Life of Pi

June 19, 2004 9:11 AM

I just finished "Life of Pi" and I don't get it. I think I'm suffering from reading for the sake of reading and missed something along the way. Anyone care to share their take on this novel?
posted by grefo to media & arts (21 comments total)

I loved this book. Found it gripping and funny and tragic and just marvelous. As a stone atheist, I actually agreed with the cover line that said it would make you believe in God - it didn't, but it was one of the best damn arguments I ever heard.


(major spoiler)








Basically, what I got from it was that the whole story of what happened on the the boat, with all its mystery and wonder and joy, was made up - the brief second version, grubby and base and chaotic and brutal, is what really happened. The idea, I guess, is that you can explain things different ways: why not go with the version that includes magic?
In the end, I concluded that non-supernatural "reality" contains enough wonder and magic for me.
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:24 AM on June 19, 2004

My take (on the ending, anyway):

SPOILER-ish





The story he tells the insurance adjusters at the end (the cook and all that) is a total fabrication, but one that fits their worldview and will be acceptible to them. The events recounted in the body of the novel (the tiger and all that) are what actually happened. However, I think it's left ambiguous enough that people who believe the opposite are right too. The point being that we (characters in the book and readers outside of it) believe what we are comfortable believing.
Caveat: it's been awhile since I read the book, and there's probably a lot I'm forgetting; but that impression is what remains with me after the rest of the book has left my mind.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 9:25 AM on June 19, 2004

Heh. How about that?
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 9:27 AM on June 19, 2004

The point of the book is to depress you to the point of not wanting to leave the house or eat or anything.
posted by ODiV at 9:28 AM on June 19, 2004

I loved it, and thought making it something else (the tiger, etc) was a way for the boy to deal with the situation he found himself in, and justify what he had to do to survive--as much for his own sanity as for the insurance people.
posted by amberglow at 9:48 AM on June 19, 2004

Wow pink - that's amazing. We took the exact opposite approach. (Though I would argue the increasingly fantastical nature of the main story, with magical islands etc, argues for that part being the fantasy.)
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:56 AM on June 19, 2004

(and if it's unclear, I share amberglow's interpretation)
posted by ODiV at 10:23 AM on June 19, 2004

The point being that we (characters in the book and readers outside of it) believe what we are comfortable believing.

Which, of course, is appalling.

I thought the story was intentionally left vague enough that you could choose either of the above interpretations, though I think the author prolly chose the second (protagonist feeds mundane folk a mundane tale that they can accept) for himself. I must have missed the great touted argument for God in the book; what I got out of it was a meditation on delusion (of oneself and of others).
posted by rushmc at 10:27 AM on June 19, 2004

Here's what James Wood thought of it. Good review IMO.
posted by kenko at 10:41 AM on June 19, 2004

I had a long discussion months ago with the friend who recommended the book to me, and it turned out we came away with the exact same (opposite) interpretations of the ending as CunningLinguist and PinkStainlessTail. I was the one who thought that the second version of the story Pi told was made up for the sake of giving the Japanese men what they wanted to hear, while the story that is detailed in the rest of the book is what actually happened, as fantastic as it seemed. I was completely caught up in the story and read it for what it was—fiction. Her interpretation was that Pi concocted the story of the animals as a way of taking his mind off his predicament and the guilt he felt as a result.

I'm a fairly rational, absolutely not religious person, so after that talk it surprised me to think that (if my friend is correct in her interpretation) I was so willing to accept such a fantastic story instead of the more plausible one about Pi doing what he needed to do to survive—a little killing, a little cannibalism, etc. I think that's what might be meant by the tagline on the cover, "This book will make you find God." If you can get drawn into and accept so easily this story about a boy stranded on a lifeboat with wild animals, then accepting the Bible as truth can't be but so hard.
posted by emelenjr at 1:25 PM on June 19, 2004

Loved the story, hated the ending. (Just as with Cold Mountain, whose ending I hated so violently I wanted to find the author and abacinate him. Then I calmed down and decided I'd just savage him relentlessly if he ever joined MetaFilter.) For what it's worth, I shared PinkStainlessTail's interpretation, but under either interpretation I feel it turns the whole thrilling tale into some boring metaphysical argument. If I want philosophy, I'll read a philosophy book.
posted by languagehat at 2:22 PM on June 19, 2004

I am with languagehat there. . . I hated the ending. But before that, I fell in love with it. (especially the living-island part).
posted by Quartermass at 5:16 PM on June 19, 2004

how would you guys have changed the ending? It seemed right to me.
posted by amberglow at 5:33 PM on June 19, 2004

If you can get drawn into and accept so easily this story about a boy stranded on a lifeboat with wild animals, then accepting the Bible as truth can't be but so hard.

How do you figure? It's FICTION, and doesn't purport to be anything else! Many (most?) fiction novels have fantastic premises that require suspension of disbelief while one reads the tale.
posted by rushmc at 5:34 PM on June 19, 2004

Just like Salinger's Glass family stories, Nabokov's Lolita and other works, Life of Pi is a false document.

I would argue that the book does not purport to be fiction at all. It's presented as the "true" story of a man the author tracks down and interviews about his adventures. In the context of the book, the only fiction is the version of the story that Pi concocted.

I'd also argue that the Bible requires some suspension of disbelief, no?
posted by emelenjr at 6:45 PM on June 19, 2004

As Yann Martel said in one interview, “The theme of this novel can be summarized in three lines. Life is a story. You can choose your story. And a story with an imaginative overlay is the better story."
posted by CunningLinguist at 10:24 PM on June 19, 2004

so people with delusions have better lives?
posted by andrew cooke at 6:34 AM on June 20, 2004

Sure they do.
I would LOVE to be able to believe it all means something, that the pain of the innocent is part of a larger benevolent plan, that the good get rewarded and the evil get punished, that I will see my lost loved ones again and that I am under the protection of a kindly deity. I envy those who can.

I guess I just discovered that I disagree with Martell's contention that you can "choose your story." I would love to believe that stuff, but it involves a leap of faith I just can't make.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:36 AM on June 20, 2004

An interesting further read relating to all this is The Real McCoy by Darin Strauss (he wrote Chang and Eng)--about a guy who makes the fantasy the reality, in a way.
posted by amberglow at 8:34 AM on June 20, 2004

I went with the first interpretation too, and at first was angry at the book for doing that - for failing to have confidence in its fictional identity, for bowing to reality and explaining everything away... but ultimately I think it made the book a deeper and more lasting story, and I think the author was right to include it.

I guess I just discovered that I disagree with Martell's contention that you can "choose your story." I would love to believe that stuff, but it involves a leap of faith I just can't make.

You know, I'm an atheist too, and no book will make me "believe in god" as we commonly take that phrase to mean, but I think you can interpret it more as "believe in meaning" or something. THere's a great line from Emerson somewhere, about how the common man thinks himself full of good sense and apart from the poets, but that really, we're all poets and mystics - we all believe in symbols - all words are symbols, and flags, and beliefs in abstract concepts like liberty and justice (for emerson everything is symbolic, individual, life, death, the world...).

THe point is, if you find meaning in anything, you're believing something which is not factual. We may know on some level that it's not really that important, that what we think of as "meaningful" will not last, that everything living dies, that the world will keep on with or without us or anything we care about, but we still live as if - we still find meaningfulness in our lives and those around us as we go. Which is how it oughta be - we're not god, after all, so what does it matter to us if the Whole Thing is meaningful - it only matters that we find our little pocket of it full of enough to keep us interested.
posted by mdn at 3:10 PM on June 20, 2004

It's presented as the "true" story of a man the author tracks down and interviews about his adventures.

I would argue that one would have to be a very inexperienced and naive reader to "fall for" this common technique. Anyway, if one has doubt, one can always look on the spine to see if the book is being marketed as "fiction" (unless it's Castaneda, of course).

Sure they do.

I couldn't disagree more, and I find your lust for self-deception a bit...creepy.
posted by rushmc at 10:23 AM on June 26, 2004