliar. As can be seen from a few of his many titles: Os Leopardos de Kafka, Van Gogh's Ear, The Centaur in the Garden, O Carnival do Animals, Historias da Terra Tremula.

Willing to underwrite, and lend its prestige to this bold, artistic endeavour to get beyond 'crude reality', is the Canada Council of the Arts. In my opinion the Council has received good value for its money.

All in all, the author is being very honest with his reader, acknowledging his debt to others. Except in the matter of the 'spark of life'. I believe he's being overly generous when he gives Scliar credit for that. Dr Scliar (med) is a good writer and a popular one who serves up, as we have seen, plenty of imaginative scenarios which can be mined for literary inspiration. While he did provide the boat and occupants, or the premise as Martel puts it, I believe Martel owes even more to others, which he might also have acknowledged. As for example: for the spirit of the story...what could be more apropos than Ghandi's words? 'I am a Hindu. I am a Muslim. I am a Christian.' Young Pi must have heard them while growing up in India.

And then there is Isaac Luria. Whose influence later, after the fact, very obviously affected the way Pi remembered the strange episode in his life.

Eloise, I thought Martel is now living in Berlin. J

The 'failed novel' mentioned in the Author's note seems to have been one of Martel's own novels, or at the least it may be nothing more than an imaginary novel written by the fictional version of Martel. [Nellie]

You are correct, Nellie. I believe I was thinking of Martel's "a brilliant premise ruined by a lesser writer" crack.

When I said "failed" novel (I think I put it in quotes), I was referring to the fact that Updike's review of Max and the Cats that Martel read was negative. Updike found the book "forgettable," but one of the reasons Martel didn't read it was that he feared it might be good! He wanted to borrow the premise and pursue his own version and theme, and he feared finding out that Scliar was not a lesser writer.
Jonathan, thanks for this: "what could be more apropos than Ghandi's words? 'I am a Hindu. I am a Muslim. I am a Christian.' Young Pi must have heard them while growing up in India." It nails #11 for me. Martel is saying that the ways to God are various and beautiful, all more than acceptable, even though the destination is the same. The episode in the book where he visits the three temples seems pointedly fanciful, almost a fairy tale which he doesn't bother to make realistic, becuse the naive quality of that bit of the story fits a childlike pursuit of faith. Martel knows that the fulness of truth is beyond us, but the need to love and be embraced by the creator manifests itself in many temples.

Updike found the book "forgettable"

That was part of the problem…Updike never reviewed the book – but I don’t want to sidetrack the discussion with that stuff.

Martel is saying that the ways to God are various and beautiful, all more than acceptable, even though the destination is the same

Is that much of an original message though? Is that enough to sustain – if it is the central point of the book (I haven’t finished it yet) – an entire novel?

Pi as a teenager has an open and somewhat naive mind, open and accepting. His encounters with Christianity and the Muslim faith are superficial at best but interesting and very appealing. Are not all faiths much the same? Why can't we accept more than one faith. I am also reading Stalking Elijah, by Rodger Kamenetz, subtitled Adventures with Today's Jewish Mystical Masters. Kamenetz also finds the acceptance of a variety of faiths interesting but ultimately rejects this option. I must quote even though it is a lengthy quote. "It's important to recognize the generic similarities between different spiritual traditions that really do illuminate the process ---but only in one dimension, phenomenoloy. In the dimension of context, they are very different.... Religious practices, then, are context sensitive. Of course, many people would like to ditch context in the name of freedom; they want to mix and match spiritual languages, partly to escape the particular claims of any one tradition.....But religious traditions are languages. Each language has its own rich history, its nuances, beauties, distinctions." Pi as a young man has not yet experienced enough of Hinduism or any other religion to make any real choices. So he wants to pick and chose as it suits him. Fortunately for him, this interest, almost passion, for religion helps him greatly in the rest of the story. I suspect that in the end Pi will return to Hinduism, the religion of his ancestors. The author, it seems to me, may want us to believe in some kind of universal religion. At least I get this impression.

Charlie, was there a review by another critic that left the same impression? I got that impression somewhere in the readings available here.
No, I don't think that's the major theme. I've read enough to know that it isn't, but I'm not too far beyond the first section we are supposed to discuss. Martel's stated theme is "reality is a story and we can choose our story and so why not pick the better story?" I'm not prepared to comment on that one yet!
Georgehd, I would say that he is, through the experience of young Pi, suggesting a universality to all religions that makes it possible for us to accept them all. Academically, I'm not able to discuss the very different elements of the three in question. I'm sure that each has its own rich traditions, beauties and language, as Kanmetz says, but that doen't mean there is no overlap or no possibility or communication among them,does it?

I'm an enthusiastic "lurker" here. (I don't like that appellation.) In reading Our Oriental Heritage and now Life in Greece, Books I and II of Walt and Ariel Durant's The Story of Civilization, we have found many, many similarities in various religions since early recording of history. Just as one example, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and other Transcendentalist Unitarians were much influenced by the Hindu religion, as was the Unitarian religion.

I can't remember how many times before Christianity came along that the story of death and resurrection was told in various ways in other religions.

Mal

Jonathan asked me if I'd find some links which are pertinent to this discussion.

Pondicherry

Map of India showing Pondicherry

Scenes of Pondicherry

Eloise, Jonathan, Jo, George, Chazz: thank you all for your fabulous posts, which I will have to think about before I make any comments of my own. Right now I feel too sleepy to think straight because of a sleepless night caused by a pair of aching legs and hence couldn't come up with any sensible remark at the moment.

Mal, you can be an 'invisible reader' -I dislike the 'lurker' designation also- all you want and you are very welcome to join in! I thank you for the interesting links

I am an 'invisible reader' in most of the Books discussions.

I shall be back - more bright-eyed and bushy tailed and ready to comment

Mal, thank you very much for the splendid links. Scenes of Pondicherry is a fine selection. All the scenes must have been familiar to Pi. Isn't the last a good example of language universality? The signification of an ankle bracelet!!

Very good posts. Like Nellie says, I must give them a little thought before replying

Two things I particularly liked:

From page 19-

I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.

What a great statement. This is true for believers as well as non-believers. Isn't one of the appeals on a certain fundamental level of the world's great religions that one relinquishes - willingly - one's freedom?

And from page 47:

We are all born like Catholics, aren't we - in limbo, without religion, until some figure introduces us to God?

So the religion we choose is (for most people) a construct of our culture, is it not? Simply, you're much more likely to be a Hindu in Bali and a Catholic in Italy, than vice-versa. What does that say about the inherent "rightness' of each religion? But, then again, that's Martel's point. A point lost on the fundamentalist freaks of the world.

Most devout believers love the rituals with which their religions clothe themselves. Listen to Pi's on why he's a Hindu. Again, page 47:

…because of sculptured cones of red kumdum powder and baskets of yellow turmeric nuggets, because of garlands of flowers and pieces of broken coconut, because of the clanging of bells to announce one's arrival to God, because of the whine of the reedy nadaswaram and the beating of drums, because of the patter of bare feet against the stone floors down dark corridors pierced by shafts of sunlight, because of the fragrance of incense, because of flames of arati lamps circling in the darkness, because of bhajans being sweetly sung, because of elephants standing around to bless, because of colorful murals telling colorful stories, because of foreheads carrying, variously signified, the same word - faith.

A wonderful passage. And if you've ever seen any Hindu ceremonies or been in any Hindu temples, you can smell and hear the rituals of which he lyrically writes.

Charlie

Yes, Charlie, that freedom is frightening to anyone used to a "home" -- a religion which surrounds him and protects him.
That is a wonderful passage! I reread it yesterday. It provides part of the answer to question 11, too: Hinduism for Pi is invested with all the beautiful sensory experiences he remembers almost from a pre-conscious stage in infancy. I don't remember the water of Baptism, but the ringing of bells, the smells of incense and flowers, the roll and rumble of organ music, and the harmonies of Latin hymns I will never forget.

Pursing that question further, each of the three religons has a specific appeal for him, I think. Charlie has already highlighted the profound effect of the environment of Hinduism which made an indelible impression on Pi as a child. Christianity presents him with a God willing to suffer humiliation and pain because of the love he has for us. Islam leads him to see how immediate God is, how quickly and casually we can approach him by the ritual of the little prayer rug. You don't have to leave your daily activity, really. You simply turn your attention away from your worldly activities and toward your God.

Something unreal about that, imo. Unless it's another trick of the yarn-spinner to put the reader into a believing state of mind. Along with talk of incencse and bells. The questions asked and the points made in the posts have me wondering if Martel is raising expectations in the reader which he doesn't fulfil. Does he promise more than he delivers? He does talk about going for the 'greater truth', twisting reality 'to bring out its essence', getting past 'crude reality', and finally having 'a story to make you believe in God'. Talk about baiting the hook.

Yet we've hardly begun, and Jo talks about 'a fairy-tale which he doesn't bother to make realistic; and Charlie is doubtful if the author's unoriginal message is 'enough to sustain...an entire novel; and George's disappointment is obvious when he says that Pi's encounters with Christian and Muslim faith are superficial at best.'

Then there is the problem of getting side-tracked. That strikes me as somewhat ironic. In a discussion that hasn't really established what the book is about. Or, for that matter, what it's not about. It would seem to be a multi-tracked book, with something for everyone.

I'm going to suggest that the book is not so much about God, as it is about being human. Not so much about faith in gods as faith in oneself. More about fear and hope, than about praises raised to a pantheon of deities. More about suffering, lots of suffering, than about the bliss of Nirvana. And, regrettably, it's about delusions. And we should also keep in mind young Pi's endless curiosity.

And about tigers. Since we have no tigers in Canada, we know about them only from hearsay. Mostly notions derived from the contemplation of William Blake's Tiger! Tiger! With his fiery eyes. To bring him out of 'the forests of the night' and put him into a lifeboat...well that sounds like a difficult situation for even a tiger. Looking forward to this encounter with a tiger, wanting to find out all I could, wondering about the nature and proclivities of this majestic feline, I found it very interesting to get this little filler in my newspaper. Under the headline:

JASON THE TIGER GOES BACK TO THE WILD

Malaysia...A Malaysian man whom authorities wanted to question over his pet tiger has returned the animal to the wild, newspapers reported yesterday.

A photograph on the front page of the Star newspaper showed plantation owner Zaitun Arshad holding Jason the tiger on a leash as his son stroked the beast just before it was released into the forests of northern Kedah state.

However, Jason does not appear to like life in the wild. It merely lurked in the trees and when its owner called, came bounding out of the forest, BBC News Online reported.

Zaitun caused a stir in his hometown last weekend by driving through the streets with 18-month-old Jason in the back of his open jeep. He had said he had caught Jason in a trap last month.

It is illegal to shoot, trap or keep tigers in Malaysia.

Is Life of Pi really much more than interesting animal stories? Oh, yes, someone did say it was about love.

I find Jonathan's posting extremely interesting. Are we expecting too much from this novel and will we be dissappointed? I have read to chapter 72 and confess that I am enjoying the novel but I thought I was going to get more than a discription of life on a boat with a tiger. The early chapters of the book seem more interesting as they do suggest many questions for the reader (see all of the previous posts) but I will be interested to see how we all fare in the later chapters. I am looking, so far in vain, for Pi to use his religious interest on the boat. But I get too far ahead.

Jonathan, great and timely stuff, especially about Jason the tiger. I'd like to talk about that later, because I can’t get into it without missing an appointment. I do want to say to you and to Georgehd that our possible disappointment relates to our own expectations as well as to what the novel promises. If we read with awareness that it is unlikely anyone's hopes for spiritual growth and insight will be fulfilled, then we can enjoy the story for what it is. (I know, what is it?! That’s for later, too!)) If we hold Matel to some implicit promise in his “bait,” we may wind up hating the book. The only thing that will be nurtured is our own skepticism. This might be a good time to look at his respect for his atheist teacher, Mr. Kumar? He thinks that his expectations of human reason are a faith, his belief that our own capacities will lead us out of the wilderness and into a moral concern with providing well for everybody on the planet. It’s the agnostics he can’t abide –-those who use doubt as belief, which he compares to using immobility for transportation!
At any rate, let’s deal with this week’s questions, unless Nellie changes our schedule, and not get too far ahead. I already know that you are all wonderful readers, insightful and impatient, and if it seems practical to move more quickly, I’m sure she will adjust.

Hello everyone!

Chazz, you give some wonderful quotes from the book and ask some great questions. Religions aren't only about 'faith'; they are also about willingly giving up certain freedoms to do as we will. Yet some embrace religion, and yet they do not give up the freedom to do as they will.

To me, Pi's acceptance and practice of the three very different religions is very innocent and childlike. And doesn't Jesus say that we must be like children to find the kingdom of God? (I may not have that last exactly right since I'm going by memory and mine isn't always the best)

Do you realize that one of the world's major religions was left out of the mix? There is no mention of Judaism. Nor is there mention of Bhudism. Is this because there were no practioners of either religion in Pondicherry? Or that the authors thought that the practice of three different religions at the same time was more than enough?

I like this quote from the book, which comes at the end of chapter 7:

"It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them - and then they leap."

That is such a different way of looking at atheism, to me.

Jo, you present us with some beautiful thoughts.

Jonathan, I don't know if Martel promises more than he is able to deliver. Will reading this book make you believe in God, if you do not believe already? I doubt if it will.

I love your quote about this book being about being human. Simply well put!

George, Good thoughtful post

I'll be back tomorrow with some quotes and thoughts on the zoo where Pi lives.

Is there a real Zoo in Pondicherry?

Hi Nellie. Are you feeling better? Is it very cold in Edmonton? Don't you think that the survival theme in Life of Pi makes it a very Canadian novel? Didn't Margaret Atwood write a thesis on that a few years ago? Survival, as the great theme of Can Lit?

Of course Pi's survival is very personal, and we're not concerned about it in this first part of the book. He's a normal, secure boy of sixteen, learning all he can about animals, and taking an unusual interest in religious matters. That shouldn't be surprising, given the milieu in which he finds himself. But he seems to want to keep his feet on the ground, even if his head is in the clouds. Since the book claims to be a biography, we're given a pretty good idea of his youthful years.

None of us expects to be led to God by this young boy, or be convinced of grand religious truths. At this stage, I believe, we're only meant to appreciate the importance to Pi of finding guidelines and orientation in the 'rich, noisy, functioning madness of India.' He's drawing on both religion and science to find his way. This, it seems to me, will be the thing to watch for later, when fighting for his life. What will see him through when his life is on the line? His religion, or his ability to help himself?

Do you think we're jumping too far ahead? If we are, it's because the author leads the way. His story starts in the present, interestingly. And the first thing we learn is that Pi did in fact survive, has a family and is still pursuing his two great interests. His early interest in specific faiths has now become religious studies, including immersion in Kabbalah, the Jewish answer to the internal way to truth. And zoo-ology has become zoology. With the 'calm, quiet and introspective sloth' soothing his shattered self. So the terror of that terrible time must still be haunting him.

It really is an interesting novel structure, isn't it? A fascinating story-telling technique that Martel has devised for himself. And with such a significant prize, it would seem likely that he'll build on it. It wouldn't surprise me if he sends Pi to Mexico, looking for his companion in adversity, Richard Parker. One is already hearing of cultic directions for Martel's ideas.

Hasn't he said in one of his interviews that it's to the reader's advantage to know all along how the story ends? In Life of Pi he begins with the end.

The ending though, is like a bucket of cold water. (I've finished). An important ending. A different book without. Oh-oh. Back to "Week 1"

Jonathan, I am feeling better. Had a couple of night's of good sleep and am a bit more bright-eyed and bushy tailed right now.

Is 'survival' the major theme in great Canadian writings? Perhaps it is the theme of all great writings?

Does Pi believe in God? Just because something in three or more religions appeals to him, it does not necessarily mean he believes in God.

Now it is time for me to shut down my computer and go through my usual evening ritual. I will return tomorrow with more thoughts.

Chazz, don't get too far ahead of us now

we have a goodly time to wend our way to that cold splash of an ending.

Hello Nettie!

Nellie, that's a very apt way of describing our progress through the book. Through the book? Perhaps more like through Pi's head. More like getting lost in the maze of his mind, don't you think? We are, after all, hearing the story of an adult Pi Patel, who seems to be dealing with a very serious crisis in his past. Like he's trying to reconstruct his past to explain it to himself. And to anyone else who cares to listen. A past from which he still hasn't recovered, since from the very beginning he talks about his shattered self, of being a momenti mori for himself and the rest of the world.

Does he believe in God? It would seem so. But the problem he has with agnosticism (of course he would talk about others) makes one wonder. I believe he's afraid of it. And as for that, I couldn't help feeling that Pi was wrong about Christ suffering from doubt (and so encouraging the agnostics?) on the cross. And with that admitting that he (Pi) was dealing with doubt himself. My belief, by the way, is that Christ was in a state of despair at being abandoned by God, not in any doubt about God's existence. I'm also coming to the conclusion that it was his hankering to be of all faiths that got him into his sorry state. It's a curious, amusing scene on the esplanade with everyone having opinions about Pi's religious interests, but perhaps they had good reason to be concerned.

It seems to me that Pi's interesting story, the REAL story, could be the tales told by someone with serious spiritual, or even just mental problems created in and left over from the past. The bucket of cold water, as ChazzW puts it, is proof of that, I believe.

let's continue wending...

Hello everyone!

Before I wend my way to your thoughts on Pi and religion, Jonathan, I would like to stop for a moment at the Zoo. I love the descriptions of the things in the Zoo; I can almost see, hear, and smell the place.

The question is asked whether animals are happier free in the wild or in a zoo. I don't think that animals feel anything like happiness in the way we do. And he makes a good point about animals in the wild not being free at all. They are constrained by the social hierarchy within their species and the availability of food and shelter, when needed, in the area where they make their home.

I think this is such a humourus example of what it might be like for a long-time zoo animal to be suddenly set free of its enclosure, using humans as example:

"If you went to a home, kicked down the front door, chased the people who lived there out into the street and said, "Go! You are free! Free as a bird! Go! Go!" -do you think they would shout and dance for joy? They wouldn't. ..."

I think Pi is too kind-hearted in a way to say no and that is why he ends up practicing three religions.

A lot of the zoo stuff and consequently Pi's interest in animals, Martel uses of course, to set up later themes. This is true of almost everything brought up about Pi's early life in Pondicherry. There's Pi's double major: zoology and religion which represent a kind of precarious balancing that he carries on with the world around him. The zoo gave him an appreciation for nature.

I spent more hours than I can count a quiet witness to the highly mannered, manifold expressions of life that grace our planet. It is something so bright, loud, weird and delicate as to stupefy the senses.

But more than just an appreciation of the beauty of it. The unrelenting fact of it.

Animals in the wild lead lives of compulsion and necessity within an unforgiving social hierarchy in an environment where the supply of fear is high and the supply of food low and where territory must constantly be defended and parasites forever endured. What is the meaning of freedom in such a context?

Fear and Food. And Territoriality. Major themes of the life-raft.

There's the emphasis on Pi's learning to swim.

It's made clear that the most dangerous of all animals in the zoo is man....Story one or Story 2. And bringing this even into clearer focus (as far as stories go) - even more dangerous is "Animalus anthpomorphicus, the animal as seen through human eyes."

Pi learns how to get animals "used to the presence of humans" (this'll probably come in handy). He learns about the adaptability of animals and their dislike of the unknown, and the psychological tricks of animal trainers.

Lastly, we are prepared for the concept of "zoomorphism" and the strange living arrangements that animals have come up with (again - handy lessons for the young Pi).

By the way - "This story has a happy ending." But I'm not giving anything away, since Martel closes Part I with this announcement.

Nettie, lucky you out there on the Outer Banks. And the beautiful views from the 'edge'. Last spring my wife and I enjoyed them from our sixth-floor room right on the beach at Nags Head. Most interesting, at a certain time every day, was the feeding frenzy. There must have been schools of small fish out there in the Atlantic close in to shore to attract all those porpoises, flying fish, diving birds, and flocks of gulls.

You wondered the other day whether or not there is a real Zoo in Pondicherry. Pi says that huge, lovely zoo is no longer there. Then he adds that it has shrunk to a size that now fits into his head. And I find myself wondering what he could mean by that. You told us that you read this book six months ago and that you passed it along to a friend after that. What do you remember of it? What impressed you? What feelings did it leave you with?

I came in here hoping I could locate the book georgehd referred to the other day, and from which he quoted. Stalking Elijah. The quote made me want to read more. I did find it, thanks George. And this other one by the same author: The Jew in the Lotus. 'A poet's rediscovery of Jewish identity in Buddhist India.' Now that grabs me.

The pleasant surprise was finding two more posts to mull over. I think we may all be surprised at what we will find in Life of Pi. I too find Pi's keen observations of animals and their behaviour fascinating. As well as his religious experiences. Like feeling himself in heaven coming away from the Sufi mystics home. Or later, as he says, in the clearing in the woods in Canada, having a vision of Mother Mary.

But somehow it seems to me that behind all this fine science and religion we have a sophisitcated psychological thriller. That's the way it all seems to be adding up for me.

Jonathan, I'm happy to hear you enjoyed your view of our beach's wildlife. Always something exciting happening out there even if it is just the roaring waves!

I'm sorry my recall of the story has faded. I liked the first half of the story the best. I enjoyed learning about the animals and felt Pi wanted religion to be in harmony with nature. (that could just be my beliefs coloring my thoughts)

My sister, that gave me the book, and I disagreed about 'the real' ending of the book...

Rats! Bad timing... Had we scheduled our flight one day later, we would have been snowed out of DC, stranded in tropical southern Florida. The snow is beautiful this morning though...6-8 inches here, a lot for this area. Nettie, did the storm reach the Outer Banks? I've seen photos of snow out there. Now that would be something!

Akon, have you received your copy yet? You and I are the tardy ones, but we still have a few days to catch up with the discussion generated over Part I.

What "meaty" posts! A feast! Where to begin? What is reality, what is love, what is religion? Does Pi believe in God? Mercy! Jonathan, a psychological thriller, yes. A philosophical romp as well!

I need to rattle a few cages here in the Books this morning, but intend to get back and suck on your collective brain for further comments on your "juicy" posts to date. (I think that hyena got to me!)

About the question on the "real zoo" - it depends on which reality you are talking about...yes, Pi's zoo is history, but what of Yann Martel's?

"Virtually all the animals in Martel's gripping tale of shipwreck and survival can be found living in the zoo. (Only the doomed orang-utan is missing.) With one failed book behind him, Martel - then merely an aspiring writer - spent six months in south India in 1996. He visited Trivandrum Zoo, where he interviewed its director, observed the tigers, and ate French toast in the Indian Coffee House just across the road. The Life of Pi started to emerge in a "smashed up, kaleidoscopic" way.

It is no surprise that the zoo sparked Martel's zany imagination: it is a place of wonder and delight. Founded by the Maharajah of Travancore in 1857, it is set in a rambling botanical garden in the centre of Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, close to the sea. The maharajah wanted to attract more people to his newly-built museum, and so he constructed a city zoo nearby, and stuffed it full of animals captured from the surrounding jungles. The jungles have now disappeared, and so has most of the wildlife. The zoo in the Life of Pi - "a hot and humid place, bathed in sunshine and bright colours" - closely resembles that of the eccentric maharajah. It is "big enough to require a train to explore it."

The zoo is unchanged since the days of the Raj. Half hidden under a celestial green canopy of strange and exotic trees are the Victorian animal cages.

The zoo's director, CS Yalakki, yesterday told the Guardian that he was surprised it had inspired this year's most successful book - which he hadn't read. Before joining the zoo five years ago, Yalakki worked for the Indian forest service, looking after trees. Martel interviewed his predecessor, Mohammed Sali, now retired. But Yalakki agrees with Martel's key points about animals: they are conservative by nature, and highly territorial. And they can be dangerous."
The "real" zoo

From the same article...

"The Life of Pi's twin themes - religion and zoology - appear to be directly inspired by Kerala, where there are a multitude of faiths on offer, though it is initially set in Pondicherry, in neighbouring Tamil Nadu. Kerala is one of the few Indian states where there are large numbers of Hindus, Muslims, and Christians. The region is famous for its literacy; next to the zoo you find students reading in the shade under flowering jacaranda trees. Until earlier this year, the communists held power, adding atheism to the mix".

Later! Shovel time. Maybe I'll take some snowscapes too.

Joan--Here I am still waiting for my copy of Life of Pi. In the meantime, I am thoroughly enjoying all of the postings.

Abe

Abe, you'll love the book...this is one where it doesn't hurt to know ahead of time that there's a happy ending...reading the posts will only add to your enjoyment of the book.

I need to add another question to the growing list ..."what is truth?" That's different from "what is reality" - I was interested to hear what everyone had to say about the "controversy" -weren't you? And the links too...I went right to the Booker Prize home page to see what effect the plagiarism allegations had on them...they could rescind the prize if they felt there was cause, couldn't they? But they have accepted the fact that the only similarity is the tiger on the shipwrecked ship...with the panthers on the other. It would be easy to check to see if there are more similarities, wouldn't it? I've half a mind to pick up a copy of Max and the Cats to see for myself. It sure sounds altogether different Have any of you read it? What disturbs me somewhat is the fact that Updike didn't write a review of Max...so who did? I'd rest easier if I found that review..

I am almost finished the book but decided this afternoon that I needed to go back and reread the earlier parts about religion and the zoo. Now why did I do this? After all, this is just a novel and usually I read a novel, finish it, and put it aside. But it is the posts that I look forward to each day and read with real interest because they represent different ways of reading and interpreting the book. Each of us is establishing his or her own reality with regard to the book. Just as the author did. I find this fascinating and thank you all. I go back to a post I made early on - what is reality?

A whale story appeared in the news recently. The whale had been raised and hand fed by humans who wanted to release it into the vast ocean so that it could bond with other whales, get its own food, and live a “natural” life. But like Jason the tiger in Jonathan’s story, it keeps coming back to a dock where familiar humans will continue the hand feeding and provide the companionship he is used to. (I’m not sure about the gender. Didn’t know at the time I was listening to the story on TV that the details would matter so much later!) Anyway, one of the naturalists thinks the whale will die, but others hold out hope that he will indeed swim out to his own folks eventually, learn to get his own food, and live naturally without any help from his old friends. Human intervention can result in a sad or happy ending. The story connects with Matel’s opinions about zoos, which, he says, if properly designed and operated, allow wild creatures to live in peace, not under the pressure of being destroyed by other predators or of having to find their own food and comfort in the always dangerous wilderness. But his later digression on the abuses that animals suffer at the hands of the most dangerous animal in the zoo, a human being, suggests ambivalence.
I’m not convinced they are better off when we remove them from the wilderness, no matter how fine and efficient the artificial environment. Our zoo was a mess when I was a child, and I thought the larger specimens in particular looked as if they were suffering. Now that we have a brand new facility that provides much more comfort and freedom for them, they do appear more relaxed and healthy, but I still think something is lost when animals don’t have to do what they were born to do to survive. The only analogy I can think of is the negative effect too much money, comfort and privilege has on the ambition of children if they are permitted to live life as and easy ride. Effort, curiosity, inventiveness, and drive can disappear if too much is given. What is missing from the predator’s environment that probably keeps the juices flowing? The thrill of the chase? Is the trade-off better? I don’t know. Do they live longer? Are they happier, or just lazier? Not one of them has ever told me.

Welcome home, Joan! Isn't shoveling fun? We are glad to have you back, even though in your heart you want to be back in the sunshine. Thanks for the story of the zoo, too. I didn't know how to answer Nettie's question. Matel says -- in the book, I think-- that the Pondicherry zoo is no longer in existence. The reality vs. fiction issue intrudes here, too. I'm starting to mix the info in the various articles with the novel statements! Was there ever a Pondicherry zoo, or was the model for the story the one in the other city? You seem to be saying the latter.
Reading about Pondicherry and reading your description of the almost-but-not-quite-in-Pondicherry zoo gives me a new impresion of India. That area seems to be beautiful, exotic and prosperous. I want to add it to my impossibly long list of places to visit someday.

The posts here are very interesting and as I searched I came across this LINK

"Life of Pi is due to come out in paperback in November, and it's also expected soon in French, translated by Martel's parents, both Quebecers, his mother a diplomat, and his father a Governor-General's-Award-winning poet.

I just finished reading the book and WOW. I will not jump ahead except to say that we are in for a most interesting discussion at the end. Questions eleven and twelve of the outline prove to be most interesting. Jo your discussion of whether animals should be free or in zoos is good. However, the so called free animals are facing more and more encroachment by humans onto their habitats. One certainly sees this in Africa and unfortunately, the oceans, though vast, are slowly but surely losing many species. Look at what is happening to coral reefs. One could reason that global warming is the cause of coral death and that man contributes more than his share to global warming. Some (maybe many) species may only survive in zoos. I wonder if we are part of God's zoo. What kind of existance does Pi live throughout the book?? Is he in a zoo of sorts?

Irony! We are killing the habitat and at the same time trying to preserve the threatened species! Maybe we need a Divine Zookeeper for us.
Thinking back on Jonathan's observation the other day that Pi has his two passions to draw upon in his struggle to survive: love of God and love of nature. I'm reading about that struggle now, and I'll continue to read with that observation in mind.

George - love your question! Does Pi live in a zoo of sorts? Do we all? Also agree with your observation..."the reality is in the posts." You come in here with your own sense of "reality" and when confronted with other viewpoints, you find your definition of reality expanding.

Jo - don't know if there ever was a zoo in Pondicherry. To the fictional character, Pi, there is/was a zoo in the town, but the one Martel is describing is near by. I keep forgetting Martel and Pi is my reality. As far-fetched as this story is, every single thing is presented with a plausible (to me) explanation.
Was reading in the Washington Post this morning of the six National Zoo prairie dogs that were killed by rats yesterday. This follows the death of a number of red pandas...due to the rat pellets used by zoo keepers to control the rat population. Trouble in Paradise.
Jo, that's an intersting concept...how "happy" can animals actually be without the "juices flowing?" I wonder if zoo animals live longer lives than those in the wild.. Are their lives "happier?" ...what's a "happy animal" anyway? Shall we add that to our list? What does "happy" mean to you? To an animal? We are told this story has a happy ending? For Pi? For Richard Parker? But I go ahead...

One of Pi's messages I know I will take with me from Part I...

"Things didn't turn out the way they were supposed to, but what can you do. You must take life the way it comes to you and make the best of it."

I think this is true for people...animals too! A great philosophy for a "happy" life, wouldn't you say?

ps. Eloise, thank you so much for the link. Somehow I feel better knowing that Y.Martel enlisted his parents to translate his work into French. If he had a guilty conscience over the Scliar incident and if there was further eveidence of plagiarism, over and above the "cat-on-the-boat" story line, I think he would not have wanted to involve his mother in the project, don't you?

The paperback edition became available in Canada last November. That's the one I purchased. The US paperback will be available in May, 2003.

Back to work...have a "happy" day, folks!

Jo, we were posting at the same time...an interesting approach to reading this book...I am going to look for Pi's "love of God" ...didn't really "feel that" in the first reading, but maybe I wasn't looking in the right places...maybe it's somewhere embedded in hope and faith...and love...

Joan, maybe I was reading that into his preoccupation with the three religions. Prayer became a necessary part of his life after meeting the other Mr. Kumar (sp?)who introduced him to the Muslim religion, and he gave thanks for discovering Jesus. I think he thanked a Hindu god for that discovery!

I worked up a little post before reading the last four or five. So you can see that we're all thinking along similiar lines.

Joan, welcome back to reality. All six or eight inches of it! And you brought back your fine sense of fun. I smiled at your invitation to others to come over and have some fun with Life of Pi. I burst out laughing over your intention to go off and rattle some cages. I can only assume you were on your way to the National Zoo to commune with our fellow creatures in that establishment, after having your interest rekindled by Yann Martel. Anything else you could have meant with that expression would be too funny for words...

Seriously, my conceptions about animals, caged or uncaged, will never be the same again.

I believe we agreed here that Scliar's boat full of cats was not terribly germane to a consideration of Martel's literary creation using a similiar premise. I'll accept ChazzW's opinion that the whole 'controversy' was a bit of a 'dust-up' to provoke interest and discussion for publicity reasons. Besides, Max and the Cats is hard to find. On the other hand, in a recent interview Martel said that he was doing a review of it...I don't know when or where. If you come across that, let us know.

Meanwhile back at the ranch...we have more than enough to keep us busy. Trying to get a handle on Pi's sense of 'truth', 'reality', 'freedom', and methods of training and manipulating and catering to the 'natural' instincts of all those wonderful creatures we meet in his 'father's house'. All in all, it's a very happy story we're reading and discussing, don't you all agree? This story of Pi's young years, growing up in such a curious environment, with so much inducement to learn, to think, and to try out and experience.

I don't understand why the author should feel it is necessary to tell the reader that 'the story has a happy ending.' If one ignores that first chapter one could say that the story is positively delightful. And yet there seems something ominous in the air. Is it healthy to be attracting 'faiths' like insects. "I wonder how far he'll go with these interests?", his father exclaims when he hears that Pi has been reading The Imitation of Christ. And one does have to wonder about the personal 'zoo' he's creating for himself. He has a head full of gods, along with all the beliefs and doctrines that follow. Unaware of the possibility of jealousy among gods. That way lays madness, not happiness. Confusion at the very least. Perhaps we do need the assurance of a happy ending.

It seems more and more doubtful to me. I made a surprising discovery when I looked at the book that georgehd brought up early in the discussion: Stalking Elijah. It really is a remarkable book. I'm tempted myself to start quoting from it. Like Martel, the author of Stalking Elijah travelled to India, where, as he put it, 'my life changed dramatically'. What is it about that country? Can one take a chance on going there and keeping one's integrity intact? But, to keep my story short...I was looking for something in the Glossary at the back of the book when this caught my eye:

'Tzimtzum (Heb., contraction) In the Lurianic kabbalah, the theory that the act of creation was preceded by a concentration or occultation of the Divine.'

Well! Well! In a few days we sail off on the Tsimtsum. Let's enjoy the happy days while we may!!

So maybe Matel intends for the voayage and the disaster to become a creative event?

Nettie, Joan, George, Abe, Eloise, Jo, Chazz and Jonathan thank you all for your wonderful and insightful posts!

You have all raised a lot of new questions and reminded me of old ones. George asks 'what is reality?' and Joan asks 'what is truth?' - both are not easy questions to answer; if they can be answered at all. If reality is different for each of us, does that mean that truth is different for each of us also?

Nettie, you made me think of something when you mentioned harmony in nature and religion. Perhaps Pi is able to practice three different religions and bring them into harmony with each other because for most of his life he has experienced the harmony in nature on a first hand basis? - this question is for everyone, naturally.

Joan, I put your link to that interesting article in the heading. Welcome back -before old forgetfull forgets.

Abe, I hope the book has arrived and that you are reading as I write this. I cannot wait to read your comments on what we have discussed so far.

Eloise, Martel's parents sound like interesting folks.

Jo, we always think that animals must be better off in the wild and that they would be leaping with joy at being given the chance to return to it. Yet your example of the whale and Jonathan's example of the tiger would seem to indicate that what we think and reality are not the same thing.

George, now that is another good question: 'are we in a zoo of sorts?' Is Pi?

I never realized that by having a dog, I have a kind of household zoo with one animal roaming free. But I was reminded of something I read in the book when my mother placed a dark green plastic basin upright near the backdoor and our little poodle was slinking around the house, avoiding the kitchen, because she was absolutely terrified of this basin. It reminded me of the animals in the zoo being upset by some object being left in the wrong place.

Jonathan, it is a very happy story so far, even though it begins with these words "My suffering left me sad and gloomy." Pi lives an idyllic life learning about all the animals in his father's zoo. He is like Adam in Paradise in some ways.

I find it most interesting that a lion tamer must enter the cage first, while the lions and tigers can see him doing so, to establish the fact that it is his territory and that he is boss. But that among humans the one who is boss arrives last to a meeting and he/she is recognized as being the boss because of that.

Soon we will be seeing how Pi applies all the lessons he has learned in part 1.

Wow. this book sounds great. I have to read it! Thanks for the great links and info.

nef3...Wow! is right. Buy, beg, borrow or steal this book. There's still a few places left in the lifeboat. There's one right here between me and the tiger. This little journey on the Pacific (a reminder that Scliar picked the wrong ocean for his premise), like I say, the Pacific, the deep-end of the swimming pool, is taking us to places where even tigers have never gone. There's life all around us. But, as they say, in the midst of life...well we'll get to that soon enough. And we do make a stop in a Garden of Eden...of sorts.

Nellie, how can you talk of a 'household zoo with ONE animal roaming free'? The last time I looked, I seemed to see what looked like a bushy-tailed black squirrel on the white fence around your garden.

It's as Pi says. If you were to turn Tokyo upside down, you would be amazed at the vast diversity of creatures who make that city their home.

Animal’s escape from something, not to something, says Matel. They are escaping predators, thirst hunger, heat in favor of concealment, rest, water and food. In the wild this probably applies to all creatures, including man, if he lived in the totally natural prehistoric state. But don’t all species, including us, seek companionship and love in our wanderings? Aren’t the things we pursue as influential in our choices as those we escape from? The story about the wild cat that gets out of the zoo ends with its destruction by men who feared its freedom, but the animal survived a long time in his hiding place. I guess the word “escape” is accurate in the way he uses it, but all beings are also in pursuit of things. At times, the longing for certain things is as strong as the fear that causes flight.

What do we all try to escape from? Boredom, loneliness, hanger and thirst? Do other animals experience the first two as well as the last two, or are we the only ones who experience these pains?

The alpha dominance illustration with the tigers in the cage compares with the behavior of human beings around “superiors” or bosses. My whole working life was in a large group setting, and discussions of the lions in the cage with the trainer (“alpha”) connected for me with individuals I had the opportunity to observe. Most keep a certain distance from administrators, except when professional activity demands that we meet with them. Those who experienced favors from the top often seemed to be the ones least likely to rock the boat, to enter into a vigorous challenge or disagreement with policy and practice, and who were frequently seen in the presence of bosses. Were these the Omegas in my group, perched on their stools or wires close to the “trainer”? Where the Alphas those who were always discontent, always complaining and criticizing the system and those who enforced its policies? The latter never jumped through any hoops, as I recall. Are the Alphas and Omegas members of a herd? Are we all members of a herd?

Nef3, I second Jonathan's invitation. Get the book...and jump right into the pool! Mention of the pool reminds me of first thoughts about Pi's name.

Do you remember a time when you wrote stories? You spent some time giving your characters just the right names...(almost as long as you took on the title). The name of your character was to suit the personality to a tee.

So. Pi's father loved to hear the story told of the most "glorious" pool in all of Paris. I remember reading those pages and seeing mention of Piscine Hébert - "Hébert" is my maiden name, and I smiled at the thought of my parents naming me "Piscine Hébert"...

Did you ever understand how his father came to name his son after this pool that he dreamed about? Did you just accept the name, like, ah yes, the pool was wonderful and this is the perfect name for my new son? Wasn't that a leap for you to accept the name without questioning Martel's reason for this? I just had to go back and reread that section again...

The Piscine Molitor - "like a small ocean" - the gods would have delighted to swim in it.""

Hmmm...this chlorinated pool was like the salty ocean. How so?

There is so much to be found in the rereading - preparation for what is to come. What I marvel at is Martel's ability to get us to accept so much without question. So his name was "Piscine" and he had a hard time with it in school...so he shortened it to "Pi." Now don't you wonder about that too? What's the meaning of "pi" - the diameter of a circle. We need to keep that in mind too, I think. It's more than just a nickname...it was selected for a reason. Every page is loaded with nuances...

More to say about that...but need to go rattle some more cages elsewhere first.

Hope you are all enjoying super Sunday!

Piscine Hébert

Jo! I was posting the same time you were and just now read yours. Back in a bit to comment on that business about moving because of fear...and yes, the super-alpha syndrome too!

It seems very straight-forward and plausible to think of escape as being primarily from everything that threatens life or limb. Only human beings have conceived the notion of the better life. With mixed results. It might be interesting to keep it in mind as we go along, and consider the form that escape takes in Pi's life. Was the resolve to leave India an escape from? Pi didn't want to leave, was reluctant to go. How fateful for him, being taken out his element, the familiar landscape of his well-being.

What's in a name? Just about everything. From 'the new name written down in glory' to the alias behind which to hide, or the nom de plume of those seeking a multi-personality kick. In certain areas, such as the one in which Pi is searching and questing, a new identity is inevitable. There is something curious about choosing Pi. Joan associates the diameter of a circle with Pi. So is he going to measure out his space or his limitations?

My copy of the book should be arriving any day this coming week. Meanwhile, I have been enjoying reading all of your entries.I also have been reading several of the book reviews to gain some additional insights into the book. Unfortunately, that's the only contribution I can provide at the moment. Here are some that might pique your interest...

Abe

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/06/23/RV18924.DTL http://www.curledup.com/lifeofpi.htm http://popmatters.com/books/reviews/l/life-of-pi.shtml

oooh, Abe! Thank you so much for your contribution for the day - worth keeping in the heading? In Jonathan Kiefer's reviw, he writes, "that none of its details is a throwaway...There's so much in this first part of the book that we'll be rereading as time goes by. So many "layers" have been introduced...but the significance not yet clear.

Kiefer refers to Pi as the boy who finds himself in the middle of the ocean. I returned again to the "name" discussion- and find "name throwaways" overlooked the first time.

Pi was a swimmer, on his school swim team. But his first swimming lessons took place in the ocean where he almost drowned. From Pi: "there seems to be a law of human nature that those who live by the sea are suspicious of swimmers." Are swimmers out of their environment (cagees) - meant for the land?

On the "Pi" name...he repeated, "for repetition is in the training of animals, but also of humans." What is he training his teachers and classmates to understand about him?

"...and so, in that Greek letter...in that elusive, irrational number with which scientists try to understand the universe, I found refuge."

An interesting question, Jonathan. Is Pi going to measure out his space or his limitations? I think he just might be telling us that we are limited only by what? Reason? Imagination? By thinking like caged animals?

In One of the reviews Abe provides, describes the book as mind boggling..."not falling into the easy categories of allegory or parable, but paradoxical and gently challenging." I feel we have only begun to scratch the surface of what we have before us, but am confident that we will be revisiting Part I many times in the coming days - we just need to be patient...

Jo, I like to think of our lives (humans and animals) in terms of "pursuit, rather than "escape"...although I am getting the impression, are you, that it is fear that drives us more than anything else? (unless you have to consider hunger and thirst) I'm wondering if the author is telling us to take control of our lives...to think out of the box (out of the cage) and not let fear be the driving force in our lives.

I got up this morning resolved to escape. From the ice and snow and blustering, cold winds of Canada in winter. Perhaps I will for a bit. But first a coffee and my morning newspaper. How's this for a headline?

Wrestling Pi and a Tiger onto the screen

And you all might be interested to read some excerpts from the story by Sandra Martin in the Globe and Mail.

'So, what do you do with the tiger? That's the first question that comes to mind in the aftermath of last week's announcement that Fox 2000 has bought the film rights to Yann Martel's Booker-winning novel Life of Pi. The novel is the story of Pi, a teenage boy shipwrecked in a lifeboat in the Pacific with a ravenous, 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

'"Absolutely, unequivocally, it will be a real tiger," insists screen-writer Dean Georgaris.

'...Martel also thinks finding a tiger to play the role of Richard Parker isn't a big problem. "He doesn't do tricks. He sits in a lifeboat behaving like a tiger, occasionally growling, looking about, sleeping. He doesn't juggle, he doesn't speak English, he doesn't hunt for fish. He just sits there," he protested from Berlin, where he is teaching at the Free University.

'...The story of a man, an animal and a boat is as old as Noah and the ark. What makes Martel's novel work is that it deals with spirituality and the question of a higher meaning to life. That is a subject that intrigues most people. Throw in the iconic visuals of a castaway in the middle of an ocean, an animal and the survival theme and you have, as Martel himself suggests, a story idea that is visually compelling and full of suspense.

'...Cut the Christmas just past. Martel has won the Booker Prize. His name and his book are in the air. Georgaris was "exhausted," in need of a holiday and a book to read to "rejuvenate" himself. Pi sounded like THE PERFECT TONIC. (cap. let., mine) He and his girlfriend Thia Montroy...set out to buy Pi in Los Angeles, but every bookstore they went to was sold out. On a lark they went on a day-long treasure hunt...they finally found a single copy that had been misshelved and went home happy.(blown off course by wind and wave) '...Georgaris cracked open the book...Ten hours later, Georgaris turns the final page. "I am exhilarated, (wouldn't it be fun to be able to read like screen-writers read?) I am thrilled, I am emotionally spent." (Let's remember that everyone is permitted to make of what they like.) Before the deal was sealed, however, Martel and Georgaris connected by e-mail..."One of the reasons I said yes," Martel explained "was that I was dealing with a screenwriter, not with a producer, not with a director, but a screenwriter. That is the thing that is closest to me." "I suppose in any adaptation something is lost, but one hopes that something is gained," (just like what happens in discussions) "The trick when you are doing adaptations is not to try to translate the work, but to recreate it. I told him to base it on my book and run with it."

(Just like he would want us to do. And it's very adaptable, as unlimited as Pi himself. Not so?)

I decided to "lift" Life of Pi from my SIL's coffee table and read the beginning. He doesn't need it when he is gone to work. Pondering about his name, Pi said: my name is Piscine Molitor Patel known to all as..... I double underlined the first two letters of my given name. Pi Patel for good measure I added: 3:14.

That 3:14 intrigued me. It sort of rang a bell. Could he be referring to a book of the Bible, so i looked up in different books and found the "I am who I am" that he mentioned earlier when someone asked what his name was when he visited Montreal.

Exodus 3:14. God said to Moses, "I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I am has sent me to you'"

Is Martel telling the reader something here?

Eloïse

A couple of more very interesting reviews...

Abe

http://www.januarymagazine.com/fiction/lifeofpi.html http://www.salon.com/books/review/2002/08/01/martel/index.html http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=bbriefs16&date=20020616&query=martel http://query.nytimes.com/search/full-page?res=9C05E6DC123EF934A35754C0A9649C8B63

Hello everyone! First of all I want to thank you for all those fabulous posts!

nets3, welcome, and I hope you can get the book and join us in the lifeboat as Jonathan says.

Jonathan, it's a red squirrel we have running around our yard. We should have a lot of sunflowers coming up all over the front because it planted seeds diligently all over the place. In the river valley of our city there have been seen the following: beavers, muskrats, skunks, deer, elk, moose, squirrels, porcupines, coyotes, and even cougars.

Jo, are we all members of a herd? Interesting isn't it that when we really pay attention that we discover how much like the other animals that share this planet with us we are? I'm thinking that since we are more predators than prey, that we might be more members of a pack or a pride.

Joan, those are some very good thoughts you have about Pi's name. I looked up Pi in the dictionary -my ancient Webster - and it says this: "the Greek letter, especially, as a mathematical symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, approx 3.14." and once I started thinking about a circle: the circumference of a circle is without beginning and end. But the diameter has both a beginning and an end. However, the diameter both begins and ends at the circumference. So I'm thinking that Pi in the book has something to do with the relationship of that which is finite with that which is eternal. I do have to think on that some more.

And this fits in with Eloise's thinking about the number 3.14 and relating it to the Bible and Exodus 3:14. I just love that train of thought!

Abe, thank you for those links. Some good reviews there.

You are all making this a great discussion!!

I agree Nellie, there is good work going on here. Abe's link to the Keifer review stating there are no "throwaways" here is more true as we go along. Eloise, that is some detective work. "I am who I am" from Exodus 3:14 Wow! How many readers have picked up on that! Remember the pizza delivery story? Piscine was so tired of the "guffaws" when he gave his name, one night he told the man his name was "I am who I am." And the pizza arrived for "Ian Hoolihan!" HAHAHA...So fortunate to have each and every one of you aboard.

So a man is more than his name, he is who he is. And what of animals? They are who they are too...none of this "animalus anthropomorphicus" business that worries Pi's father. What does he see in his younger son? Does he note his tendency to humanize zoo animals, overlooking the fact that as human as they may appear, they are still ANIMALS? Does he worry that Pi will become the "most dangerous" animal in the zoo?

I'm excited about the (possible) movie and the 3:14 in Exodus! Thanks, Eloise and Jonathan! Are the rattling cages those of star-struck tigers, hoping for an audition?
I'm finding the second part ofour read more exciting and beautiful than the first, but the first is necessary to the second. Joan, the points you raise are connecting with the chapters I'm reading now. You said,
"Jo, I like to think of our lives (humans and animals) in terms of "pursuit, rather than "escape"...although I am getting the impression, are you, that it is fear that drives us more than anything else? (unless you have to consider hunger and thirst) I'm wondering if the author is telling us to take control of our lives...to think out of the box (out of the cage) and not let fear be the driving force in our lives."
Have you finished the book? Arrived at the 160's? It gets more and more remarkable. I was wondering how much the author thinks we have in common with theother animals when I posted about escape and dominance and submission in groups. I think he was making parllels. I also think he is constantly touching upon paradoxes, explored most pointedly in his relationship with Richard Parker. Are we supposed to be discussing that section now?

From the Qu’ran:

“3:14-3:19 Penguin p.409 Men are tempted by the lure of women and offspring, of hoarded treasures of gold and silver, of splendid horses, cattle, and plantations. These are the comforts of this life, but far better is the return to Allah. Say: 'Shall I tell you of better things than these, with which the righteous shall be rewarded by their Lord? Theirs shall be gardens watered by running streams, where they shall dwell forever: wives of perfect chastity, and grace from Allah.'

“Allah is watching over His servants, those who say: 'Lord, we believe in You: forgive us our sins and keep us from the torment of Hell-fire'; who are steadfast, sincere, obedient, and charitable; and who implore forgiveness at break of day. “

Isn't it curious that the screenwriter, Georgaris, should have thought that the book was misshelved when he finally found it. Or are the wheels already turning in his head? The perplexed bookseller probably displayed copies in every department by design, or as a ploy: in Fiction; in Religion; in Biography; Travel and Adventure; Science; Self-Help.

Georgaris should have a fine time making a movie script out of Life of Pi. How can he miss with all the material that Martel has given him in his imaginative book. What a challenge. Pi does say that much of the time spent in the lifeboat was boring; but that part could be left out.

I would guess that the screen version of the story will begin in the present, in Toronto, with Pi 'reading at ST.Basil's (a lovely church) dressed in a white gown.' And then again, later, in his white gown in the zoology lab. Or mingling with the crowd on Gerrard Street during Diwali. That's Toronto's Indian neighborhood. Lots of fine Indian cuisine there. That's where Pi went after he got 'off the boat.'

It might be even better to begin with the writer, Martel himself, being shown around Patel's Scarborough home, a 'temple' like no other in the world, with its stunning array of religious icons, leaving absolutely no doubt in the viewer's mind that the book deals with anything other than 'spirituality and the question of a higher meaning in life.' I can't think of anything in the book which makes a greater impact than the rich imagery of Chapter 15. It seems to me that Georgaris would find a lot to work with in those eight italicized chapters in Part 1, in which the author interacts with the subject of his book.

Scenes in Pondicherry, more likely in the Trivandrum Zoo, and later all the exotic adventures on the high seas, the tensions and otherwise of the bonding process between Pi and Richard Parker! Can't wait to see what Georgaris will do with all that 'crude reality', the real crux of the story.

Thanks to all for the interesting links. Like the one suggesting that the book was a portrayal of that elusive thing...Canadian Culture. I can't agree with that. I was hoping for a little more Canadian content...like perhaps the repatriation of a pair of doting Canada Geese dreaming of rearing their young in the ancestral domicile.

I always keep in mind the link to those 'marshmallow' musings of Martel on the good and bad in reviews. Makes one hesitate to express opinions.

That's wonderful Mal. Yes there's a Qu'ran on the low stool next to the prayer rug in Pi's home.

Happy Valentine's Day, Jonathan.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Wouldn't it be nice
To invite Pi to join us
For lunch at the zoo?

Malryn

Smile and thanks for it as we All need A Smile.

Our Jonathan in Books is special to all of us because of the Romantic way he puts things.

Ihave been told that I am in Love with Love itself ( not sex) and that may be true as I Love everyone. Smile Ginger

I kept the book and Dan doesn't seem to mind if I read it for a few days. Like some of you say, you can't put it down. At first I thought it is too fantastic, not real enough and I din't think I would be interested, but Martel makes it so interesting, yet, 7 months? but I want him to continue.

This is about survival, about what goes on in Pi's mind as he is trying to stay alive, from being a boy of 16 when the boat sank to man in just a few days. I loved his ingenuity at finding solutions to pressing problems. The way he built his raft was pure genius. Oh! how about, wishing Richard Parker to stay alive to keep him company instead of trying to find ways to kill the tiger. Talk about company, but his spirit of adventure kept him busy.

Pi's terror is so well described that you tremble with him, every time his 450 pound Bengal Tiger makes a move.

I am at chapter 79 and I might not find the ending 'happy'. A statement such as that would never make me read or not read a book.

What is happiness?

Eloïse

Each morning I cannot wait to read the "Pi Posts". While I am finished the book, your insights have made me go back and reread the first chapters. I missed a lot. The name Pi has certainly taken on a life of its own. The quote from the Bible was wonderful. However, I do wonder if Martel meant any more than Pi = 3.14. This is an irrational number which may refer to the irrationality of life. It is also a number that goes on for ever. But our lives do not go on for ever. So does the name Pi refer to some other entity, possibly God, which does go on for ever. Could it refer to the God within each of us? Do I really believe that? And now the movie idea. I saw the movie, The Hours, some weeks ago and felt that it was one of the best movies I have seen - ever. So now I am reading the book. As one might expect, the movie must leave out much that was in the book, even though the movie seems remarkably faithful to the book. If the Life of Pi were made into a movie, how faithful could it be? Can a movie capture the essence of the book and raise the same questions in a viewer that the author has raised in us readers? Can two hours spent with an Indian boy and a tiger be the same as two or three weeks spent in mulling over the questions raised by this book? I am sorry that most of my post is in the form of questions, but that is the effect this book has had upon me. It seems to raise more questions than I am prepared to answer. I end with what I began with many posts ago - what is reality?

Eloise asks "What is happiness?" and Georgehd asks "What is reality?" Maybe those will be two culminating questions for us. I agree, this book seems to be asking us questions, and I think I like that. And I think it's all right that a movie cannot present the ideas that a novel can. It can still be a powerful movie, if the creators are willing and able to do the necessary work. I keep imagining the boy in the boat with the tiger, and that's enough of a challenge to start with, God knows! A skillful actor, a great director, and a clever scene designer, to say nothing of the animal trainer, will each be fully challenged, and the results could be breathtaking.
Eloise, for starters, I think happiness is being fully engaged. Unhappiness occurs when one is not challenged, so maybe Pi is more happy than not while in that boat!

I don't know how a film could capture what we are reading on these pages. Not sure I would see it. Truly disappointed in the Lord of the Rings movie, though I loved the book. Tolkein's voice was missing in the movie.

George, I keep rereading whenever anyone brings up a question here...and each time I find something I hadn't noticed before. I marvel at the writing, the structure and the philosophical framework which is causing us to question again and again what we read without blinking the first time around.

I hesitate to say this because I don't really want to get into the plagiarism controversy at this point, but doesn't this sound as if an older author, (than 32yrs.), more experienced in life and writing has produced this book? He did major in philosophy...He seems to have known fear and despair. He knows animals. He knows how to write! He knows how to get the reader to suspend reality and accept the possibility that one could actually survive on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger for 272 days by living on one's inner resources!

Eloise, I seem to remember your saying that sister-in-law's sister works in the same hospital with Y. Martel? Did I get that right? Could you get her to talk to him - tell him that we are discussing his book on the Internet? Then, if she were to get a half-way positive response, maybe he'd answer a question or two from our group?

Are we ready to jump into the Pacific and move on to Part II? Jo, I think that we will find Pi fully engaged in the moment. If that is "happy", then his busy days are "happy", but nights are another story...

I can not believe that I missed that 3:14 reference. I concentrated solely on the "pi" and the circle of life thought. His life was the ampitheatre of the sea. His circle was enclosed with water, water, everywhere. The horizons were unlimited and undefined for him..
The sea became his city, his highway in a narrow existence. The marathon traffic consisted of birds, sharks and all marine life. The sea was his artery to --- where? --home? Salvation? another country? Another life? what can he now attain, what should he attain in the circumstances he finds himself in? Aren't these all questions that we muse and deliberate as an adolescent?
Don't all adolescents suffer the trials and tribulations of these same mortal thoughts, irregardless of what environment they are in?
Our precocious young Pi pondered, prayed, meditated, schemed and planned while life continued on all around him in his aquatic environment. (his circle of life.) I love the idea of thinking about the biblical 3:14 and it fits as aptly, doesn't it?

But his horizons were not unlimited, ALF, as he discovered. Two miles or so in a sitting position. A little farther away standing up.

With the kind indulgence of all of you I would like to make a small digression. Turn aside for a moment to celebrate a significant anniversary, before going on, into the heavy part of the book. Where everything has meaning. Where nothing has meaning. In which the reader gets to feel what it's like to be a zebra, an orang-utan, a hyena, a tiger; not to mention a motherless boy being tried to the limits.

I wish to acknowledge the well-meant email which reminded me that I had it wrong, when I had Pi seeing Mother Mary in the snowy clearing in the woods in Quebec. It was, the email said, the Virgin Mary. But that, I think, was a concession to theological formalities. In his heart I'm sure Pi felt otherwise. And that, too, points to the main preoccupation of the 'Pacific' section of the book. Exploring the nature and fruits of suffering.

Of all the reviews of Life of Pi, thanks to the many fine links, I like Phoebe Foster's the best of all. She sees the book as a Zen thing. As a koan solving thing. And she does make a very good case. Along with a brilliant analysis. Just a wonderful example of running with the ball thrown to her. For my part, however, I'm inclined to the kaballahistic nature of Pi's story. Which takes it even beyond Zen. To the ineffable.

It was six years ago today, that a lone Canadian stood at the top of 5344-foot Mt.Marcy, in the Adirondacks in NYS, just south of the Canadian border, and planted a flag, claiming the summit for Canada. For sentimental reasons, since I've been up their countless times to enjoy the view. There seemed to be some legitimacy about it I felt on that cold, clear day, since the vast amount of snow up there was, in all likelihood, Canadian snow.

Come to think of it, I feel even more at home in San Fransisco. I felt that way the very first time I found myself there. I seemed to be drawn to that beautiful city. Only years later I discovered that my mother's heart had been there at the time of my conception. A strange feeling comes over me when I think of the mysterious ways of our evolving universe, with each of us so intimately involved.

Seventy-five years ago my parents, like Pi's, starting out, like they, from half a world away, came to North America to make a fresh start. My mother had her heart set on San Fransisco. Father opted for Winnipeg! And that's where I was born. But that's not the end of the story. Winnipeg is located in the Red River valley, which consists of the rich earth washed down from the Dakotas and Minnesota. So, I can truthfully say that I was born on American soil.

Born in Winnipeg, and Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful, willing, hoping to die here in Toronto, when my time comes. I'm really connecting to this book. Perhaps we should ask ourselves, as Pi does: who is my mother? Is she the Queen of Heaven? Is she the orang-utan?

A melody keeps running thru my head; This land is my land. This land is your land.

Joan - Many things link me to this book. My son-in-law Daniel, my daughter and their 2 children and I share a duplex. I live upstairs from them. Daniel is reading the book that I borrowed. Dan's sister JoJo is a physician attached to the Montreal General Hospital and JoJo told him that Yann Martel is a volunteer in the Palliative Care Unit of that hospital. I could ask Dan to ask his sister if she could give Martel my phone number. That's about all I could do and I will respect Mr. Martel's decision to call me or not. I would be honored if he did.

Jonathan, I think that everything has meaning in this book. Pi lives with sheer fright every minute of the day. How he comes to accepts what animals do to each other in order to survive is poignant. Changes occur within him through the actions of the animals on a boat and it would not have occurred if he had merely observed their behavior the zoo where his life was a safe and secure place where he was loved and protected as were the animals who did not fear for their lives.

My mother and father were living in Winnipeg when they married and that why I know English now, because they used to speak it at home together.

Eloïse

Joan, On the other hand I don't think that he would call me but he might be tempted to come see what we are posting in this discussion and feel free to respond or not. I think he would be pleased to know that Seniornet is discussing his book.

Hello everyone!

You have left me so many fascinating posts to think about once more. Thank you all, Joan, Jo, Mal, Jonathan, Eloise, George, ALF!

I'm short of time - it is time for me to begin making supper - so I will leave any comments until tomorrow. But I did leave some new questions up in the heading for you all to have a look at.

Eloise, I thank you for asking Martel to get in contact with you. It would be neat if he looked in on our discussion... and commented.

Eloise, I think it would be worth letting him know that we are discussing his book, whether or not Mr. Martel makes the call. Thank you! I am so glad that you are able to run up and down the stairs to read the book, along with your son-in-law. Indirectly, you might include him in our conversation too!

So. How long did it take you to realize that "Richard Parker" was a tiger? I remember reading the scene where Pi is beating him over the head with the oar and for the life of me, couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. What a device Martel used, giving the tiger that name...we are thinking of him as a man, even before we meet him! It won't be the first time Pi attributes human characteristics to Richard Parker...

It seemed to take Pi a little time to realize that it was the tiger and not his schoolmate. With the chaos and confusion in which he finds himself, perhaps it's, perhaps he wants it to be, the Richard Parker in the photo of the schoochildren mentioned in Ch 34. It looks like we're going to be kept busy determining what really happened between India and Canada. With the sinking of the ship everything that was familiar and dependable is destroyed. It's total bewilderment for Pi. His points of reference are gone. He can't trust his senses. Nothing seems rational. His familiar world has been destroyed. It's amazing that he is still able to philosophise about it. To ask questions. Only to find that suddenly there are no answers. Reason doesn't work any longer.

Eloise...we would like to think that everything in the book has meaning. But that's not the way it is in real life. Don't you think that for Pi, when his ship, his whole world, goes down, everything seems to have lost meaning. It's the SHOCK of the sudden loss of meaning that we're seeing in Pi. In a very dramatic way. The scene is even better than the first scene in Shakespeare's Tempest.

Try to find out more of the whereabouts of Martel. I've read that he is living and teaching in Berlin. These people are usually very busy. I doubt if we'll hear from him. It's worth a try.

Thanks for the new set of questions, Nellie. How did your dinner turn out?

Yann Martel is the Samuel Fischer guest professor at the University of Berlin for the winter semester, 2002-2003. Click the link below for a translation from German to English of the article.

Yann Martel Article

I am glad that Mal brought us that information, because I have not yet made the inquiry about Martel. I am reluctant to ask the Palliative Care Unit about him because it is a very special place where the only important thing for the dying is allowing their last days to be quiet and pain free. All the rest is trivial. If Martel works there as a volunteer, it says a lot about his character and the book reveals it aptly.

Jonathan, When Pi describes his feelings, we can interpret it to mean something different, but perhaps he is saying exactly how he sees it and as you say, no need to search for deeper meaning in every word he says, only special ones.

Giving a name to the tiger certainly humanizes the character as Pi seems to become attached to the animal, as we are let to believe. Pi despairs and suffers, yet we have hope that he will survive this ordeal because don't forget that "this story has a happy ending"

Eloïse

Thanks for the new set of questions. It seems to me that Orange Juice plays the motherly role in the novel. And like Pi's real mother, she is lost at sea. There were earlier references to how Orange Juice may have reached the zoo - a former pet that grew too big for its owners. At any rate it remained tame and docile. Pi remembers Orange Juice with affection and times when Orange Juice cuddled Pi (I think I am remembering correctly). Orange Juice, being a female, is not big and aggressive and no match for the hyena. The reader can only feel real regret at OJ's death. Now why did I say OJ? That brings up other issues not connected with this novel. Eloise, I will be interested in seeing how you feel the book ends; happy endings may be a matter of perception. Jonathan, I tried to email you but the email was returned; I guess the address on Senior Net is incorrect. At any rate, I am continuing with Searching for Elijah and find pages 266 267 particularly apt for our Pi discussion. However, I need to wait until we are closer to the end before adding those thoughts here. I certainly think that the name Richard Parker stands for something. Pi needs another quasi human presence with him on the boat. Can you imagine this tale told with Pi's companion being an ant, a flea, or a snake? I don't think so. We need some kind of human prescence to survive. Think of the movie Castaway. As I recall, Tom Hanks, made a human head out of a coconut fruit.

FINALLY the book arrived! When I get a chance later today, I will immerse myself into reading it...Doubt it if I will be able to come up with ideas that haven't been already brought up by this illustrous group. Meanwhile, I have found this piece that might shed some light on Richard Parker... http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/309590/104-6340899-6001524

Eloise, that's such a strange thought - the difference between a deeper meaning and a special one. I think the magic of the book is taking hold of you.

I'm almost convinced that the book sends subliminal messages. Even when I'm not reading, or even thinking about it, some outrageous meaning about something in the book will come to mind. I dismiss it as nonsense. Later, reading it a second time - there it is, as plain as can be!

Akon...talking about names, namely, one Richard Parker. That's the best link yet!! What are we to think? Or make of what Martel tells us? Will the real Richard Parker please stand up. The tiger certainly is fearful at times. Is he a reincarnation come back to wreak revenge? Only to suffer the same fate again. Is Pi meant to be the object of vengeance? Or a sacrifice for the sins of others? He's aware of that ordeal from his religious searchings. That Pi himself might end up devouring the tiger, drawn to it by some unholy urge, seems too improbable.

In the distraught mind of the young Pe the orang-utan IS taken as his mother. He even reminds us that she is the mother of two boys. She plays a very mysterious role in the story, from beginning to end.

Thanks for reminding me about the inactive email. I must change that. And I'm going to look up those pages in Elijah. Thanks.

The note at the bottom of the article has Martel back in Montreal. Presumably back in Palliative Care at the hospital. In which case it would certainly be unkind to some dying person, being counselled by Martel, to deprive him of the comfort.

Mal...thanks for that good link...leading to others, which have Martel back in Berlin. I'll bet he's in Mexico on safari, looking for Richard Parker. For a sequel.

For question 2, I would like to suggest that the question might be somewhat like the self-counselling we do off and on when we talk to our pets or animal friends. Perhaps Pi is questioning his own problem of giving up without a struggle. Soon we have him wondering out loud that saving himself was done without conscious effort or will - suggesting an influence outside himself.

Hello to Joan, Jonathan, Mal, Eloise, George, Abe!

When did I first realize that Richard Parker is not human? When Pi starts shooing him away and telling him to drown. But until he actually says Richard Parker is a tiger, I did not know.

I had to smile when Pi jumps overboard when the tiger gets into the lifeboat. But in no time the ocean he has leaped into is shown to be as dangerous to be in as the lifeboat when the shark shows up.

Enjoy the reading Abe. Interesting stuff on the different Richard Parkers in that article.

Jonathan, it is interesting that Martel names the tiger after victims of disasters; victims who were killed and devoured by their own kind. But this Richard Parker is more likely to do the killing and devouring.

It is quite a strange menagerie in that lifeboat: we have a zebra, a herbivore and prey animal; a hyena, a very formidable carnivore; a tiger; another formidable carnivore; Orange Juice the female orang utan, possible prey? And Pi, who is supposedly a member of the species at the very top of the food chain, but who looks as much like possible prey for the two carnivores as the zebra or O.J. I'm trying to think of the meaning of this strange combination.

More tomorrow.

Dinner was good, Jonathan

Jonathan, you caught me lacking in English grammar even if I make every effort, but English is my second language so... Martel loves metaphors to a fault and I like it up to a certain point. I read all the book already because my SIL will want it back, but will comment later to try to answer some the questions.

In the last piece written by Patel, relating to why he named the tiger "Richard Parker", I found this quote extremely interesting...Perhaps, another question we might want to look at?

"So many victimized Richard Parkers had to mean something. My tiger found his name. He's a victim, too--or is he?"

Abe

Abe! You finally got the book. It won't be long for you to catch up now. Thanks for the history of Richard Parker's name. I'm amused at the 'humanization' of Richard Parker...the name and the "don't you love life" question put to him. And now an association with a cannibalized cabin boy and other such "victims"- sounds like Martel is hinting that Richard Parker is the victim in the piece? But who will eat him?

Hey George, if Pi needed another quasi-human presence with him on the boat, I think the maternal presence of Orange Juice would have been more of a companion for him, don't you? Why a man-eating tiger? Why was this element of fear necessary to the plot?

There are so many associations with the shock of the loss of his mother and then again, Orange Juice. It's a wonder Pi will survive this ordeal with a happy ending, isn't it? The saddest part to me - after the second day at sea, he could no longer remember his mother's face. That happened to me at a very young age, . When my mother died, I was seven and I lost her face forever - even photographs don't bring her back. Nor can I remember anything she ever said to me...her voice. Shock, yes...and Pi must certainly be experiencing shock. At some point Pi says - to lose one's mother is like losing the sun from the sky. This is powerful stuff. To watch Richard Parker devour Orange Juice, his surrogate mother - what effect did that have on Pi and his relationship with RP? How is it possible to look at Richard Parker as a victim, Abe?

Joan--I know that I am way behind the rest of the readers, and need to pedal much faster to catch up...It seems to me, that without Richard Parker Pi would not have had the tenacity to survive. Richard Parker was the liferaft that fate threw to Pi in order to survive his terrible ordeal. If that was his role in the story, was that the reason why Martel may have alluded in my last link that RP was a possible "victim"?

Abe

Eloise, there was nothing wrong with your grammar when you made such a fine distinction about meaning. You made a very thoughtful point, imo.

It's beyond endurance. And so, to all my friends in SeniorNet, to Pi, wherever you are, I wish it to be known that I will be out of town for the next while. Alas, all rumour to the contrary, and contrary to what one might even desire, I am not leaving town because of jealous husbands and such. It's truly as Pi has described it, on page 98: 'the minus-two-hundred-degrees of a Canadian winter (taking into account the age and wind-chill factors). This really is incredible. From the frying-pan of Pondicherry into the deep freeze of Canada. Perhaps it does build character, add moral fibre to a life, and give a keener awareness of being alive. Nevertheless, I've decided that it's needless suffering to go on like this. I hear tell of a southern comfort that passeth all that one could wish for. The rest have all fled. Tonight mine is the only light on a dark street.

I bid you a temporary farewell. With the thought 'that a novel set in Portugal in 1939, may have very little to do with Portugal in 1939.' Yann Martel the writer said it. Then set out and remained true to himself and more than that to his readers.

Jonathan! Say it isn't so! How long will you be receiving "southern comfort"...until you read in the newspaper that the temps are bearable? Of course, we do understand - where will you be? There were many Canadians in Florida last week. We go to Hollywood Beach, where the French-speaking Canadiens winter and manage a number of restaurants as well. (You can get "poutine" there - if you can stomach it! hahaha...french fries, with cheese sauce - and gravy!!!) You will certainly be missed. When do you plan to escape?

Abe, that's interesting - Richard Parker is necessary to Pi's survival because he provides him with the "tenacity" to live....

I'm trying to remember why he revised his Plan to get rid of RP...to ädd Plan #7 - to keep Richard Parker alive - and on the ship? Can you remember what led him to that conclusion?

I fine I'm questioning this "happy ending" business, watching Pi lose everyone that means something to him, especially his mother who was like the very sun over him. How can there be a happy ending? I think we're back to "what is happiness" again, aren't we? Is happiness then being fully engaged in one's attempt to survive? Is Martel telling us that life/happiness is all about survival?

HaHaHa, Joan - Poutine, I still have to taste the stuff. It is the most unhealthy combination ever. Fries, cheeze, sauce, Ouash! I'll stick to Hot Dogs, Hamburgers and Diet Coke any day.

Martel Aka Pi tells us gems of philosophy sometimes and as he says on page 6:

I have nothing to say of my working life, only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful.

Martel has a very subtle way of preaching. To me he is saying, "I tried to work in an office wearing the very very old suit and tie. The suit I don't mind, but the tie is something else. First it is absolutely useless, it has no practical function, and furthermore, I feel like if it will strangle me tied to my desk where I push a pencil from 9 to 5 doing what the boss (who is a jerk) is asking me to do. I can't wait to get home and change into something chic, useful and comfortable, a sweat suit, it is the trade mark of freedom".

He has gems like this throughout the book.

Jonathan, Have a nice time down South, It will certainly be warmer than here. Who knows I might fly down south myself for a few days of warm weather. There are lots of Internet Cafés everywhere and come and visit us.

Eloïse

Hello all! You have given me things to think about, and maybe I'll do the same. I have been doing some re-reading and came upon this bit in chapter 45:

"When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival."

Being animals, none of the animals show any empathy for each other: the hyena proceeds to eat the zebra alive -Pi is seeing first hand the 'cruelty' of nature. I put 'cruelty' in single quotes because I think that nature has no feelings about how creatures meet their end; nature is impassionate.

Can you imagine being on a lifeboat with all that going on? The Orang Utan and the hyena roaring at each other, the cries of the zebra, the banging of the sharks against the boat. Yet there is no sound from Richard Parker. Is Martel making us doubt that the tiger is there at all?

"I'm trying to remember why he revised his Plan to get rid of RP...to ädd Plan #7 - to keep Richard Parker alive - and on the ship? Can you remember what led him to that conclusion?" Here is my opinion, Joan...

For some reason, I find myself still fixated on Richard Parker. I see him as far more than a leopard and still feel that he had a lot to do with helping Pi survive. I re-read Martel’s quote on page 162 at the beginning of Chapter 57.

“It was Richard Parker who calmed me down. It is the irony of this story that the one who scared me witless to start with was the very same who brought me peace, purpose, I dare say even wholeness.”

Then, in the middle of page 164, he goes on by stating: “But there is more to it. I will come clean. I will tell you a secret: a part of me was glad about Richard Parker. A part of me did not want Richard to die at all, because if he died I would be left alone with despair, a foe even more formidable than a tiger. If I had a will to live, it was thanks to Richard Parker…He pushed me to go on living…It’s the plain truth: without Richard Parker, I wouldn’t be alive today to tell you my story.”

AKON, I agree about the importance of Richard Parker in Pi’s survival. He does tell us that himself, doesn’t he? And Georgehd said “Pi needs another quasi-human presence with him on the boat. …We need some kind of human presence to survive.” So Pi’s decision on option #7 makes wonderful sense if you allow that animals can provide that presence in human lives.
When Pi says,” Richard Parker, don’t you love life?” he is anthropomorphizing him, but he is also asking himself that question. It is his attempt to express his hope that he isn’t alone, that life is still worth loving and that he shares the raft with a creature that cares for life as he does. Richard Parker stares back at him placidly after he has had enough to eat and drink, and at least once he expresses a friendly feeling with that amiable exhalation, prusten, that Pi’s father told him about. I don’t know if a tiger “loves” the way human beings do, life or anything else, and I don’t know if there will ever be any way to know that. I do believe that Pi needs to believe that R. P. wants to live as much as he does, and that he becomes at least as important to Pi as a human presence would. Maybe even more important, if Pi is our reliable narrator when he tells us he wouldn’t have survived without him.
R. P. is a paradox in Pi’s life, the creature that fills him with a terrible fear that becomes his courage and resourcefulness.

“Am I to suffer hell without any account from heaven?” Pi asks. Later, he says, “Had I considered my prospects in the light of reason, I would have given up.” That statement combined with things we learned about him earlier explains how he differs from Mr. Kumar. The answer to Kumar’s “Where is God?” was neat and final: nowhere. We know that for Pi God is accessible in all the faiths he explored in his early years. He accepts Mr. Kumar’s atheism as a personal creed that causes him to pursue with passion a life of reason. Pi has a larger conception of truth. He finds no contradiction between reason and faith; that’s why his moments of despair don’t last. He is able to act reasonably, even brilliantly, in preserving his life and living with the pain of survival for all those days on the ocean. He reminds me of the admonition I received as a child: “Pray as if everything depended on God, and work as if everything depended on you.” That’s what Pi does, and that’s what keeps him going. He doesn’t understand why he has to suffer so, but suffer and work he does, with two parallel sources of strength, his reason and his faith in God. Pi finds no contradiction in relying upon both. Kumar couldn’t juggle the two without dropping one. The combination (and Richard Parker, of course) keeps Pi from giving up.

I just have to jump in here and say what a wonderful, engrossing conversation this is. Much to my regret my library copy will no doubt arrive considerably after this discussion is concluded. If anything, your comments make me look ahead even more to when I can read this myself.

Hello everyone! Here I am again finally.

Abe, the relationship between Pi and the tiger Richard Parker is an interesting one. Pi fears the tiger and at the same time it gives him the courage to go on. I'm thinking that perhaps some fear is good for survival.

Jo, you have some interesting thoughts there on Pi's relationship to God. His sufferings do not make him give up on God. And Pi is so hopeful the first few days that he will be rescued and that his family will be there to greet him and it will all be as it was.

Hi Diane. I'm glad you are enjoying the conversation.

Jonathan, I hope you are having a nice holiday!

In chapter 49, Pi states that he is "so obviously outmatched by Richard Parker that it wasn't worth worrying about. With a tiger aboard, my life was over." He sounds rather fatalistic at this point. Yet he goes on to find something to drink because he is dying of thirst and his fatalism as far as Richard Parker goes, actually saves his life.

I love this bit from chapter 51.

"My feelings can perhaps be imagined, but they can hardly be described. To the gurgling beat of my greedy throat, pure, delicious, beautiful, crystalline water flowed into my system. Liquid life, it was. I drained that golden cup to the very last drop, sucking at the hole to catch any remaining moisture. I went, "Ahhhhh!", tossed the can overboard and got another one. ..."

I can feel the pleasure of that first drink of water as I read that. I think of the 'water of life' mentioned in the Bible when I read that because Pi had mentioned Christ on the cross and his thirst before finding the locker containing the cans of water; and the two just seem to go together for me.

I hope you are all having a very nice day!

While reading in another book, I found a reference to Isaiah,chapter 11, that is interesting to me as it relates to our Pi story. "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard lie down with the kid;...with a little boy to herd them. ...Nothing evil or vile shall be done; For the land shall be filled with devotion to the Lord as water covers the sea." While I do not think our author had Isaiah in mind, I do find the putting together of the weak and the strong as a prelude to a better world rather apt for our discussion.

hahaha...Nellie, I remember laughing when I read the description of Pi tossing down one "Liquid Life" after another...could have been a commercial for bottled water...

Have been thinking more about Pi's reasons for moving on from Plan #6 - (War of Attrition) to Plan #7 - "Keep Richard Parker alive." Plan # 6 seemed his best option for a while until he realized that if he left it to nature, RP's thirst - and hunger would get the better of him...and he'd go for Pi. So the waiting game would be the end of Pi. He realizes that he needs to use REASON to OVERCOME NATURE. He needed to use his own resources to keep Richard Parker not only alive, but also to keep him subdued, recognizing Pi as the super-alpha on the boat. And yet, and yet, as Jo points out, we hear Pi admitting that if he were to consider his prospects in the light of reason, he would have given up.

Wasn't it reason that led him to find the supplies on the boat? Reason that keeps him 3 steps ahead of Richard Parker every minute of every day? Abe, yes, I believe it is this fear of RP that keeps Pi alive, that brings out his resourcefulness...and finally, gives him a sense of accomplishment and peace. George...that is a good comparison...our weaker lamb does have reason in his quivver though, doesn't he?

I'm wondering and worrying at Pi's tendency to read human traits in animals. This was what worried his father back at the zoo. This would make Pi the "most dangerous animal in the zoo." He seems to have learned the dangers from his father and yet, he continues to do this on the boat:

The zebra...head straight up, as if appealing to heaven the abomination...

Orange Juice..."It was unmmistakably these (her two young ones), she had on her mind as she searched over the water..."

He seems to understand the nature of the animals, (as his father tried to teach him) and yet continues to " humanize" them, doesn't he? I think of the question..."Richard Parker, don't you love life?" Does Pi expect that Richard Parker is capable of love, of attachment...I'm getting ahead of Part II. But am wondering about Pi and this tendency. Maybe the combination will save him. RP is his partner in survival.

ps. Diane, here's something that you should keep in mind...even if you get the book AFTER this discussion is completed. It will be Archived, there will be a Readers' Guide available to you...and you can read along - read all of these observations as you read. It is nice to have you with us "live" though...

pps. How are you all weathering? In the DC area we are expecting several inches today...and then after tonight and through tomorrow a foot! I wanna go with Jonathan...to Hollywood, Florida - and get me some "poutine!"

Thanks for the suggestion, Joan - I plan to do that.

Maybe anthropomorphizing will actually play a part in his survival. Maybe it isn't all bad or even completely inaccurate! Orange Juice was looking for her young ones, I believe!

The "Pop Matters Review " listed in the clickables in the heading is simply great. I recommend it to all, but not before you are past the half-way mark, IMO. One of our participants mentioned it before, (maybe Jonathan), and I'm glad I found it. I wouldn't dream of trying to synthesize it, and I hesitate to quote it even briefly, but I can't resist:
Life of Pi is full of mystery -- so much so, as aforementioned, that both booksellers and book reviewers are somewhat confounded as how to best describe it. It offers no answers, only questions and suggestions, free for the taking but not compulsory by any means. In the best tradition of Zen, the book isn't trying to be anything, it simply is. And also in the best tradition of Zen, you will get out of it exactly what you need to have right now.

How's that for a promise?

Jo, I love that..."the book isn't trying to be anything, it simply is. And also in the best tradition of Zen, you will get out of it exactly what you need to have right now."

So the book will mean different things to different people...and what we each "need" to hear, we'll find? Are you finding something here? What is the book saying to you at this point? I really think that Yann Martel would like this review.

Personally, I have been distracted by the author's powers on so many levels - philosopy, religion, science, fantasy - (without dwelling on any of them in any depth, effortlessly, almost.) His knowledge of animal behaviour and their instincts - goes far beyond what Pi would have learned from his zookeeper father - (the fact that tigers are able to drink salt water, for instance)...we have to suspend our quest for "what is real"...or even believable and just take what we can get.

I also think there is something else here that makes the book stand apart. The young author's writing skills - his concise use of metaphor...which express the thought or image in few words...the writing doesn't distract, or get in the way of the action (or lack of action.) An example - The hyena runs amok...starts stripping the live zebra "like gift wrap paper off a gift."
Jo, I do believe that this "anthropomorphizing" will lead to Pi's survival...on some level, but on another, his reason plays a large part too...and his reason leads him to the recognition that Richard Parker is an ANIMAL, not a man and needs to be handled as such - with a dose of "fear."
IS fear a good thing? Is he showing us how to handle our own fear?

His writng is astonishing for one so young, I agree, Joan,examples I'll probably get back to later. Right now, I have to say that the expansiveness and inclusiveness of his spiritual and philosophical position is very attractive to someone who doubts any formalized belief. That young Pi does not view the religions of the world as irreconcilable or hostile to each other, but sees actual blessings in including them all in his world view, is beautiful and fascinating. How can we hope to understand completely our position in the universe, in all of creation? How do we dare to write it down with rules for everyone to follow, assuring them that there is one way only to salvation? How can we say we know? But Pi's way, his expansive acceptance of many faiths, his love for the world that challenges him, threatens his life, and ultimately forces him to tap his own strength and wisdom and self-control, is compelling.
I also agree that we have to accept the fantasy elements of the plot to experience the truths(Martel's, I assume)that underlie its creation. The story is fantasy with realistic elements, almost too vivid at times-the death of the zebra and its evisceration by the hyena, for example.
AND I agree that the decison Pi makes to be very "alpha" with Richard Parker was imporant and realistic. He realizes that they are different, one animal and able to respond to animal cues, one with the creativity and knowledge to develop those cues. I guess that's using fear. I've always maintained that certain boys respect those who can instill a certain fear more quickly than they can cooperate because their parents love them and are being reasonable. Having no talent for instilling fear, I struggled all through their formative years! I should have had Pi's whistle and boat! Maybe I would have had a better grip on animal nature!

Great posts to set one to thinking deeply, Jo and Joan! I love that from the PopMatters review too about the book just being and each of us getting out of it what we need at the time we read it.

I'm thinking of what I got out of this book. Pleasure is one thing, for I enjoyed the reading of it. The realization that 'truth' is not tied up with facts or the 'real' -those things which we can touch, taste, smell, hear - or written representations of the 'real' -truth can be found in the imagination and in fantasy.

Joan, I think fear is a very good thing because when you fear, you want to live. I think it is essential to survival in situations such as Pi was in. I might as the question: why do we fear things that are a danger to us?

Jo, you put into words so very well what I had been thinking about religions and how Pi accepts them all.

I think in Pi, Martel has created one of the great characters in literature. He is real to me, and I love his enthusiasm even in the face of adversity and disappointment. I'm not saying this too well: sometimes the right words do not want to come into my head.

Now to do a lot more thinking

What a nice break from the unrelenting, merciless winter. Well, a bit of relenting. It's all of twenty degrees warmer than a week ago. Good to get away. Good to get back. Poutine is fine; but have you all tried masala dosai with coconut chutney? I could never get out of my mind that hungry, frightened, lonely boy, with only a tiger for a companion.

He does have Ganesha and Shiva, Hanuman and Durga, God and Allah, Jesus and Mary; but where are they when a castaway devotee needs them. It doesn't seem to occur to him to abandon his faith in them. And although he wonders for a moment why he gets no explanations from Heaven for his suffering, he wastes no time in 'troubling deaf heaven with bootless cries.'

I wonder if anyone reading the posts, as good as they are, can feel that they are getting a true idea of this remarkable little book. Isn't it almost exasperating? There are even times when I think it is very funny. If I could only be certain that I'm not missing the point. But surely the author must have been laughing to himself over some of the clever, extraordinary things he was writing down.

Of course I take the book with me everywhere I go. So I'm well along in my reading. And before commenting on some of the ideas in the recent posts, I would like to suggest that we have reached a turning point, at which we begin feeling sorry for the tiger, who is being tormented and outwitted by a young Pi, with his animal smarts.

How to reply to all the good ideas and questions in the posts. For example the statement: 'I'm questioning the happy ending.' And it is followed in the next post by the reminder that the Pi Patel of the present, the narrator, thinks of his necktie as a noose! That does suggest something other than happiness in his life. I met someone who had recently discussed 'Pi' in a group. I asked her about 'happy ending.' I got the strange reply that the group had decided that happiness had come with ending the discussion. There was too much 'reality' in the book for them. I guess there's a point in that. It is remarkable, almost obscene what Pi witnesses, and what the experience does to him. It's truly said 'that anthropomorphizing plays a part in his survival. On the other hand, he becomes more than a match for them with his animalization, doesn't he?

The question of loss of the sense of empathy is raised. Pi certainly had kind feelings toward his fellow creatures. He was no St Francis, who talked about brother ass and sister sun; but he, Pi, still remembers in his prayers the first fish he killed. The sad memories he's left with! Then again he thanks the tiger for bringing him peace!

Is Pi really a reliable narrator? He's constantly throwing out hints that he may not be telling it like it really was. He's uncertain. Did something in fact happen the way he's telling it.

Always, it seems, there is that terrible fear. And so we get that fantastic Chapter 56, beginning with: 'I must say a word about fear.' What follows is worth the price of the book. Fear is the real enemy, not Richard Parker. 'Fear can defeat life.' 'It begins in the mind.' It may come disguised as mild-mannered doubt. Disbelief can't stand up to it. Reason is laid low by it. Anxiety sets in. And becomes dread. The body, the heart, the guts, 'every part of you falls apart. Rash decisions are made. Hope and trust are dismissed. Fear nestles in your memory like a gangrene. Try avoiding it, or even forgetting it, 'and you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.'

Having faced up to the problem in this way, Pi was being very generous as well as grateful to Richard Parker for frightening him. In reality, did the tiger ever do anything that could honestly be described as threatening? 'Is fear a good thing?' A good question. It does have it's uses. Someone said there was some Kierkegard in the book. Wasn't K a proponent of Fear and Trembling?

'Wasn't it reason that led him to find the supplies?'

It was. But the believer would add that the reasoning ability or incentive followed Pi's passionate supplication a page or two previously, 'God preserve me!' Does Pi have any thougts about faith-directed reason? A chapter on that, showing as much understanding in that as he does about fear?

You're right, Jonathan. He never blames a Higher Power for his suffering, nor does he expect relief to come just because he complains. I loved the section on fear(p. 161), the thing that arises again and again because one has never mastered it in the first place.
I don't remember any section (so far -- I'm not finished) where his use of reason is attributed to prior prayer. Have you discovered any place where he says that? The phrase "faith-directed reason"is interesting. I never heard it put that way. Does he discover the locker full of supplies or achieve mastery over the tiger because faith has directed his reason--- does he think so?

Jo, I'm not sure that Pi thinks that his faith in God resulted in the mysterious appearance of the supplies - à la miracle - like the loaves and fishes. BUT I do think that his fear of being left alone on the boat with the tiger and the hopeless war of attrition in which Richard Parker's natural survival instincts, drove him to the conclusion that he needed to keep the tiger alive to survive. Is it here that his faith comes into play? Does his faith in God lead him to use his reasoning powers to ferret out the supplies? I'm not sure I see that connection at this point.

Have you ever been so terrified of anything? Not talking about adrift in the ocean - with a tiger scared...but so terrified that you felt the situation hopeless...near hopeless, unless you took extraordinary steps...and thought outside the box? What did you do? What would you do? Would you turn to God - or to your own reasoning powers? Is Martel telling us that Pi turned to God and that God answered his prayer by leading him to the supplies?

Is Pi a religious fellow? Or a spiritualist? Both? Well, yes, he has signed on to three different religions - seems to be practicing all three, following the "rules" of each. But isn't there something in each of the three that attracted him? Is it necessary to the story that we consider the attraction of each of the three?

We aren't told the nature of his "prayer" ...except that he remembers the first fish he killed, the zebra, his parents...in But other than a "remembrance", in ritual prayer, do you sense a personal relationship with God...one in which he places deep trust -and let's go of all else? I'm not expressing this well...because I am not sure what I am seeing in the text or bringing to the reading of it. Have to keep in mind that this is a teenaged boy...it is easy to forget that, as it is easy to believe that the author is a 32 year old "boy." I don't mean to sound condescending, but he is young to have created this situation, isn't he?

Nellie, I think we are both having difficulty expressing our thoughts...because we are trying to get to the "truth" and as you put it so well, truth is not tied up with the facts OR even with reality. How do you talk about it then?

Such a simple plot...who knew this discussion would be such a challenge!

Jonathan...floating in on a raft of delicacies - I'll trade this poutine for the 'masala dosai with coconut chutney'! Oh, it is so good to have you back - though it would have been more fun to join you in the winter haven - than socked in here with two feet of snow! Will read over your post and return momentarily, before resuming the shovelling...

"It does not occur to him to abandon his faith in them (deities)." I do agree with you there - he does continue his prayer, but doesn't he despair finally? Is despair the greatest sin? I seem to remember learning that as a child. Why? Because it is the recognition that there is really no loving, caring God who will hear, who will save.\?

I was so fascinated to hear about the person who was part of a Pi discussion group...hahahaha, and her response on the "happy ending" question...one we will be addressing shortly as we near the end of the story. That was funny! "Happiness" came with the ending of their book discussion! I am willing to wager that their book discussion did not really "get into it" as ours is doing. I think we are past the revulsion of the reality scenes and as Nellie put it...getting to the truth issues.

But you are right...we are discussing so much of the "truth" that we may be overlooking the presentation...and yes, the humor...and the "clever, extraordinatry things" the author has written down. Let's pay attention to this...and take the time to appreciate these "things.

hahaha...I love it that you are empathizing with the tiger and the psychological bullying he is enduring, Jonathan. THat never occurred to me. Are you anthropomorphizing here? You are forgiven, because the author is guilty of the same with regards to Richard Parker...consider the poor embarrassed cat trying to hide his feces...out of deference to Pi! hahahahaha... Is Pi really a reliable narrator? No way...and I think Pi realizes it as his situation deteriorates We need to talk about that this week when we get into the conversation with Richard Parker, the appearance of the other blind shipwrecked sailor, and of course, the island! An interesting question you bring up..."did something in fact happen the way he's telling it?"

Am still thinking of what you have said about "fear - the real enemy...reason is laid low by it." Hmmm...If reason is laid low, what is left? "The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar." "Unremitting suffering...leads to God."

Later...need to shovel out a path to the grocery store...to get a newspaper! Welcome back to the reality of winter, Jonathan. Glad to have you back on the raft (snowplow?)!

Hello Jonathan, nice to see you back in the lifeboat with us. Chapter 56 is a great piece on fear. Not that I have felt that kind of fear myself; even the fear I feel at seeing a loose dog in my path is but a shadow of that kind of debilitating fear.

I think it is hard to give anyone a true idea of this little book. It seems a simple enough story: a boy and a tiger together in a lifeboat. But does that situation make for a simple story?

Feel sorry for the tiger once Pi starts to train it? I do. Because it seems to make the tiger less than it was; it is no longer as grand and as powerful, or as god-like as it once appeared.

Jo, I have to think about 'faith-directed reason': that sounds so contradictory doesn't it? Somehow we see reason and faith as being direct opposites of each other. We even see faith and reason as being antagonistic to each other. (my own thoughts of course on that) But is that necessarily true?

Hi Joan. Good post.

I love the list Pi makes of all the resources available to him in chapter 52, specially the end part:

1 boy with a complete set of light clothing but for one shoe

1 spotted hyena

1 Bengal tiger

1 lifeboat

1 ocean

1 God

That last reminds me of when I wrote my address out as a child like this: street, city, province, country, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, Universe. It has that same sense to it to me.

All those wonderful things in the locker on the lifeboat, and Pi makes himself a raft and leaves, if only temporarily, the place where that bounty exists.

More thoughts later. I have to gather them up first again.

Joan, after reading all the latest questions, your recent posts and finishing the book, I want to remind us of Nellie’s remark yesterday: Maybe it is a book you discuss after you have read it! I imagine we will have plenty to say! Right now, the questions seem difficult to me, mainly because I’m not sure that Martel wants us to have easy, certain answers… if any answers at all!
I don’t think that he believes that his faith led him to the supplies or to mastery over Richard Parker. Nor do I see a relationship with God that causes him to let go of everything else and cling only to that relationship. Love of life and dreadful fear are what save him. He fights for control over the tiger and over his total predicament because he loves life enough to continue the struggle. When he despairs, it is for a limited period of time, because he comes right back with more effort.
I’m still reverberating from the arrival of the blind man followed by the discovery of a carnivorous algae-island. I’m leaning more and more toward a metaphorical interpretation, but the island seems almost like something out of a comic book!

Nellie, the lifeboat certainly came stocked with "wonderful things" - do you think these are standard supplies on cargo ships - or the author's fanciful creation? Pi says the only thing missing was...a book. Reminds me of that old question...what would you want to have with you if stranded on a desert island. Pi wanted a long, never-ending book. One where you find something new each time you read it. What would you want to have with you?

He had to make do with the survivor's manual...and the diary - which he kept faithfully until his pen ran dry. Not your standard diary. No dates. He says he didn't count days, or weeks, or months...or keep a record of them (yet he sang "happy birthday" to his mother...how did he know which day was her bday?) He says he made a point of forgetting time...that this was one of the keys to his survival.

Another key to survival - he kept busy. Kept a daily schedule in the diary. Were you surprised to see how much of his day was devoted to prayer? So, he was prayerful...very much so. I was surprised. Keeping to a schedule, keeping busy - another key to survival.

All of this meticulous detailing of his day...so realistic. I think this is one of the reasons I was taken aback with the island scene...starting with the "talking Richard Parker"...then the shipwrecked strangeer in the exact same situation he was - blind, shipwrecked on a raft, surviving on the exact same diet...and then fantasy island of your worst nightmare. Jo, are you willing to get into the metaphorical aspects of these scenes? I'm game. I think that if we accept it, leave it at the "comic book" level, we'll come away disappointed...

I keep reading the posts and do not want to be a wet blanket particularly when many of you have so much snow to contend with. However, I am finding the discussion almost too detailed an analysis of the book. We seem to be looking for hidden meanings within every sentence. This is after all a novel, a figment of the author's imagination. What appears on each page is what the author wants us to read - no more no less. Am I being too simplistic? Upon what experience did Martel base the details of his book? He was never shipwrecked as far as I know. Joan, I too was taken aback by the island scene - that is until I finished the novel. This island is a figment of Martel's imagination. What does he want us to believe about it? I am not sure that I know. Having finished the book, I do think that everything in the tale has meaning to Pi and is important to Pi's continued existance. However, I must wait until next week to make a final post of my thoughts.

Joan, so glad you said it was the book he most wanted next to salvation! That's what I thought, but I haven't found the place in reviewing. Maybe we could have a discussion called "Desert Island Books," that is, books we would want to have with us if stranded alone somewhere. (Our local public radio station used to have a program called "Desert Island Discs.") I think this book would be one of mine! I need to think more about others I would want. Some of the most powerful books are ones that left me feeling sad, so I would have to have enough of a selection with me to include some "pick me ups" for fun.
I am willing to get into the metaphorical aspects of the novel, but I haven't made up my mind about the significance of the island-carnivore section, have you?
No (#1), I don't think he's the hyena when he turns savage. That's the tiger part of him, the part that is fighting for survival when he thinks he has only himself to depend upon. He doesn't wallow in blood as the hyena does; he simply dispatches his catch so that he can eat, period. Isn't that Richard Parker-like? The hyena was another matter -- probably the "clean-up crew" of creation, a scavenger bent upon consuming anything and everything in its path. The tiger and Pi seem different from the hyena to me.
Before the encounter with the other blind castaway in his own boat, Pi has a conversation with Richard Parker. At first he is discussing food with someone, a person who has had interesting gastronomical experiences and knows a good meal when he has before him. Pi sounds as if he is conversing with a French chef, until he says that it is really Richard Parker. That's a hallucination, I assume to represent the depths of his own hunger and the extent of his imagination about and longing for food. Then the violent encounter with blind, new "friend" who tries to kill him in the lifeboat before Richard Parker nails him. What do we make of this? The first conversation can be a metapor for hunger,and for the human reticence about destroying living things to eat, and the second a metaphor for the descent into savagery when one is desperately and almost fatally hungry or when one's life is threatened.

Georgehd, I must admit I share some of your feelings about interperetation in this case, and I definitely share the view that we will have more to say next wek! My reasons may differ from yours a bit: I think Martel is having fun with us, that he wants us to be unsure about the line between fantasy and reality while we are reading. I said it before and I'll repeat, I think he would prefer that we remain confused, or at least that our final interpretations differ. It also interesting that you say everything has meaning for Pi, so that even though he and his experiences are fictitious, Martel does want us to have this experience through Pi -- to understand what that character is experiencing, feeling, believing. So our task as readers remains: What does all of this mean to Pi? That's where we have to interpret, at times. If you don't want to interpret, if you prefer simply to ride the wave of the plot, that's fine, too, IMO. We are all getting something different from this, and I think that's as it should be.

No, your not a wet blanket, George. Very down to earth and realistic. As we should all be.

Then again, do we have the courage to go on? To pursue the truth wherever it leads us. What if the going on gets too difficult? The way, philosophers tell us, is tortuous. There may be a dark side. Pi's life is not for the faint-hearted, or for those with weak stomachs. Are we in fact 'past the revulsions of the reality scenes'? Past the 'crude reality' on which we are, according to Martel, hung up, or on which we are sacrificing our imaginations? What a nasty business that is - the butchering of the innocent turtle (ch70,p222). The need to survive has made a bloodthirsty monster out of the kind little vegetarian Indian boy - to his own surprise and horror!

This is by way of pointing out an alternative to 'having the courage to go on. Even in a way making an end-run around despair. Despair as sin, sounds familiar; but again, I don't think that would even occur to Pi. I like Joan's question: 'Is Pi a religious fellow?' And also: Is it necessary to the story that we consider the attractions (for Pi) of each of the three (faiths). Our impression early on was that Pi's religious proccupations were all a bit superficial. His religious interests don't seem to go much beyond filling some psychological or emotional needs. It seems to be the capacity for adoration which he finds as a Muslim. The acceptance of suffering and the comforting priestly ear, as a Christian. As a Hindu, he finds scope for wishful thinking. Oh, to have the six hands of Durga!

Instead of courage to go on, how about the courage to let go? Since there has been talk of Zen (I can't get that Kate Foster review out of my mind.) I would like to post this little gem by Christopher Humphreys, quoted in Zen and Hasidism. You can see where this has taken me.

'But what courage to let go? To leap over the precipice with no guarantee you will survive; to fall into the darkness without any assurance that underneath are in fact the Everlasting Arms. Are you girded for this voyage? (Then), perhaps in a moment of supreme unawareness hear laughter in strange places, good fat belly laughter, and see the smile of God in all about you, and be for the first time happy, and careless, and made free.'

What courage to let go, you might ask, for someone like Pi, who wasn't given a chance to leap. He was pushed over the edge and had to look out for himself.

Jo, to reply to your 177. I'm not aware of any evidence that Pi consciously thought of God having a hand in leading him to the locker of supplies. It WAS the result of a reasoning process. As Joan pointed out too. The process even shows Pi as being worldly-wise, with his conclusion that a supplier of lifeboats might include a food larder, for a bigger profit for himself. But I can't help thinking that 'faith' gives reason an edge, an advantage. Perhaps something in the nature of a working hypothesis in life. Pi is living a life of faith and reason. Both Mr Kumars find expression in him. The mystic and the scientist. He looks at the world thru the eyes of both. He looks at the tiger, and sees two, just as those two gentlemen looked at the zebra in the zoo that day, each seeing a different animal. What a magnificent tiger Pi sees at one point in his adventure! I've forgotten the page. Why am I reminded of Albert Einstein, whose world included the mysterious?

It's interesting that your edition has the Fear chapter on page 161. Mine is on page 178. Ch 56. I remember reading somewhere that the US edition has a somewhat abridged first half.

Joan...A la miracle. I believe Pi is temperamentally inclined to accept the miraculous. He is prone to 'wonder'. Again that two-sided nature of his. He becomes aware of the strange possibility of using the same set of facts for different purposes, when he trys deciphering the navigation manual. Ch65. Those 'beautiful starry nights' gave him 'a clear sense of direction...in a spiritual sense. But now, lost as he is on a very real Pacific ocean, he realizes that 'the night sky (can also) serve as a road map'.

Pe does have a sense of humour. In that amazing assertiveness 'program' that he draws up and recommends to others who might find themselves in a similiar 'predicament' (!), what could be funnier, or more diabolical if you're on the receiving end, than his method to make life miserable for Richard Parker. Rule 6. Rock the boat!! Increase the nausea. 'By standing at the end of your boat, feet on opposing gunnels, and swaying in rhythm to the motion imparted by the sea...in no time you'll have your lifeboat rocking and rolling like Elvis Presley!!' Only a teen-ager would think of that.

And then there's always that damn whistle. Whistling has always served as a way of keeping up courage. Until now I've never thought that there might in fact be a very real enemy being kept at bay with it. What a crazy thought! Considering one's remedial options in a really tight, hopeless situation, or as Pi has it, in a 'predicament.' What'll we try? A whistle? Or a prayer?

Hello Jo, Joan, George, Jonathan! You have each made so many good points and observations that it provides a feast for the mind.

Jo, both the blind castaway and that carnivorous island sure did strain at my suspension of disbelief. The story seemed 'real' until it hit those points and then, suddenly' it was too fantastic, too unbelievable.

That might sound strange coming from someone who's favourite reading is science fiction, and fantasy. But science fiction and fantasy never pretend to be 'real', which is what this story does. Life of Pi is a fiction, a fantasy, a figment of Martel's and our imaginations, presented as something 'real', something that truly happened. Then I'm thrown for a loop because suddenly the author says to me: "You think this story is true? You think it is about reality? Well, think again! This story is about the fantastic! This story is about the unbelievable!"

Pi establishing dominance over Richard Parker. I like his detailed how-to in Chapter 71 and then his first attempts in chapter 72. Although it seems more like Richard Parker is training him rather than the other way around.

Chapter 74 has a lovely piece on faith:

"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.

Will be back tomorrow...

Nellie, you hit the nail on the head. This story is about the fantastic, the unreal, the unbelieveable. But because it is so detailed with material that seems real to us the readers, we continually hover between reality and the the unreal. I did not realize when I wrote that post so many weeks ago, that my question about reality would come back to haunt us with avengence. Each of us in this group is coming to his or her own sense of reality and we may not know the truth until the end of the novel. Of course, who is to say what is the truth about this novel? Jonathan, you continually amaze me with your insights. You give me much to mull over. One aside, I have been so impressed and affected by this discussion (which is my introduction to SeniorNet), that I rave about the site to friends. I am hoping that some of them join.

Jo - from what Pi says about Bibles in hotel room drawers, I get the feeling that he would have been delighted to find a Gideon edition among the supplies...does it seem to fill all the requirements? Yours too, as there is humor to be found in there too. I think I'd include it on my own Desert Island list.

Jonathan, thank you for addressing the question about the three religions and how they might have fortified Pi - "acceptance of suffering" as a means of salvation, "wishful thinking" (reasoning?) and "adoration"...and respect for all living creatures Christopher Humphrey's quote (Zen) - "to leap over the precipice, see the smile of God in all about you and to be for the first time happy, and careless and made free."

Even though Pi did not leap, but was "pushed", he could have given up at any time, but did not. Would one less fortified by three religions, one who was both a mystic and a scientist have given up and succombed? There's a difference between giving up and letting go, isn't there?

Thanks for that nice comment, George...we hope your friends are just like you! I agree with Jo, it as as it should be...each one sees something else - there is so much in this novel and different things capture the attention, depending on where you are sitting. I too would like to know what it is that Martel wants us to understand about this island. Does it stand for something - or are we to take it on the surface for what it is? I think it begs for interpretation.

So, the island, the talking tiger and the shipwrecked man are all hallucinations. They all occur after Pi's pen runs dry, so there is nothing recorded in his diary about these occurances. He writes "today I die" before Richard Parker (with the French accent) begins to talk to him about food. Funny. What is an hallucination - a dream, while you are awake? What are dreams but snatches of reality, sometimes making sense when you wake up, sometimes not...Where is the sense here?

Conversation with Richard Parker - (from Jo) - "represents the depths of his own hunger and the extent of his imagination about and longing for food...and human reticence about destroying living things to eat."

Encounter with the blind man - "the descent into savagery when one is despertately and almost fatally hungry or when one's life is threatened."

Carnivorous man-eating island - ???

Can we talk more about the blind man and the blindness that is afflicting Richard Parker and Pi...and what this means? Is there significance in the fact that the blind man is Pi's mirror-image?

Jo, I think I am seeing Pi looking at himself as the hyena, who takes such delight in his kill...who finds himself gorging, taking more than is necessary to satisfy his hunger, not knowing where his next meal is coming from. Richard Parker does nothing of the sort...he simply waits for Pi to toss him his dinner. Nellie, yes, Richard Parker does seem to have Pi trained, doesn't he? ...leaves the boy alone, gives him space, let him think he's in control... so that he will keep the food coming.

This is such fun. I have hopes that we will conquer the island mirage in due time with all these minds working together on the same page!

Snow is melting...will give the shovel a rest. Next concern - heavy rain/higher temps predicted for the weekend...

Hello George! Hello Joan! Great posts!

In chapter 78, Pi says: "To be a castaway is to be a point perpetually at the center of a circle." That made me think. Are we not all castaways in a way for we all exist at the center of a circle?

What about the tanker in chapter 86 which almost sails over the lifeboat and which is totally unaware of the two castaways existence? Another of those strange occurences?

More coming.

Is the blind man a hallucination? If so, what are we to make of the killing by Richard Parker? There are remnants of the skeleton when he arrives at the island, and maybe even later? Let me check....
As far as I can tell, the last mention of the blind man's skeleton is right before Pi discovers the algae island. He says the rib cage reminds him of "the frame of a ship... a miniature verion of the lifeboat." I take it he is a hallucination, as you suggest, Joan, a mirror image of Pi himself while he is blind. Other elements in the final chapter fit with this interpretation, and that's all I'll say about that for now. I think we need to revisit this part when we discuss the last section.

Letting go and giving up are different. Giving up can be equated with complete despair, accepting total destruction in the belief that no higher power is answering you prayer by helping you in your time of great need. Letting go is acceptance of situations, abandonment of efforts to find reasonable solutions through one’s own power. Letting go releases one from suffering and leads to a new perception of oneself, creation, and the place of the individual within it. Peace and beauty and whatever higher power there may be await when the struggle ends. I don’t mean death. I mean an enlightenment that may be available before we “shuffle off our mortal coil.” I believe this is the distinction mystics make, and I believe there is a mystic sensibility in this book.

Might the temporary blindness, the other castaway, and the island all be temporary escapes? Delusional vacations from the monotonous torment of what seemed to be unending isolation, hunger, and floating in an endless sea? Pi experiences food, (good stuff), company, and being "on land", playing with the tiger -- yes, playing, because when he asserts his supremacy again it is to spend time teaching R. P. to jump through hoops! What fun!

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/20/international/asia/20INDI.html You all may want to check out this article in tomorrow's New York Times.

George, we need your steady hand on that tiller. I like to think you're enjoying your introduction to SN. You say you do. It reminds me of my own introduction a year or two ago. And what I learned then, in that first discussion, I'm trying to apply in this one. You credit me with insights, when, in fact, they may be just the lessons I learned on that occasion. That also was a wild tale told by an Ancient Mariner, the lone survivor of an horrific experience on the vast Pacific. The old man had a way of mesmerizing his listeners. By the way, one of the best posts to that discussion was by someone posting here.

Now it's up to us to make an attempt at guessing at the truth. Here, too, Pi will not, or cannot, tell us the whole story. I came in here tonight, just to get the thinking of the rest of you. Then I'll go and brood about it...

I do believe Jo is onto something, when she reminds us of those human bones in the boat, which Pi pitched into the sea, if I remember correctly. There is more here than meets the eye...all fantasy aside. There was another castaway, no hallucination, in this story, in that boat with Pi, and if it hadn't been for Richard Parker, who came to his rescue, Pi might not have survived to tell the story. Richar Parker saved him from the hyena, and he was there again when Pi needed him. No wonder he loved him.

Thanks, George, for the link! Lovely article. I wonder about the plans for the zoo. It doesn't sound as if they have the resources for one similar to Matel's creation. He based that one, I believe, on one in another city not far from Pondicherry.

From a book review by Carolyn See in this morning's Washington Post - (not a review of Pi):

"To think how often I've preached to creative writing classes:
'The real purpose of the writer is to alleviate loneliness, to make a connection with the reader that validates his or her existence.' "

I find myself thinking about Yann Martel and the writing of this book. And I think of Pi. And loneliness. And the need for contact, for company, even if it means "humanizing" a Bengal tiger.

I'm still dwelling on the concept of letting go and giving up, Jo. You write - "Letting go releases one from suffering and leads to a new perception of oneself, creation, and the place of the individual within it." Right after the shipwreck Pi is greatly relieved when he faces the fact that his salvation is out of his control and experiences great relief and good spirits once he does this. He wasn't giving up, despairing, but letting go of his hope that help was going to come from human channels.

At the end, when both tiger and man feel life slipping away, when the ink is running out, Pi writes, "today I am going to die." Do you look at this as "letting go" or "giving up"? Neither? I feel as Jo writes, ..."the temporary blindness, the other castaway, and the island all be temporary escapes." Is his subconscious trying to make sense of his dire situation? Isn't this what happens in dreams?

Right after this slide into delerium, the conversation with the French chef begins. We seem to all agree that the conversation with the RP is an hallucination...but what of the stranger? How like Martel to leave human bones on the boat! I could accept this as proof that there really was another blind shipwrecked life-boat at that little point in the center of the circle (Nellie, if we are all castaways in the center of our own circle of existence as you say, is this a lonely place? Do we share this space with other castaways? Or must we face the idea that we ARE finally alone and confront ourselves with this reality? Is there room in this place for another castaway?)...IF the bones had been found in the lifeboat when he reached Mexico. But isn't Pi saying that he threw the remains overboard? Is he hallucinating from the moment he begins the conversation with Richard Parker right on through the island experience? Jonathan, you are seeing something else? Your comment prompt me to reread this chapter very, very closely.

George, loved the link! So Pondicherry wants to build its own zoo...in preparation for the movie, right - hoping the scenes will be shot at the zoo? Maybe Disney has a hand in it?

Good posts again everyone!

Jo, I'm thinking about all those things, the blindness, the other castaway and the island as all being hallucinations or temporary escapes from Pi's suffering. To me the other castaway seemed very real as I read; he was trying to kill Pi when Richard Parker attacked him. Would a delusion feel that solid and real to someone who was having it?

George, thank you for the interesting link.

Jonathan, you are ever presenting me with things to think over and ponder for a while.

Joan, yes our place at the center of our circle is a place in which we are ultimately alone with only ourselves for company. Other castaways may join us in the center of our circle, but eventually the tiger, Death, will spring and they will be taken away from us; or we will leave them; or they will just return to the center of their own circle leaving us alone again.

You know what that carnivorous algae island reminds me of? Those beds of seaweed/algae floating in the Gulf Stream. I watched a show about those on TV once, and those things were almost like islands. Except there were no trees and they were not carnivorous. But the algae beds in the Gulf Stream could have given Martel the idea for his fantastic island.

If Pi were to hallucinate an island wouldn't he come up with a more conventional one? This one does seem so dreamlike. I haven't yet come up with any thoughts on the meaning of the island or that of the blindness or the other blind castaway.

If they (the bones) were in the boat when he reaches Mexico...!?! Where does it say he threw them overboard? I believe it does, but I don't know where.
Nellie even the most fantastic episodes seem solid and real as I read them. I'm open to considering anything as fantasy at this point, including that island which gives him respite from suffering, refreshes him with the algae and the water, allows him to improve his circus act with R. P., and sleep with those cuddly meercats in the tree.

Nellie, you probably summed it up for many readers when you pointed out that a more or less believable story suddenly changes into something disconcertingly beyond belief. (post 187) After so much effort by the author to seem credible, with any amount of detailed, factual material, he takes leave of a real world, and has Pi dallying, for thirty pages, on a fantastical island. Not to mention carrying on a conversation with a tiger earlier about taking human life, and then encountering another castaway, engaging in an incoherent conversation. It all seems too 'figmentish' alright. George was saying it for me too, when he replied in the next post that you had hit the nail on the head.

We probably all agree that Life of Pi is a very clever bit of story-telling. But perhaps Martel didn't get it quite right here...if he suddenly leaves many readers feeling disappointed, perhaps even losing interest. Somehow he hasn't prepared the reader for the transition from the real to the surreal. It hasn't happened for lack of trying.

Pi's narrative, for many chapters, has been a running account of what has been happening to him as a castaway on the Pacific. For seven months! It's been very graphic. Hunger and thirst. Atrocious physical torture. Mental and emotional exhaustion. The torment of it all probably far beyond what most reader would even want to imagine. Traumatic in the extreme. Severe spiritual and moral discouragement. Demoralization, from having struggled with, in his own words: 'fear', 'rage', 'madness', 'hopelessness', 'apathy', 'anxiety and dread', 'death with time to think', a 'heart sinking with anger, desolation and weakness', 'panic'. It's all there, in his own words.

Is it any wonder that Pi starts talking about 'breaking waves that moonlight and forlorn hope fashioned into illusion'? 'From a single smell a whole town (Pondicherry) arose.' 'I would be visited by the most extraordinary dreams, trances, visions, thougts, sensations, remembrances.' 'The sea becomes rough and your emotions are whipped into a frenzy.' 'And so, in a moment of insanity brought on by hunger...' 'Nature was sinking fast. I could feel a fatal weakness creeping up on me.' 'A madness in the mind.' '...only after much deliberation, upon assessing various mental items and points of view, that I concluded that it was not a dream or a delusion.'

How hard he tried!

Why should we wonder, or hesitate to permit Pi a little break, on his dream island. Fresh water! Plenty to eat! Something firm beneath his feet! He was sure to provide for that. That's not asking for much. Why a carnivorous island? Alas, I suspect a subconscious feeling of guilt, fear and dread. A strange figment, perhaps, of a fallen, vegetarian soul.

Why should we be surprised if he changes his story in the end? It's just an admission and revelation that much was endured, much only half-remembered, or distorted by a demented mind, frazzled nerves, screwed-up senses, and a shattered soul.

Richard Parker where are you? (From The Canadian Encyclopedia: 'Tigers try to remain out of sight and hearing of their enemies. They prefer fleeing to fighting.) There were times when it seemed, to this reader, that Richard Parker was trying to avoid certain people.

'I would be visited by the most extraordinary dreams, trances, visions, thougts, sensations, remembrances.' 'The sea becomes rough and your emotions are whipped into a frenzy.' 'And so, in a moment of insanity brought on by hunger...' 'Nature was sinking fast. I could feel a fatal weakness creeping up on me.' 'A madness in the mind"
Jonathan, maybe these lines you have quoted are the transition from the real to the fantastical. I think you have made a good case for his delusionary experiences. And the blindness that overtakes him, while it probably could be explained by malnutrition, exposure, lowered resistance to infection, still may symbolize that transition. If life is unbearable, maddening in the truest sense, then why not close one's eyes to it, if only temporarily, to conjure up different experiences?

I can't quote it all, it's too long, but here is part of one of my favorite sections:
(pp.151 - 152) (Richard Parker's)presence was overwhelming, yet equally evident was the lithesome grace of it. He was incredibly muscular, yet his haunches were thin and his glossy coat hung loosely on his frame. His body, bright brownish orange streaked with black vertical stripes, was incomparably beautiful, matched with a tailor's eye for harmony by his pure white chest and underside and the black rings of his long tail. His head was large and round, displaying formidable sideburns, a stylish goatee and some of the finest whiskers of the cat world, thick long and white. Atop the head were small, expressive ears shaped like perfect arches. His carrot orange face had a broad bridge and a pink nose.... Wavy dabs of black circled the face in a pattern that was striking yet subtle, for it brought less attention to itself than it did to the one part of the face left untouched by it, the bridge, whose rufous lustre shone nearly with a radiance. The patches of white above the eyes, on the cheeks and around the mouth came off as finishing touches worthy of a Kathakali dancer. The result was a face that looked like the wings of a butterfly (!) and bore an expression vaguely old and Chinese.

I have just reread the last chapters of the book starting with 90, after his pen runs dry. What is the significance of the fact that no mention is made of the existance of this diary. What happened to it? How long is this story? Is it exactly 100 chapters, a nice neat package, or does the story really end on page 286 when Pi thanks those who helped him after being rescued? The final section of the book is really not part of the story. After all much of this section exists as a taped recorded interview, which we would of course accept as factually accurate because it is on tape. But then tapes and photographs and other representations of reality can be altered. So we are left with a puzzle. Which brings me to another point. The story of Pi and Richard Parker is remarkably detailed. Would a survivor of a shipwreck remember all of this detail? Or does the detail reflect months of editing and rewriting on the part of Martel? I lay in bed this morning thinking about this book and had the most marvelous stream of conciousness experience. I wish that I had written it down; I will do my best to recount this next week when all are finished the book. How do we view this book - a story and therefore fiction - or a biography and therefore fact? I remember the post that spoke of the filing of this book under fiction, religion, etc etc. One thing from this morning I do want to mention. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal. This is a well accepted theory in physics that essentially states that one cannot know all the attributes of a physical particle. Why? Because when one does an experiment to determine those attributes, the particle is affected by the experiment and therefore the attributes are changed. Each of us is interacting with this book and our interaction does change its meaning in a way because each of us brings a different history of experiences upon which our assumptions about this story rest. Therefore the "story" of the island with the man eating trees and the meercats seems fantastic, unbelievable. Nothing within our experince suggests that such an island could exist. Could the island be a metaphor for God? That's when I got up and petted my cat.

When I post a message, everything I write is strung together in one long paragraph. But this is not the way I posted it. I try to write paragraphs (as most of you do) but somewhere along the internet line, my paragraphs dissappear. So from your perspective, my thoughts run together in a mish mash. So what is your perception of me? Do not answer that. Just wanted to point out a factual example of unintended communication and the affect that would have on your perception. Interesting.

Today is all about the weather...steady rain, heavy fog, melting snow...an eerie, silvery day fit for nothing but gazing out the window and daydreaming...maybe a little hallucinating?

Had a difficult trip into DC to work this morning...standing water is scarey! Worry about wet brakes too.

There is no one here though, so I am free to spend time on your posts without rushing as I do at home when there are so many other things begging my attention. There is so much here this morning. Thank you - you make my day!

George, there are a number of ways to conquer the space problem between paragraphs. The easiest is to hit enter twice, leaving two spaces when you post.

The diary. You ask what happened to it...I understand that the diary survived the trip, safe and sound and that is what we are reading - which accounts for the detailed account. I noticed that the realistic detail ends once his pen runs dry, so assume it was added from "memory" afterwards.

100 chapters - will have to include Part III, chapters 95 to 100 which we will be discussing next week...

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle...I love it! I feel it applies to us in that the story is affected by each of the contributions from our group. You know, I think this is an excellent book for a discussion such as ours because we each do see something new...another facet in the prism. Maybe the particle is not affected by the experiment, maybe the experiment is changing...

Could the island be a metaphor for God? you are the first on record to address the issue. Is your cat still purring? What do the rest of you think? I'm seeing the island as the Garden of Eden, but need to think some more about this...
The Garden of Eden, Paradise on Earth. Pi's garden is at first glance a floating Paradise on the ocean. Nellie, I don't think the allegory is going to be realistic in any way, but the floating algae you describe certainly may have given Martel the idea. The Garden of Eden was not without its dark side. Man's nature, greed, hunger - is being tested. (Pi is suffering from eating the castaway's flesh.) Be content and enjoy the plentiful food, climate, or approach the Tree, taste the fruit and suffer the consequences...still thinking about this.

Jo, I went back to find the passage where the bones went overboard and found it in the middle of Chapter 92 - can't give you the page number because I have the Canadian paperback here and it's paged differently. It occurs after Richard Parker leaves the lifeboat to go back to the island. I notice that Pi tells us that Richard Parker has begun to "kill beyond his need. He killed meerkats that he did not eat." Hmmmm, is he taking advantage of "Eden" and its fruit?

"The next morning, after he had gone, I cleaned the lifeboat. It needed it badly. I won't describe what the accumulation of human and animal skeletons...looked like. The whole foul, disgusting mess went overboard."

What a lovely description of Richard Parker you point out, Jo! It's full of fantastic metaphor - and at the same time, it reveals Pi's growing adoration and love for Richard Parker, I think. Doesn't it almost sound as if he is describing a beautiful lover?

His body, bright brownish orange streaked with black vertical stripes, was incomparably beautiful, matched with a tailor's eye for harmony..."

"a face that looked like a butterfly"

He tells us RP's "presence was overwhelming." Sometimes I look at Richard Parker's presence on the lifeboat as the presence of God - providing P with the means of his salvation." Sometimes.

Jonathan, are you saying finally, that Martel did such a good job of convincing us that Pi was able to survive for months at sea with a man-eating tiger, that when he moved to fantasy island, his readers were disappointed that it was not believable? Let's imagine that he didn't do the island part at all, but rather had the boat pick him up unconscious at sea? Would that have been more acceptable to those who find themselves dissatisfied? Imagine...the lifeboat is spotted, there is the naked sailor wearing only a whistle prone on the tarp, with a dehydrated Bengal tiger below. That would have been one ending...but Martel has been trying to tell us so much more than that. So yes, I think that the hallucinatory ending is perfectly acceptable and probably even necessary BUT I think it is worth only as much as we are able to get out of it. Why a carnivorous island? You suspect a subconscious guilt...THAT is worth pursuing. Pi has written in the diary that he is going to die. "Today I will die." It only makes sense that he wants to make things right...to atone, before he stands in judgement. To atone, he needs to examine his conscience. To examine his conscience, to see things objectively. I think this temporary escape is just what he needs to come to terms with his maddening experience and to understand, to atone for the savagery to which he has descended.

Just some thoughts...am looking to hear how YOU see the island? Wouldn't you LOVE to attend a book signing or reading where Martel answers some of these questions?

Joan, I don't want to interrupt this stream of inspired posts!! It's absolutely marvellous. You should have more days like this at the Folger.

No, I try not to say anything 'finally'. Certainly not where this book is concerned. I believe the story was deliberately crafted so as to make it an insoluble mystery.

'a beautiful lover'? No, I think you come closer when you suggest that Richard Parker, in that magnificent pose, seems more god-like than human...with the rat being thrown as some kind of sacrificial offering as an attempt at appeasment.

Jo, I was very pleased when you pointed out that remarkably descriptive portrait of the tiger. What by the way is a kathakali dance? Does anyone know.

'Every hair on my head was standing up, shrieking with fear.'

http://www.cyberkerala.com/kathakali/

Found this web site. There are many others.

Hello everyone! Each of your posts are overwhelmingly good today! I don't know what to address first...

Perhaps I will begin with Joan's idea of the island as being like the Garden of Eden. Yes, yes, it is! I can certainly see the resemblence. There is a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil at the center of the island just as there is one at the center of Eden. Unlike Adam, Pi only plucks the fruit of the tree and does not eat of it, but he is nevertheless ousted from his island paradise.

I'm thinking of why the island is carnivorous. Going with the Paradise/Eden likeness, I think the island is carnivorous because in the end any Paradise/Eden devours us. There are no challenges in Paradise/Eden to keep us human --it is difficult to express what I'm thinking at this point, but I'm suddenly understanding why it was necessary for Adam and Eve to be cast out of the Garden of Eden-- and to live in Paradise/Eden is to live an animal existence. Do not both Richard Parker and Pi eat like animals? Even though they eat different things. The tiger gorges himself on the meerkats and Pi gorges himself on the algae.

Jo, I love that description of the tiger also. I think a tiger is one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, animals on Earth; and Martel certainly does it justice.

George, I have to think a bit more about your thoughts about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle applied to our reading and discussion of this book. I do find your idea interesting.

Jonathan, all the strange things do begin to happen after Pi mentions his dreams and after his pens are empty and he can no longer write in his journal. I wonder why no pencils had been included in the supplies?

I'm just thinking that by spending time on the island Pi just traded one island for another for the lifeboat is like a small floating island too.

I'm going to do some more thinking.

George, thank you for the very informative link to the art of the kathakali dance.

One look at the painted and costumed dancers, especially the head-dresses, and one can see why Richard Parker would remind Pi of the dancers. The illustration of the tiger on my paperback edition of Life of PI follows the description in the text very closely, and really does make for a good comparison.

With the tiger also showing signs that he might be 'on the point of exploding with rage, (p168), he would also seem a natural to do a dance in which it seems 'the movements are often explosive. Delicate movements are rare.'

I like the idea that the island has something of the Garden of Eden about it. The whole thing of course is a state of mind. As a Christian he would have that 'resource' at his disposal, when dreaming of better things. The algae has been there all along though. He has mentioned it at least three or four times along the way.

What I like even better is Joan's seeing the whole story as a prism, in which each one of us may be seeing a different facet. That's very suggestive.

I am not sure that I agree with the idea of viewing the story through a prism and therefore seeing it differently. The prism imposes a man made object between us and the story and there is no need for that. We read the story directly but bring to it different life experiences and hence different interpretations. We do not need a laboratory apparatus.

Furthermore, a prism acts upon light in a very predictable way. That is certainly not the experience that we are having in this discussion group. On February 1st, could we have predicted the outcome of our deliberations? I think not.

The beauty of the Heisenberg Principal is that it provides room for uncertainty and unpredictability. So while I too find the notion of a prism appealing, I do not think it applies in this case.

Now the island - I asked could it be a metaphor for God? I am not sure and am bothered by my question. But I do think that the island is absolutely necessary to the story. I doubt that such an island exists - what about each of you. Does the island exist? There is nothing in my experience that allows me to accept this kind of place as real. What effect does that have on my acceptance of the entire story? That is a key question, it seems to me.

Now I need to consider the meaning of the island. Is it a Garden of Eden with implied implications of good and evil? Is it a metaphor for God? Or is it simply a device to get us to question Pi's story?

Good questions, George! (I notice the paragraph spacing too.) Here's another question for you...do you believe the garden of Eden exists (existed?) Is there anything in your experience that allows you to accept such a place as the Garden of Eden as real? Real in what sense?

I have a few more thoughts about original sin which cost Adam Paradise...and the sacrifice of one life to redeem or save others. There seems to be such a thread running through this story...starting with the orang-utan. Will look closer at the text this afternoon.

We have discovered that our house, much like the carnivorous island, is not 'rooted' but rather afloat and are spending time this morning grappling with this concept. Yet another floating raft!

Joan, you seem to be in a terrible predicament. How far out are you? Are you out of sight of land? Put your finger in the water. Is it salty? Is there anything in your past that you now regret? That got you into such dire straits?

George, you go right to the heart of the story with your questions. And I believe you're right when you say that the island experience is absolutely necessary to that story. Was it real? Pi must still be wondering about it now. While he was living it he took such a scientific interest in it, it seemed to me. A metaphor for God? But he fled the island once, as he put it, 'understanding dawned upon me.' It quickly became a thing of horror for him. And it is then that he says: 'It was natural that...in the throes of unremitting suffering, I should turn to God.' And the answer? Landfall! And soon he was being mothered right out of his skin.

But I must be getting back to my own problems. Digging out after the overnight storm. I just came in for something hot and a little rest.

Couldn't a prism be looked at as a medium? Isn't the novel just that for the author?

Interesting, very interesting posts!

Jonathan, you are seeing the island as something Pi dreams and not as something that could be real? My problem with that is: why not dream of a nice tropical island with a white sand beach and palm trees? Why dream of such a strange island?

Did you get yourself all dug out yet?

George, I like what you say about the island: "... nothing in my experience that allows me to accept this kind of place as real. What effect does that have on my acceptance of they entire story?"

It is hard to accept Pi's story once one gets to the blindness, the other castaway, and that island; that very strange island.

That is a good question. Is the island there to make us doubt Pi's story? Is Pi an unreliable narrator?

Joan, how did your house come to be afloat?

Must be on my way...suppertime soon and I can smell the chili.

There are floods in the DC area, Virginia and parts of North Carolina. That may be what Joan is talking about.

Thank you all so much for this most interesting and unusual discussion.

Mal

Am enjoying all the posts. I had a busy weekend that kept me from responding, but it was fun to read everybody else's attempts to crack this nut, if I may use the phrase.
georgehd, thanks for the link to Kathakali dancers. It made the comparison Martel used more vivid. I couldn't access all the videos and music, but the picture of the dancer, the facial experessions used by the dancers, and the meanings of the various hand positions were interesting.
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is fascinating, too. I don't suppose it has any connection to the idea that all of our conceptions of things are fantasies, in a way, because none of us see completely or clearly. This morning, I heard an author on NPR say that he is able to accept what happens, including tragedy (his daughter was klled at Columbine and he has since written a book), because he has faith that the true nature of everything and every event is not clear to any of us. Our mortal perception is too limited. When we say "sun rise to sunset," we should really be saying "earth turn to earth turn," because the sun doesn't rise or set; it just seems to from our perspective. Even things like a piece of wood or fabric are not solid, as we perceive them. I thnk he was talking about reality on a molecular level, so of course I can't explain further. Interesting, though, how he had linked his faith to the mystery of physical reality.

If the island is a metaphor for God or the Garden of Eden, it is an ironic one. It seems to be a metaphor for the danger of comfort: if we think we no longer need to struggle, we will be destroyed.

OHO...Jo! You don't know what "busy" is until you have spent a weekend ladling water draining into TWO sump pumps - into buckets in a dark basement! Our house is 80 years old, built before the code that says the basement floor concrete can't be poured directly onto the dirt beneath the house. To make it worse, the house is located on what was once a riverbed. When the tide rises, so does the water table under the house. The sump pumps usually do the job, drains filling the sump cannisters, pumping it back outside, (only to come back in) BUT when the rain is heavy on top of existing deep snow, trees can get upended...one did, and took out the power. Of course the sumps are electricity driven, sooooo the cannisters continued to fill, with nothing to be done except to hand-empty them with coffee cans into buckets into a sink...in the dark. House was in fact a floating raft...a houseboat! A lifeboat.
So. what did you do this weekend?

Have been thinking about what you asked, Nellie, about the hallucinated island - "why not dream of a nice tropical island with a white sand beach and palm trees." We're all agreed that this was an hallucination, is that right? Nellie, if that's all it was, a temporary escape from harsh reality, a respite - wouldn't Martel seems to have provided Pi an oasis as you describe? A garden of Eden? Pi is ready to stay there indefinitely - to abandon the lifeboat and live off the floating island... The fact that it is floating somewhere means that there is the possibility that someday he will reach land. But in the meantime, the island seems to provide everything he needs. But Martel didn't do that, did he? Instead he makes the hallucination into a horrible, threatening place which causes Pi to flee - and be eventually saved. Why did he do this? What is the message here...do you agree there HAS to be a message? And that the message has to be the island? Is the message different for each of us, or what do you think?

What of the meerkats? We don't know how they got there, but they are content - they have adapted to the island, as Pi could have done. They are so innocent and sweet - and trusting, yet they are so...expendable. RP is gorging on them and their brothers, families, don't seem at all concerned.

Whaddya think of the meerkats?

Can we believe that somewhere on the wide Pacific ocean there is a floating island of algae, twenty-some square miles of it, occupied by a million or more meerkats? A few less than were there , before Pi and Richard Parker arrived with their voracious appetites. But the number is probably back to what the ecosystem can sustain.

Before Heisenberg it would have been thought unlikely, despite all the other strange accounts that other discoverers brought back from the terra-incognitas of our planet. Pi, himself, was extremely sceptical at first. He questions it in a dozen different ways, determined not to be taken in by yet another figment of his crazed mind. He applies the ultimate reality checks: he blinks his eyes; he accepts the final judgment of firm ground supplied by his feet!

The tiger, as an animal, is soon exploring the island, untroubled by the cognitive confusions of the human mind.

No doubt Pi and Richard Parker could have hit on a nice tropical island, with sand beaches and palm trees. But that IS the stuff of dreams. And the reader would soon lose interest.

If the author wants to take the reader beyond crude reality; wants to take the reader along a way that leads to a belief in God, what better way than giving examples of the INCREDIBLE? To establish the base line of the reader's tendency to incredulity.

Then again, tropical islands with their sand beaches and palm trees are unmixed blessings; and, as such, are morally deficient. And in the long run unsatisfactory and deceptive.

For that reason I feel that Pi's island was real. It did fulfill the immediate wish to satisfy his hunger, to quench his thirst. But how quickly it threatened to put Pi into a state of self-satisfaction and complacency, turning quickly into a roadblock on his way to self-discovery and beyond. Thus, we have to decide. Was the THEAT on the island a reality? Would the island have consumed him utterly? Or did Pi leave the island instinctively when he realized that Man does not live by algae alone...and continued on his lonely way. Richard Parker eventually thought otherwise. When another opportunity came along, there was a parting of the ways. It's just as well. He wouldn't have liked Toronto, with its non-existent flight distances.

Or did Pi harm the albatross... Am remembering the appearance of the albatross in Mariner, Jonathan...wasn't it ominous - unlucky to kill it?

"Sailors also used to regard the albatross as a harbinger of wind and storms, possibly because it has difficulty in flying during very calm weather. They also thought an albatross was a reincarnation of a sailor washed overboard, and it was thought very unlucky to kill one."
The Albatross

The albatross and the "other" sailor? Your thoughts on that other unfortunate sailor - so much like Pi that he seems to be one and the same?

Now the book gets really interesting as does the discussion. The island is absolutely necessary to the book. Why? To Whom? My thinking is that the island fantasy is necessary in the telling of the tale to the two Japanese investigators. They like me do not think that the island exists - it is a fantasy of Pi's imagination. And what does that knowledge do to their acceptance of the entire story. They reject Pi's tale, so he tells another one.

Ah,Ha - now we have two tales. One tale can be true but not both. Of course both could be false. What are we to do?

Think about it. The Japanese were already in doubt of Pi's story. The island would be enough to convince them that Pi's entire story was a fantasy. And I agree with them.

Joan< what a nightmare you've been having, and I don't mean the fantasy type! I never knew that old houses were built under a code that allowed the concrete to be poured on the dirt -- or I didn't know that there was a code against it now! I just never thought about it! Maybe that's why my 75+ year old house takes in water in this kind of weather. I ofen have a watery basement, but I've never had it get as bad as yours, probably because we are on an elevation, not down at river level. Many areas near me do suffer from flooding almost every year. We are that "Three Rivers" location (Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio), and the banks overflow frequently. My sympathies in your plight! You are right, my weekend pales by comparison, but then I will never qualify as an intrepid baler-outer and survivor, as you do right now! I'll bet you are super tired, and don't care if you see a bucket or coffee can for a while. I plan to print out your description and show it to my son if he still feels sorry for himself about his basement. He has "sump pumps" or pumps something like them now,; he had to have them installed recently after just buying the house and being unaware of the problem he would face.

If the island had been a perfect Eden, then Pi wouldn't have had to leave, ever! Then he wouldn't have had the opportunity to come back to an environment where he could tell hs tale (tales?) and test the credulity of his listeners. If Martel is weaving a fantasy, not expecting us to believe it on a literal level, then the island is fine. If he expects us to believe it is all possible, that's more difficult, but so much that preceded the island already challenges us: the tiger, the raft, their ability to survive that long, the conversations while he is blind, especially the arrival of the other blind castaway. Why not an island that offers respite, provides food, comfort, cuddly little meercats who don't mind being teddy bears and blankets one minute and dinner the next? We could indeed say that he is pushing at the boundaries of belief, or that he is showing that life always has to include struggle and challenge, but I think that next week we will say it is something more.

Perhaps instead of just enjoying the posts as I have since the beginning, I could say something and it is that found this book absolutely fascinating.

Everything Martel touches on as he describes his relationships with all the animals interweaving his bezarre beliefs in three faiths, I could not help myself thinking that if I knew how to describe my dreams, that is the way I would describe them. I just let myself get carried away with the story and felt that the author had had quite a special upbringing.

While I admired Pi's determination to find a way to build a raft, to overcome his fear of the tiger, to be able catch fish with only a knife, to feed RP every day, to make a still for drinking water, to keep his faith alive, tells me that this determination and drive is part of Martel's personality to search for meaning in his own life.

I think that the author is purposely pulling our leg here and many times I felt that this story could be true until Pi reached the floating island and then it became fantasy. A feast for a fertile imagination.

Thank you everyone for your most interesting posts.

Eloïse

Mal, thank you.

Hello Jo, Joan, George, Jonathan, and Eloise! All the posts are so interesting.

I'm thinking about something: a lot of this story is really about faith and belief in a higher power which some of us call God. I think that the island represents the one thing that would make us doubt our belief, our faith; and it will be something very different for each of us. What I'm trying to say is that I think the island is a metaphor for doubt, for the one thing that strains our belief.

Those meerkats. Those millions of meerkats. I think they are there for Richard Parker. A tiger's paradise would be full of easy to catch prey which allows the tiger to revel in its nature as hunter and killer. The meerkats allow Richard Parker to be what he is; they give him the freedom to be himself.

I find it interesting that it is after Pi begins training Richard Parker again, after taking away some of his freedom, that he discovers the true nature of the island.

We are coming up on the ending...

Oh Joanathan, that is hysterical- "Man does not live on algae alone." I read this novel a couple of months ago and really wish that I had waited. Your posts are brilliant and I would like to welcome George, our newest member.

I interrupted this novel as a metamorphosis. Pi struggled to transform himself, in his given surroundings. He developed different ploys for survival as he remodeled his "floating world." He struggled with the elements, both good and bad that were present, much the way we all do (of course in a differnet milieu than he had.)

It was difficult not to experience the metaphysical and mystical aspect of this story because of the profound universal emotions that Martel evokes, ie.; good vs. evil, animal vs. human behaviors, authority & dominance vs.obiesance, hunger vs. nourishment Disquieted, we all lose courage and fight apprehensions, be they real or imaginary. Aren't we all faced with formidable opponents at some point that seem to overwhelm and terrify us? Are we not all afflicted with heinous behaviors and "monstrous" thoughts? It is brilliant the way that the author could provoke such ponderous questions as you have raised here. Using a tiger , for crying out loud in an unnatural setting, Martel has detonated a host of quizzical, incredulous challenges, for us. He has personified LIFE to us.

Now the island became a stretch of the imagination and I reread the last two chapters twice trying to fit my theory. It just kept rumbling round and around in my brain that NO man is an island and this is the theme that Martel gave me. We all retreat, segregating ourselves from the elements and isolating ourselves with our thoughts. The key to life is adaptation, acclimation and "acts of God." Our Pi witnessed them all. "Tiger, tiger, burning bright........."

I just love the dialog between the Japanese transport investigators and Pi. They are hoping to get some facts as to what might have caused the ship to sink...hard facts. Instead they are getting this preposterous story from the only survivor. They think Pi takes them for fools, yet they are drawn in to the argument on the details of WHY the story could not have happened. They believe only what they see. "No scientist would believe your story," they tell Pi. "Bananas don't float" either. Easy to demonstrate that they do. Does that prove his story could be true? Pi tells them that Orange Juice floated to the lifeboat on a TON of bananas. Remember how maternal she seemed. (Interesting how Pi's mother used the bananas as a raft in the second version. Who was the sailor, the chef?)

The men are becoming quite impatient with this argument - you really can't win an argument on faith, belief and God with Pi. Reminds me of his logical discourse with his parents about love, God and his joining not one, but three religions back in Pondicherry.

Nellie, I agree - The basic premise of this story from beginning to end is Pi's belief in the existance of a loving God...and as Andy says, adaptation and acclimation to a life based on this premise. Several weeks ago Jo mentioned the Benedictine concept of Ora et Labora - pray as if everything depends on God, work as if everything depends on you.

He tells the fact-seekers, "If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn't love hard to believe? God is hard to believe - what is your problem with 'hard to believe?'"

I find a lot to believe in the first version.

ps. Jo, tell your son that sump pumps are a good investment...you just have to monitor them - make sure they have power, bail if they don't.

Later!

Joan, that is a beautiful summation of the best chapter in the book. The screenwriter will probably take it just the way it is. It's just made for dramatic staging, with its directions. In my opinion, the happiness we were promised at the end, are the cookies for a hungry boy, supplied by the two sceptical investigators.

Eloise is probably right when she says that Martel, and of course Pi, have been pulling our leg much of the time.

I seem to sense that we have less to say as we finish this novel - or perhaps everyone is too busy dealing with weather related problems up north. I come up to the US on Friday, weather permitting and so my participation will have to stop then.

"Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?" "That's an interesting question." "The story with animals" "Thank you. And so it goes with God."

"What did he just say?" "I don't know." "Oh look - he's crying."

Pi represents the universal constant of life. We are all in life boats doing battle with what life has to offer. The life boat is a vessel of confinement separating us from the ocean of terrible creatures that would do us harm.

I think that the shorter story of survival is more believeable - but it would not make a good book. It is simply too terrible a story to tell. What unspeakable things might each of us do in order to survive? Do we sacrifice ourselves in order to allow others to live? More specifically, do we sacrifice ourselves in order to allow the cook (evil man) to live? Is the preservation of one's personal life ultimately all important?. Does God command us to go on living?

Suppose God counsels us to die so that others may live a better life. Is this not the role of the terrorist? God told me to blow myself up.

Think of the struggle between the fanatical part of the Muslim world and the rest of the world. God created us all (according to the faiths involved in this struggle). Yet God seems to be giving different messages to opposing sides. George Bush sees an axis of evil. Osamma sees America as evil. Where is the truth in all of this?

Perhaps it is not God giving these messages but rather it is the individual's view of history (the story). Which gets me back to Pi. His view of his experience is too awful to bear and therefore his mind substitutes a more acceptable story, one that will allow him peace. One that will allow him to continue to believe in God. He uses his experiences in his father's zoo to create a more acceptable construct. The zoo is after all a safe place - animals do not kill each other, they are taken care of, they get food and shelter. This is a more gentle life - a life free of cruelty. More like what we would all want in the world - hence more acceptable to God.

There is a beginning [birth](sinking of the ship) and there is an end [death](arrival in Mexico) to life. How one travels from one to the other is up to the individual. The "better" path is the righteous one - it is more acceptable to God.

One chooses one's beliefs. The reality of those beliefs is in the mind.

I hope that this has not been too rambling or too preachy for that is not what I intended. I found this book a number 6! It has raised all sorts of issues for me personally. I cannot wait for my wife to read it so that we can discuss it. Each of you has helped immensely in my appreciation of this book, raising questions that I would not have thought of.

I look forward to seeing your posts at the end of the week.

Hello everyone.

ALF, what an interesting idea the story being about metamorphosis. We all have so many ideas about this book.

Joan, I thought the whole dialogue between the Japanese owners of the ship and Pi marvelous too. He certainly holds his own for one who is no more than 17 years old. He seems wiser than his years, doesn't he?

Jonathan, "Happiness is a cookie." I like that.

I think the Happy Ending is that Pi survives and goes on to have a family of his own, which is why the author mentions that the story has a happy ending when he meets Pi's children.

George, what can I say? What a fabulous post! You present such deep thoughts to us. I am speechless for the moment and must do some more thinking...

Shall be back. Family members are talking to me so it is hard to concentrate on this...

Happiness is a Fortune Cookie. Who knows - the numbers inside may win the lottery.

When you think of it, happiness is an elusive thing. When I suggested the cookies as the happy ending I did so partly because Andy had reminded me of the need for something more in Pi's diet; and, more importantly, because hunger is a main theme of the story. I must admit that I like Andy's suggestion that it's more than the story of a life (Pi's); but that it's a personification of LIFE itself. (As in God?). That after all is what it's all about for Pi, isn't it? Just what is he crying about in the end? When he says: 'And so it goes with God.' If we believed in God, we would also find it possible to believe what he has been telling us?

Back to the cookies. Happiness would certainly be compounded if they came with a good fortune. But I suggest that the cookies brought all the way from Long Beach, were somehow in the script from the very beginning, when the author himself told us that: 'This book was born as I was hungry.' For that reason I wonder if he will ever again be able to write another book like this.

Another kind of happiness, the thought of it, causes me some sorrow and regret. Happiness could be a dry basement. I'm so sorry now that I made light of Joan's plight. What a strange time for it to happen. The lost posts!

From my newspaper in the last few days:

A high-level Canadian political leader: Canada is the Tiger of the North.

Currently Yann Martel's Life of Pi is one of the hottest books at the (Toronto) library: 1478 people are waiting for their chance to read the system's 276 copies.

London. Canadian author Yann Martel failed to win Britain's Book of the Year Award on Monday (Feb 24), beaten by American satirist Michael Moore's Stupid White Men.

Your Morning Smile: It's been so cold here in Winnipeg (Mr Patel's destination of choice) lately that this morning I saw a squirrel pushing a rabbit down the street, trying to jump start it. (Some Winnipegers were heard to exclaim about discovering a rabbit in town.)

Quite by chance I happened to see Pi Patel this morning, at the Good Sheppard Station on the Eglinton line. We brushed shoulders as he was getting on the train, and I was getting off. I had the feeling it must be he. I was certain when I recognized Richard Parker's eyes glittering at me from his tie. I had time only to ask him: Why Canada? Look at the map, he replied. Canada is the Crown of all the Americas. And Toronto? Of course, it's the Jewel in the Crown. Eat your heart out Montreal.

Jonathan, was the rabbit the four-wheeled kind, or the kind with floppy ears and fluffy tail? The nest time you see Pi, invite him into our discussion!
Toronto is a lovely city. Haven't seen Montreal.

To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything. - Anatole France

After the ship sinks, “reasonable” and “reason” no longer pertain to the way Pi tells his story. Georgehd says, “…his mind substitutes a more acceptable story, one that will allow him peace. One that will allow him to continue to believe in God. He uses his father’s zoo to create a more acceptable construct. The zoo is…a safe place…a more gentle life….” I agree completely!
This is a story of mind, body and spirit struggling between strength and weakness, courage and frailty, faith and despair. Fantasy is the medium. It was the way the author chose to render the internal life, to give it more significance than the external events. Martel may well have shared George’s view that such an experience for Pi would lead to madness if he did not have another life of mind, spirit and imagination to sustain him and to interpret the hidden as well as the visible experiences. I believe the interpretation of the Japanese interviewers (the skeptics who called him to account for his unbelievable tale) when they pointed out that the orangutan is Pi’s mother, the zebra the sailor, the hyena the cook, and the tiger Pi himself. Richard Parker is the life force that keeps him going, that makes him savagely protective of his life and gives him the strength to continue his journey. When the ship sails past them, instead of giving in to despair, Pi says, “I love you! …Truly I do. I love you, Richard Parker. If I didn’t have you now, I don’t know what I would do. …I would die of hopelessness. Don’t give up, Richard Parker, don’t give up. I’ll get you back to land, I promise…!” He is expressing his deep commitment to his own life, vowing that he will not lose it no matter what it takes to keep it. What would have happened to him without the fiery, tiger-passion that was his strength and companion on this voyage? Does R. P. kill the blind castaway that attacks Pi in the lifeboat (254)? Is that castaway really Pi’s despair which the tiger self overcomes and destroys?
He tells the interviewers that they won’t run into the tiger because “he’s hiding somewhere you’ll never find him.” They won’t find him because he is deep within Pi himself, hidden for life’s emergencies, which will probably never be as extreme as the one he just endured.
The entertaining, often funny final chapter gives Pi an opportunity to make a final case for the necessity and validity of imagination: “Doesn’t the telling of something always become a story?”…. Isn’t telling about something – using words…already something of an invention? Isn’t just looking upon the world already something of an invention?”
Each of us is different and each changes the mix with his own point of view in a way that makes the experience unique, even though it may seem to be a shared one.
“The world isn’t just the way it is (!). It s how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn’t that make life a story?”

“I know what you want. You want a story that won’t surprise you. That will confirm what you already know That won’t make you see higher or further or differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless factuality.”
That’s what he gives them, but in the end they like the first story better. The last line of the their report and the novel reads, “Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger.”
The first story is the truest for me, too.

Oh Jo! Awesome! An overused term, I know. Once I saw the Giant Sequoias in CA, "awesome" was the only word that I could think of through tears (why tears I wonder?) ...and was determined not to use it carelessly again.

But, your post conclusion was just that..."awesome." Maybe all of our posts were heading in that direction, but you cracked the code in my opinion - Richard Parker as Pi's inner-self, inner spirit, inner strength. Are we now one step from the "zoomorphism" Charlie referred to in the very beginning of this conversation? Is Richard Parker God - the God that has been within Pi since we first met him? Jonathan, say "Hi Pi!" for me - next time you see him. Of course it was Pi! Believe what you see - those were Richard Parker's eyes looking out at you!

"*Doesn't the telling of something always become a story?
* Isn't the telling about something already something of invention?
* And in understanding something we bring something to it, no?
* Does that make life a story?"

So how many stories are there? As many as there are individuals? Is reality relative? "The world is how we understand it, no?", says Pi. George, you bring up the "understanding of evil " held by the leaders of Iraq and the US regarding the world situation. Is there a message here that we can use in understanding the impasse - that might lead to a solution? It seems both sides need to recognize the reality of the others' beliefs and then go from there. But will that happen? (Just thinking out loud.)

Nellie, yes, Pi sure sounds wiser than 17, but then, Martel seems wiser than his 32 years too, doesn't he?

What is the underlying message in The Life of Pi...or is there a different message for each person who reads it? What is it saying to you? Do you find yourself looking at the world, inner or exterior, any differently than before you read/discussed the book?

1478 on the Library list? Goodness! That IS impressive! But since the book is available in paperback in Canada now, I'd buy a copy rather than wait!

Am so enjoying and learning from your posts! Happiness is THIS discussion!

Joan ( Happiness is also a dry basement - for the time being anyway. But the Girl Scout cookies just delivered are running a close third!)

Thanks, Joan. Glad to hear you are all dried up. (We had a leaky basement spoecialist that used to advertise on TV with that for a slogan: "Awww, dry up!")
I hate being at the end of this one; there weren't many of us, but every post was "awesome," wasn't it? To tell you the truth, I'm still not sure I get the algae island. I know I said it was an interluede of rest and pleasure, but ultimately a threat becuse of the security it seemed to offer, but nothing I or anyone else has said so far seems to clarify that episode completely. It functioned well as a stimulus for incredulity in Pi's interviewers. ( I loved those guys! The cookies! Pi ate their lunch, or hid most of it!)

Check it out: I think Martel is 39, but he would probably be perfectly happy to think we ragard him as even more of a prodigy at 32!

Hello George, Jonathan, Jo, Joan!

Jo, there are no superlatives good enough for your marvelous post. Richard Parker as Pi's inner self, as the strength that allows him to survive.

I still haven't been able to come to terms with that algae island yet either. Perhaps we are not meant to come to terms with it? Perhaps we can only accept it or deny it?

Joan, I think there are as many stories as there are people in the world. Maybe more, for each day in our lives holds a story, when you think of it.

Yes, we have been few but this has been a discussion filled with many well thought out posts.

Tomorrow is the last day of this discussion. Perhaps we could rate the book and sum things up?

Our trip to Baltimore has been postponed to Saturday so I will be able to see posts tomorrow. We are not eager to go up to the cold and snow but duty calls.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, have recommended it to others and have also marveled at the insights that each member of our group has had. "Richard Parker as Pi's inner self" - I will have to ponder that. It depends on which story one believes and as I said earlier I am inclined to believe the second.

Next month I hope to join the group discussing Abraham and hope that some of you may join also. I am going out to look at the stars which are magnificent tonight. Imagine seeing light that was emitted a billion years ago. Now that's a story.

I've enjoyed very much discussing this book with all of you. No doubt others will have more to say about it as time goes by and Martel continues with more of such creative writing; but I think the few of us here have shown that Life of Pi offers a lot of scope for enjoyment and imaginative interpretation.

I don't suppose anyone will dispute Nellie's description, in Post#1, of Pi as 'this marvellous book...full of humour and adventure.'

That was just for starters, as we soon found out. To set sail on a ship with the strange name of Tsimtsum, add all the mystery and unknowns of a vast ocean, a castaway in a lifeboat...now that's a lot to work with, and Martel makes the most of it. Frankly the result is bewildering. I wasn't able to find a sustainable theory to account for everything in Pi's narration of his strange adventure. He does succeed in making the concept 'believable' too abstract to be amenable to fact. And with that he gets himself into such a moral and mental fix, that a 'happy' ending would seem to be an impossibility. He's at a loss himself, in the end, which story or which faith to believe; and has to admit that he has forgotten, or is unable to imagine what 'mother' would look like, should he meet her. The clever, entertaining non-sequiturs of his reasoning in the end don't fool anyone, not even himself. He's lost his bearings. And is still drifting wherever his imagination takes him.

But there, at center stage is Richard Parker, the tiger. The only consistently real thing in the story. Totally believable, and nobody's other self. A real tiger, wonderfully depicted. A masterpiece of literary creativity; and, in my opinion, the bedrock reality in what is essentially a very sophisticated fable. A fable of many meanings and applications. As the posts show. Martel got the tiger right; even so far as having him exit without looking back. Pi being human, has never stopped doing so.

And then there is the algae island. I opt for it's being one of those dream rag, self-induced hallucinations, which every castaway would recognize. But then again, Martel is given to tease his readers. Perhaps it's a bit of commentary on Isaac Luria's kabbalistic cosmogony.

Have a safe and pleasant trip, George. And good night to all.

I found your discussion after reading Pi and felt I needed help in understanding the book fully. Your posts have been so helpful, especially as I reread Pi (just one week after finishing it). I found chapter 17 particularly interesting in my second reading. When Pi meets Father Martin and he tells Pi a Story, "...and what a story. The first thing that drew me in was disbelief... What a downright weird story... I asked for another story, one that I might find more satisfying." and later on in the chapter, "I couldn't get Him out of my head. Still cant. I spent three solid days thinking about him. The more He bothered me, the less I could forget Him. And the more I learned about Him, the less I wanted to leave Him."

This is where I think the story makes it's claim to make you believe in God. I couldn't stop thinking about Pi, or his story. It was so compelling, that I sought out a book discussion on-line. And even now, I change my mind daily of which story I believe, but the fact is that whichever story it true, possibly neither of them, Pi survived to tell A STORY. And it was his belief in God that helped him survive.

I have been all too unclear and rambly, I will try to put my thoughts together more clearly. This is the first time I have ever posted anything on-line.