Life Of Pi
This is an email I wrote nearly 5 years ago. It talks about the book “Life Of Pi” by Yann Martel (btw., this post contains spoilers of it. If you intend to read the book -- which I wouldn’t recommend -- stop reading here). I still remember the novel well, and it was interesting to see how I myself changed over these years. The email was sent to a then friend of mine, who praised the book highly. Here it is, nearly unedited (and I apologize for my informal English, which was worse then):
*************
It's 4:00 am here, and I just finished reading "Life of Pi". Wanted to talk to you about it, but you're not home, so I write to you instead. I didn't like it. I'm pretty sure that it was because I didn't get something important. I was kind of disappointed with it... I guess I was expecting it to say some deep philosophical things about life, God and stuff like that, but it said nothing that made sense to me -- I mean, all it said was clichés like "God is love" and stuff like that, which don't carry any meaning whatsoever to someone that doesn't know and understand that meaning already... You understand what I mean? (What is God? What is love?) And the story itself -- there are two versions of it, and in the end the author kind of wants us to believe the second story (or both?), but I ended up believing neither of them.
Let's check it out in depth: the reasons not to believe the first story (with the animals) are:
1) Pi didn't insist when the officials tell him they don't believe there was a tiger. In the other cases where they didn't believe his story, he insisted: when they said that bananas didn't float, Pi didn't rest until he showed them that bananas do float; or, when they didn't believe him about the meerkats he invited them to call a zoopathologist -- I mean, in both cases he used facts and scientific reasoning to convince the officials that he was telling the truth. But not in the case of the tiger. When they asked him for the truth about the tiger, Pi went to say things as "Isn't telling about something-using words, English or Japanese-already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention?" etc. etc... very fishy indeed. Especially considering the fact that the tiger had to leave lots of marks in the boat -- from the claws and such, so he could have easily defended himself.
2) And of course it's easier to believe that the boy made up the second story because the first was too painful...
3) And indeed it's hard to believe that the boy could survive for so long together with the tiger...
4) Also, the exchange
"The story with animals is the better story."
Pi Patel: "Thank you. And so it goes with God."
makes us believe that the story is untrue, that it goes in the spirit of "That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence?" (which, by the way, was about the only phrase in the book that I immensely enjoyed -- a deep statement indeed, don't you think?) On the other hand, we cannot quite believe the second story either. In fact, if we think about it, we see that we really *can't* buy it:
1) The first story (with the animals) takes more than half of the book, and the second less than two screens. Therefore, the first has so many details, and is so "alive" that it's very hard not to believe it. To think that Pi has made up details like when he was taming the tiger with the whistle, or screaming "The Pi Patel, Indo-Canadian, Trans-Pacific, Floating Circuuuuussssssssssss!!!"", or saving the tiger from the island, or trying to eat its feces, etc. etc... We simply can't believe that he made that all up. Impossible. It was much easier to make up the second story, considering:
2) Pi actually takes a minute for doing it (he goes silent for a whole minute before presenting us the second version)
3) Besides, he tells us he was dreaming that maybe his relatives survived, and he imagined seeing them all again -- *with* his mother among them, a memory of her was described no different than the memory of the rest (whereas, according to the second story, he witnesses her death)
4) He keeps, to this day, seeing Richard Parker in his dreams, and remembering his leave - that goes with the first story, not the second.
5) And lastly, I don't believe the story itself. I absolutely don't buy that French cook guy personality. I mean: he kills a man and eats him (after only a few days at sea!) and doesn't feel at all bad about it; he kills Pi's mother and THROWS HER HEAD TO PI (sic!), and then he does this:
-- he doesn't eat her;
-- he lets Pi kill him without a fight.
It simply can't be, I'm sorry -- these actions just don't match! He'd eat the woman (without any guilty feelings), and he'd never go down without a fight! He'd kill the boy, too. The author compares that cook to the hyena, that didn't put up a fight at all against the tiger -- well, you know what? A hyena wouldn't do that either! No way. But, if the second story is indeed untrue, as we are now convinced -- why would Pi make up something like that??? Thus, we end up not believing both stories... And it bothers me because it seems to contradict the author's wishes (as I understand this book's master plan, it was to have the second story as the truth, and the first story as "the twisting of reality to bring out its essence" -- but for the reasons I listed above, this simply doesn't work).
But you know what I dislike the most about this book? Every single time when there's something that Pi doesn't want to explain, he uses the word "love". "Why? Because of love." (like: Why trees grow? Why Jesus dies? Why shit happens? All because of love). That doesn't explain anything at all... Maybe except the fact that he doesn't really know what love means. Or maybe I don't know, but this doesn't matter, words are just means (like bridges) that help us to understand each other, and if we use same words meaning different things, we get the same result as not using them at all. Pi, it seems to me, just uses the word "love" like some mystic cork-for-all-holes, a universal explanation -- you hear "love" and that means you can turn off your intellect and just believe whatever.... Sorry -- well, that's the feeling I had numerous times throughout the book. You know, every time I hear things in the spirit of "don't think -- believe!" (I'm simplifying it) I know it's a foul game. It means that the person is trying to brainwash me, to affect my opinion without convincing me, bypassing logical reasoning.
"Words of divine consciousness: moral exaltation; lasting feelings of elevation, elation, joy; a quickening of the moral sense, which strikes one as more important than an intellectual understanding of things; an alignment of the universe along moral lines, not
intellectual ones; a realization that the founding principle of existence is what we call love, which works itself out sometimes not clearly, not cleanly, not immediately, nonetheless ineluctably."
Beautifully said, but you know what it reminds me of? A description by a dear friend of mine of his first LSD trip. That's exactly what drugs do -- they weaken your intellectual abilities and so you might end up with "feelings of divine consciousness"... or having sex with complete strangers.
You know, there's something I told myself quite a while ago: "If religion seems like something really, blatantly stupid -- rest assured that you don't understand something important". And I had to remind myself that sentence many times since. So I'm still sure that there's something that I miss, and I sincerely try to understand it, but every
time I seem to just get the same foul play. [There was one exception -- one time I had a long talk with a very smart person (one of the smartest people I ever met, I think) in the end of which I began to understand something that made sense about Judaism. [personal parts cut out -- but the making sense part were the views of Prof. Yeshaiahu Leibowitz]
YOU, it seems to me, are a smart person, too. Can you please explain to me in detail what the book "Life of Pi" made you think? Why did you like it so much? What did it mean for you? And while you're at it, explain your religious views -- "The Meaning Of Life, Universe And Everything, According To [his name]". (And I'm beginning to
suspect that I with all my questions am a real pain-in-the-ass by now...:-))
Ola
****************
He didn’t reply, btw, so I suspect that my questions indeed were beginning to become a huge pain in the ass. I liked the guy -- it wasn’t mutual -- whatever, this happens. That’s not the curious thing. The interesting thing about this letter is to see how my views on the book have changed. It is funny to see how much credit I gave the book, despite criticising it -- how I kept saying that, you know, maybe it’s me, maybe I don’t understand something... Bullshit! Today, if someone asked me about Life Of Pi, I’d just say “Pfff, it’s a load of typical pretentious pseudo-intellectual incredibly annoying new age crap. Don’t bother.” And that’s really it. (So, good that I still had the email, otherwise I wouldn’t write even this semi-coherent review :-))
I have changed a lot. Today, I have stopped believing the mantra "If X seems like something really, blatantly stupid -- rest assured that you don't understand something important". Um, no. I’ve grown since then, and read quite a bit more of religious/spiritual/whatever-you-want-to-call-it “reasoning” (and the quotation marks are there for a reason). Now I have a different opinion about it, a different “zero hypothesis”: if at first X sounds like something incredibly, unbelievably stupid? That’s because it probably is. And people buy it because... actually, there are many reasons, and they deserve their own post. (I used to buy a lot of this shit myself. I really should write sometime about how and why I became an atheist).
Also, today I look at the parts that did make sense to me in the book and did sound deep and beautiful back then -- and I don’t agree with that any longer. Nowadays, I would like to take back even the meek compliments I gave it then. Simply put: Martel is not a big fan of truth, or reason. And for me... suffice it to say that I don’t tolerate this bullshit any more. Today, I probably wouldn’t have even finished his book. To most people, it would probably seem like I became more rigid and closed minded. And normally, I’d worry about it myself. But this time -- I really think it is personal growth.
*************
It's 4:00 am here, and I just finished reading "Life of Pi". Wanted to talk to you about it, but you're not home, so I write to you instead. I didn't like it. I'm pretty sure that it was because I didn't get something important. I was kind of disappointed with it... I guess I was expecting it to say some deep philosophical things about life, God and stuff like that, but it said nothing that made sense to me -- I mean, all it said was clichés like "God is love" and stuff like that, which don't carry any meaning whatsoever to someone that doesn't know and understand that meaning already... You understand what I mean? (What is God? What is love?) And the story itself -- there are two versions of it, and in the end the author kind of wants us to believe the second story (or both?), but I ended up believing neither of them.
Let's check it out in depth: the reasons not to believe the first story (with the animals) are:
1) Pi didn't insist when the officials tell him they don't believe there was a tiger. In the other cases where they didn't believe his story, he insisted: when they said that bananas didn't float, Pi didn't rest until he showed them that bananas do float; or, when they didn't believe him about the meerkats he invited them to call a zoopathologist -- I mean, in both cases he used facts and scientific reasoning to convince the officials that he was telling the truth. But not in the case of the tiger. When they asked him for the truth about the tiger, Pi went to say things as "Isn't telling about something-using words, English or Japanese-already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention?" etc. etc... very fishy indeed. Especially considering the fact that the tiger had to leave lots of marks in the boat -- from the claws and such, so he could have easily defended himself.
2) And of course it's easier to believe that the boy made up the second story because the first was too painful...
3) And indeed it's hard to believe that the boy could survive for so long together with the tiger...
4) Also, the exchange
"The story with animals is the better story."
Pi Patel: "Thank you. And so it goes with God."
makes us believe that the story is untrue, that it goes in the spirit of "That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence?" (which, by the way, was about the only phrase in the book that I immensely enjoyed -- a deep statement indeed, don't you think?) On the other hand, we cannot quite believe the second story either. In fact, if we think about it, we see that we really *can't* buy it:
1) The first story (with the animals) takes more than half of the book, and the second less than two screens. Therefore, the first has so many details, and is so "alive" that it's very hard not to believe it. To think that Pi has made up details like when he was taming the tiger with the whistle, or screaming "The Pi Patel, Indo-Canadian, Trans-Pacific, Floating Circuuuuussssssssssss!!!"", or saving the tiger from the island, or trying to eat its feces, etc. etc... We simply can't believe that he made that all up. Impossible. It was much easier to make up the second story, considering:
2) Pi actually takes a minute for doing it (he goes silent for a whole minute before presenting us the second version)
3) Besides, he tells us he was dreaming that maybe his relatives survived, and he imagined seeing them all again -- *with* his mother among them, a memory of her was described no different than the memory of the rest (whereas, according to the second story, he witnesses her death)
4) He keeps, to this day, seeing Richard Parker in his dreams, and remembering his leave - that goes with the first story, not the second.
5) And lastly, I don't believe the story itself. I absolutely don't buy that French cook guy personality. I mean: he kills a man and eats him (after only a few days at sea!) and doesn't feel at all bad about it; he kills Pi's mother and THROWS HER HEAD TO PI (sic!), and then he does this:
-- he doesn't eat her;
-- he lets Pi kill him without a fight.
It simply can't be, I'm sorry -- these actions just don't match! He'd eat the woman (without any guilty feelings), and he'd never go down without a fight! He'd kill the boy, too. The author compares that cook to the hyena, that didn't put up a fight at all against the tiger -- well, you know what? A hyena wouldn't do that either! No way. But, if the second story is indeed untrue, as we are now convinced -- why would Pi make up something like that??? Thus, we end up not believing both stories... And it bothers me because it seems to contradict the author's wishes (as I understand this book's master plan, it was to have the second story as the truth, and the first story as "the twisting of reality to bring out its essence" -- but for the reasons I listed above, this simply doesn't work).
But you know what I dislike the most about this book? Every single time when there's something that Pi doesn't want to explain, he uses the word "love". "Why? Because of love." (like: Why trees grow? Why Jesus dies? Why shit happens? All because of love). That doesn't explain anything at all... Maybe except the fact that he doesn't really know what love means. Or maybe I don't know, but this doesn't matter, words are just means (like bridges) that help us to understand each other, and if we use same words meaning different things, we get the same result as not using them at all. Pi, it seems to me, just uses the word "love" like some mystic cork-for-all-holes, a universal explanation -- you hear "love" and that means you can turn off your intellect and just believe whatever.... Sorry -- well, that's the feeling I had numerous times throughout the book. You know, every time I hear things in the spirit of "don't think -- believe!" (I'm simplifying it) I know it's a foul game. It means that the person is trying to brainwash me, to affect my opinion without convincing me, bypassing logical reasoning.
"Words of divine consciousness: moral exaltation; lasting feelings of elevation, elation, joy; a quickening of the moral sense, which strikes one as more important than an intellectual understanding of things; an alignment of the universe along moral lines, not
intellectual ones; a realization that the founding principle of existence is what we call love, which works itself out sometimes not clearly, not cleanly, not immediately, nonetheless ineluctably."
Beautifully said, but you know what it reminds me of? A description by a dear friend of mine of his first LSD trip. That's exactly what drugs do -- they weaken your intellectual abilities and so you might end up with "feelings of divine consciousness"... or having sex with complete strangers.
You know, there's something I told myself quite a while ago: "If religion seems like something really, blatantly stupid -- rest assured that you don't understand something important". And I had to remind myself that sentence many times since. So I'm still sure that there's something that I miss, and I sincerely try to understand it, but every
time I seem to just get the same foul play. [There was one exception -- one time I had a long talk with a very smart person (one of the smartest people I ever met, I think) in the end of which I began to understand something that made sense about Judaism. [personal parts cut out -- but the making sense part were the views of Prof. Yeshaiahu Leibowitz]
YOU, it seems to me, are a smart person, too. Can you please explain to me in detail what the book "Life of Pi" made you think? Why did you like it so much? What did it mean for you? And while you're at it, explain your religious views -- "The Meaning Of Life, Universe And Everything, According To [his name]". (And I'm beginning to
suspect that I with all my questions am a real pain-in-the-ass by now...:-))
Ola
****************
He didn’t reply, btw, so I suspect that my questions indeed were beginning to become a huge pain in the ass. I liked the guy -- it wasn’t mutual -- whatever, this happens. That’s not the curious thing. The interesting thing about this letter is to see how my views on the book have changed. It is funny to see how much credit I gave the book, despite criticising it -- how I kept saying that, you know, maybe it’s me, maybe I don’t understand something... Bullshit! Today, if someone asked me about Life Of Pi, I’d just say “Pfff, it’s a load of typical pretentious pseudo-intellectual incredibly annoying new age crap. Don’t bother.” And that’s really it. (So, good that I still had the email, otherwise I wouldn’t write even this semi-coherent review :-))
I have changed a lot. Today, I have stopped believing the mantra "If X seems like something really, blatantly stupid -- rest assured that you don't understand something important". Um, no. I’ve grown since then, and read quite a bit more of religious/spiritual/whatever-you-want-to-call-it “reasoning” (and the quotation marks are there for a reason). Now I have a different opinion about it, a different “zero hypothesis”: if at first X sounds like something incredibly, unbelievably stupid? That’s because it probably is. And people buy it because... actually, there are many reasons, and they deserve their own post. (I used to buy a lot of this shit myself. I really should write sometime about how and why I became an atheist).
Also, today I look at the parts that did make sense to me in the book and did sound deep and beautiful back then -- and I don’t agree with that any longer. Nowadays, I would like to take back even the meek compliments I gave it then. Simply put: Martel is not a big fan of truth, or reason. And for me... suffice it to say that I don’t tolerate this bullshit any more. Today, I probably wouldn’t have even finished his book. To most people, it would probably seem like I became more rigid and closed minded. And normally, I’d worry about it myself. But this time -- I really think it is personal growth.