Toon Zone Book Club - Life of Pi

[Shnay]

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0156027321.01._PE34_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Life of Pi
Yann Martel

"I have a story that will make you believe in God."


The Toon Zone Book Club continues on with discussion of Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi.
Pi Patel, a God-loving boy and the son of a zookeeper, has a fervent love of the stories and practices not only of his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family and their zoo animals emigrate from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship. Alas, the ship sinks--and Pi finds himself in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi. Can Pi and the tiger find their way to land? Can Pi's fear, knowledge, and cunning keep him alive until they do?
Note that the discussion will likely contain spoilers for the very end of the book, so make sure you finish before reading the thread.

Thoughts?

[Simpler Simon]

Read this for Canadian Literature class last year (yup, score another one for Canadians!) For those who dont know, it's also being adapted by Alfonso Curon and M. Night Shyamalan for theatrical release (two very appropriate choices).

I think I mostly enjoyed this book as a survival/adventure story. There's a lot of deep religious symbolism here, and I wish I had my class notes to mention some of it properly :sweat:

What story do I like better? The story with the animals of course. It's a very Shyamalan twist and I can't wait to see what he does with it (I think he's doing the screenplay and not the directing).

[RD!]

What story do I like better? The story with the animals of course. It's a very Shyamalan twist and I can't wait to see what he does with it (I think he's doing the screenplay and not the directing).It's much beyond a Shamalayan twist--the fact that it might not have ever happened is the beauty of it. He leaves the story open in such a way that he just might have been there with a tiger and the second story was just to please and remove some people who didn't care very much about the means just the end.

It's a very excellent story. But I am a sucker for Boy and His Tiger stories. And hey! It pretty much was (or could have been, whichever story you prefer) a Calvin and Hobbes-esque tale. What I don't get is the first quarter or so of the book. There was a large build up on the whole religion thing and then it became about survival. It worked for characterization, yeah.

I also don't get the island. =[

Will reread again in the future.

[Shnay]

This is a hard book for me to judge. On the one hand, it was a very enjoyable read. Pi is an extremely likeable character (one with no real flaws that doesn't come off as too perfect), the tales of the zoo are interesting, and the adventure at sea is engrossing (most of the time). However, there were times that I felt the second portion of the book (the time at sea) dragged a bit, and I'm not sure the book's main point is all that sound.


There was a large build up on the whole religion thing and then it became about survival.I'd say the third part ties in the whole religion aspect and is the main point of the book. If we (greatly) simplify the belief in God, we get "It is uncertain how or why, but somehow there exists a force that created the universe." If we greatly simplify the belief that there is no God, we get "It is uncertain how or why, but somehow the universe just happens to exist." And thus we get the "two stories." Neither one is completely logical and neither one can be proven to be true. So why not believe in the better story? Every religion has at least one grand tale of creation, many of which are fantastic and imaginative stories. Why take cold (incomplete) science if you can't know it to be any more true than the entertaining tales of religion? Do you believe the fantastic story of the animals or the (comparatively) more common, "believeable" story with the people?

Edit: There's an important passage relevant to this on page 64 (of my version) that I found. The brief chapter 22 describes the imagined reluctance of an agnostic (Pi has a few choice words for agnostics) to accept a divine event on his death bed. Pi says the agnostic "[lacks] imagination and [will] miss the better story" because he holds to "dry, yeastless factuality."

In the end, it wasn't a story that made me believe in God, and the reasoning that we should take the better story because it's more enjoyable to us doesn't seem like a solid foundation for a belief. To be honest, I don't hold my personal views on spirituality for any more reason than they "feel" right to me. I can't fully explain it, but I think people can ask themselves what they "feel" to be right without considering what view would be most pleasing to them.


I also don't get the island. =[I think the island ties into the main theme of believing something you can't prove, but you can't disprove, either. The idea of a carnivorous island sounds extremely unlikely, to say the least. But, as Pi brings up, who would have expected a plant that could devour flies before the Venus Fly Trap was discovered? Would someone who lived in a Western forest believe that a Bonsai tree could be held in one hand if they had never heard of such a thing before? The Japanese navy guys (I think they were navy) dismiss his tale because they've never seen anything like that island before. But there's no way they can disprove it, so why not believe the story? It's a fascinating tale and for all we know it's true, so why not run with it?

One thing I thought was very well done was making the story with the animals believable (in a weird way). Pi was the son of a zookeeper, Richard Parker got seasick easily, there were plenty of supplies on the boat. It was an unusual situation to be sure but (when stripped of its religious meaning) I had no trouble believing the story while I was reading it.

I've got a few more thoughts on the book, but I'll step down for a bit and see what others have to say. What do you guys think about Pi's/Martel's opinion of zoos?

[Phantasm]

oohh, I can't wait to finish this. Am on chapter 92. Will be doen by tommorow, I hope.

[Phantasm]

Yay! I just finished this. But I am shocked at the possibilty that all this may be just figments of Pi's imagination.Which is the real story?!

I won't rate it right now.Need to contemplate it a bit more and come to a conclusion. Am simply too sleepy to comment much more either. More of a complete comment on it tommorow. *yawns*


EDIT: After rating and thinking it over a bit.


The whole idea about all religions inherently being the same thing is an interesting idea but too...convinient in thinking. Islam and Hinduism and Christianity have nothing in common except the fact that they acknowledge the existing of a superior being and His hand in creating the worlds. Well, Hinduism, at least, doesn't have much in common with both of the aforementioned religions anyway.

The author, by the end of the book, I felt was not able to accomplish what he so proudly stated in the begining. Yes, all religions are a way for different people to express their acknowledgement of God, but it is the fact that they do so with very different procedures that makes all the difference. And this fact is what he is trying to put aside here. Pi does become a Hindu and a Christian and a Muslim, but he does not in the sense that he never does completely submit to one religious way of thinking. He cannot be a Muslim, for instance, if he believes in the idea that Jesus is the son of God. So, Pi merely acknowleges and perhaps even fancies each of the three beliefs in God, but does not become a follower of any. So, are we supposed to believe in God because Pi does? Or is Martel trying to suggest that since the three religions basically point to his existence, in whatever shape or form, we are to believe in Him?

The thing that pretty much killed Life of Pi for me was the very unsatisfying finish. Was Martel trying to pull a Salinger by trying to end the book in abrupt confusion? If so, the tactic didn't work. Catcher in the Rye followed a pattern of disillusionment and a tone of confusin since the very begining. Life of Pi,however, followed a perfectly clear and seemingly pirposeful sense of prose until the ending act where it all fell flat and apart. This crstaline flow of words and imagery shattered so abruptly and so pointlessly that I was left wondering about why I even bothered to reach the end. "So, I reached mexico and Richard Parker leaped out of the boat and never looked back at me" doesn't cut it. Martel led us into nothingness or something that is nothing but a mess.

And also, what was up with the simply put, weird existence of the island that Pi comes across? Did Martel have to blatantly fantasize the story any further. The idea of a mere human manipulating a ferocious Tiger into letting him survive was an original and remarkable story. There was no need to stretch the element of fiction any further. Like I said previously, just an unexpected implementation of fantasy at its highest into a novel that worked very well without it.

But I will give credit where it is due. Pi is an entertaining character.Most memorable are his days back in India with his family and rather amusing lifestyle. Nature and our insignifucance as human beings in the giant scope of things is a beautiful concept that Martel worked into this.

I gave this 3 stars. The rating would have been higher had I not read till the end.

[Sharklady]

What impressed me the most was, Martel takes a really fantastical situation (being stranded on a lifeboat with a tiger), and describes it in such realistic detail that you can almost take it for non-fiction. Either Martel has gone through some experience a bit like this, or he has one of the greatest imaginations of our time.

[Phantasm]

What impressed me the most was, Martel takes a really fantastical situation (being stranded on a lifeboat with a tiger), and describes it in such realistic detail that you can almost take it for non-fiction.
And it was going beautifully until at the end where he decided to have everything so abruptly blurred like I've said above!:confused:

[RD!]

Do not read, not finished and I'm going to lose it.
I kind of always considered myself an agnostic--but I guess I'm wrong? I have a very similar belief that Pi does, I suppose, in that I've learned about and loved a lot of religions and from each I've come to decide how I really see God.

I think I'm going to try and better describe what I think of the book.


Neither one is completely logical and neither one can be proven to be true. So why not believe in the better story?Wow. I really didn't connect the idea of Pi's story being likened to accepting God's existance--I think it works, but I know I'm wrong. This book wouldn't change opinions of the athiests (or agnostics?) that I talk to. They confuse me whenever I have these kinds of discussions with them why they'd prefer a story of heartless circumstance over hopeful creation (of sorts--my actual beliefs on this can be saved for another thread I think). But now I see it in this book.

Though I have a question. Do you think that you/the investigator's would be more willing to believe Pi's original story if he had never mentioned the island? I know this is a silly question that everyone--including myself would say yes to. I guess that's the point that I didn't see before of the island. It's that leap of faith. Or rather, willful suspension of disbelief that every religion has that you either accept or ignore. We can ignore the island and believe Pi's story just like we can ignore

[Condiment King]

What an outstanding book. My only complaint would be how vividly the book toyed with my emotions, particularly in the scenes where an animal was eaten alive, and particularly in the "other story" where Pi's mother is killed by the cook. Such a vivid mental picture of the cook tossing remains of his mother to Pi was absolutely heart-wrenching.

I enjoyed both aspects of Pi's life -- his life in India with his family and his tumultuous time with religion as well as his harrowing adventure with a Bengal tiger. I feel gratified to Yann Martel for saying midway through the story that Pi would survive; otherwise, I would have worried every time the Bengal tiger came close that Pi was done for. Even with the assurance of him making it, I still worried. Pi was an extremely admirable character, even when he pointed out that he was becoming more and more animal in his eating, it was simply because of his circumstance that he changed at all, and there really can't be found any significant flaw in him.

I agree with what most have said that its pretty obvious that the stories are metaphors for the choice of believing in God or not, particularly since Pi himself points it out to the investigators at the end. At first, I didn't like the investigator part because the investigators were already irritable from the drive, and they seemed to take out their frustrations on an emotionally bruised and beaten Pi Patel. However, I feel that the ending is extremely appropriate because of how the last sentence matter-of-factly states that the investigator went with the Bengal tiger story.

You can agree or disagree with the message behind it, but I'll just attribute it to the fact that Pi was indeed a God-loving boy and really didn't want to recount the horrific "other story". After all, the other story in contrast is much more saddening, even if the animals stood for the humans.

One of the saddest parts of the story for me was when Pi met the Frenchman and after he came aboard, seemingly as a friend, he went for his throat and tried to kill him. It just seemed like a failure of humanity. The Bengal tiger then killed the Frenchman. One of the investigators recounts that the Bengal tiger = Pi. However, in the first story, both Pi and the Bengal tiger exist. So, is this Pi's other more brutal existance -- the Bengal tiger in the first story? The evil thoughts that went through his mind throughout the voyage, only one that he acted on in killing the cook? I'm not saying that getting revenge on the cook is evil, not at all. I'm just saying that, to Pi, killing a man would probably be the most gruesome act imaginable, no matter the consequence. Not to mention that after the Frenchman died in the first story, Pi says that "a part of him died that never came back to life". In the second story he says that he had become fast friends with the cook, as had even his mother eventually. They cracked jokes.

Am I going too far to say that I would liken the island to a complacent pride in yourself, perhaps the Godless life? You get comfortable and stronger, you take advantage of your circumstances, and then you are introduced to some outstanding possibility that you couldn't visibly make reason of (God exists / carnivorous island). You make a choice, whether to explain away God / carnivorous island and continue to live in your visible world that you are able to control, or you make a leap of faith and make a choice (leave the agnostic stubborn life / leave the island). This is more obvious to me since the island's carnivorous actions took place at night, leaning to the fact that day happenings would represent what is seen and night happenings what's not seen.

I very well may be completely wrong with my reasonings of the book, but that's how I've taken it.

[sKorpia]

The whole idea about all religions inherently being the same thing is an interesting idea but too...convinient in thinking. Islam and Hinduism and Christianity have nothing in common except the fact that they acknowledge the existing of a superior being and His hand in creating the worlds. Well, Hinduism, at least, doesn't have much in common with both of the aforementioned religions anyway.

The author, by the end of the book, I felt was not able to accomplish what he so proudly stated in the begining. Yes, all religions are a way for different people to express their acknowledgement of God, but it is the fact that they do so with very different procedures that makes all the difference. And this fact is what he is trying to put aside here. Pi does become a Hindu and a Christian and a Muslim, but he does not in the sense that he never does completely submit to one religious way of thinking. He cannot be a Muslim, for instance, if he believes in the idea that Jesus is the son of God. So, Pi merely acknowleges and perhaps even fancies each of the three beliefs in God, but does not become a follower of any. So, are we supposed to believe in God because Pi does? Or is Martel trying to suggest that since the three religions basically point to his existence, in whatever shape or form, we are to believe in Him?
The suggested reading group questions in the back does somewhat address this issue:


In chapter 23, Pi sparks a lively debate when all three of his spiritual advisors try to claim him. At the heart of this confrontation is Pi's insistence that he cannot accept an exclusively Hindu, Christian, or Muslim faith; he can only be content with all three. What is Pi seeking that can solely be attained by this apparent contradiction? Is there something common to all religions? Are they "all the same"? If not, how are they different? Is there a difference between faith and belief?
My personal belief is that Pi's claim on all three religions is not contradictory. Religions are man-made institutions. I think what Pi was searching for and what he needed from these three faiths were the different aspects of his all-powerful "God". The Christian God seems to embody love; the Muslim Allah, piety; and the Hindu manifold aspects, perhaps the powerful, all-knowing, strong Creator (basically seen in his comparison between Brahma(?) and Jesus during his first encounter with the Christian faith). He may have needed all three of these faiths to survive his long journey over the sea. He loves Richard Parker. He faithfully follows a routine during his voyage. And I wish I knew more about the Hindu stories, but I have a hunch that some of Pi's experiences have parallels to some of the stories about Brahma's adventures. If not that (or in addition to that), then I'd say Pi displayed some of the traits that Brahma displayed over those 227(?) days in order to survive. Perhaps cunning, skill, etc.

I like the better story, with the tiger and a boy becoming a man through surviving by his wits. But I have to wonder if I like that story more because it is more uplifting and hopeful. Animals killing other animals isn't very horrific; we take for granted that this is the way of things in nature. So when the hyena dispatches the zebra (in a passage that made me recoil before the images of innards flashing in front of my eyes) and the orangutan, it's still not wholly repulsive. But if the same sequence of events concerns humans, as in the second story, the sad resignation to the Laws of Nature is replaced with complete and utter revulsion at the cannibalistic cook who lies about his intentions and murders for his own gain or in cold blood. The second story speaks of the failings of Man to pull together in a perilous situation in order to survive. So perhaps I want to believe the first story because one boy surviving makes me feel better about the human condition.

But then we have to consider Pi's observations about attributing human characteristics to animals and vice versa. Are we the same? Are we different? Pi himself realizes that he has taken to eating like Richard Parker during this ordeal. He tames RP by taking advantage of his knowledge of tiger social structure, the alpha and omega relationship. Do we even play by the same rules, disparate rules or overlapping ones?

More later.

[Ben]

Finally got my butt over to the bookstore and picked up my copy of this. Working through it now, really liking what I see so far, particularly the fictional Author's Note (I usually hate reading those) and the whole treatment of religion, which is very close to my own feelings. Just as Pi is a Hindu, I am a Catholic. I see the world through Catholic eyes. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't go on Zen retreats.

Just finished the meeting of the three wise men. Very, very funny scene, particularly his description of the Gandhi statue smirking at the whole thing.

Of course I still have hundreds of pages left so expect me back in a few weeks.

[Caffeine King]

None of the libraries around have it. :shrug:

[Shnay]

There's lots of good stuff here that I really want to comment on. As soon as I get the time (and get over the recent feeling that everything I type is drivel) I'll throw in some more of my thoughts.

In the meantime, how would y'all feel about starting the next nominations thread? Do you want to wait a bit longer or start it up now so we'll have something new to read in a couple of weeks?

[Phantasm]

oohh...I'm all for the next nomination thread. I've alrady got a book in mind and am excited to share it with you all!:)

[Ben]

None of the libraries around have it. :shrug:

I can comfortably say that it's your library's fault for being messed up. This book was popular enough to get pre-stocked at my bookstore. Y'know, the tiny import one in Seoul, Korea. I asked for it and they handed it to me. Usually I have to wait two weeks for them to order stuff. :)

I am still reading on weekends, by the way. On the boat now. Descriptions of the hyena are very well done and disgusting.

[Sharklady]

^ Aye. When it comes to describing the nature of predatory animals, Martel pulls no punches.

[Caffeine King]

I read the first chapter (five pages) in Borders today...I was a dollar short of having enough money to buy it. :shrug: