Spoiler Alert: If you are reading the book and don't want to know how it turns out, don't read this thread until you've finished the book. If you want to discuss as you read, dive in.
This book has handy reading guide questions at the back. I'm going to steal one as a springboard for discussion:
In the Author's Note, Mr. Adirubasamy boldly claims that this story "will make you believe in God," and the author, after researching and writing the story, agrees. Did Pi's tale alter your beliefs about God?
And to that question I would add: Why does the author make this claim?
Ummm... no. No, it did not make me believe in God and it didn't alter my belief in God. I did find the comparison of the three religions interesting though. I think the author makes that claim because that is what the author hopes to occur.
I was kind of getting sucked into this story being true. I admit it. Up until the point where he lands on the island. Then I knew it was just a story. I had one friend who swore up and down that it was all true though. I had to send her links from the web proving that it wasn't. I think she was quite disappointed. This is/was also a friend who doesn't speak to me any longer now that I am no longer a TBM.
I really liked this book. I read it nearly in one sitting. (Good choice Dbrad!)
rosetta stone:Ummm... no. No, it did not make me believe in God and it didn't alter my belief in God. I did find the comparison of the three religions interesting though. I think the author makes that claim because that is what the author hopes to occur.
I was kind of getting sucked into this story being true. I admit it. Up until the point where he lands on the island. Then I knew it was just a story. I had one friend who swore up and down that it was all true though. I had to send her links from the web proving that it wasn't. I think she was quite disappointed. This is/was also a friend who doesn't speak to me any longer now that I am no longer a TBM.
I really liked this book. I read it nearly in one sitting. (Good choice Dbrad!)
I never thought of it as a true story, but maybe because I'd read some reviews. You mentioned a part of the book that did seem jarring and out of place for me -- the entire visit to the island. I can see Pi's more interesting story as allegorical except for the stretch on the island. What the hell was that all about?
I really liked this book. I read it nearly in one sitting. (Good choice Dbrad!)
I never thought of it as a true story, but maybe because I'd read some reviews. You mentioned a part of the book that did seem jarring and out of place for me -- the entire visit to the island. I can see Pi's more interesting story as allegorical except for the stretch on the island. What the hell was that all about?
Ditto on the Island adventure. It reminds me in theory of “The Lovely Bones”; when Susie processes another girl’s body, in order to experience an earthly sexual experience. Very misplaced.
OK, I've muddled over this question for awhile. No, the book did not make me believe in God. But I think I understand both the argument and its appeal. IMO, this is the postmodern argument for God. There is no way to tell which of Pi's stories is true. We can't verify anything. So, because all truths are just stories anyway, we are justified in picking the one that we like best. The insurance investigators decided to report the story with the tiger in it, even though it adds nothing of substance to their report.
So, I'm not convinced for the same reasons I'm not persuaded by postmodernism in general. On the one hand, because all stories are equally valid, it is in a sense liberating because one is free to choose whichever story one wants. On the other hand, to me it saps all meaning from the choice, as one choice is as good as another.
So, I'll say that I liked the story with the tiger better. But I also reject the notion that my liking it better makes it true. As Pi would say, "and so it is with God."
So-- I just finished this book. DOnt know how you all read it in one sitting. It was LLLOOONNGGG!! But-- I have alot to say about it. I really loved it. It may take me 2 or 3 seperate posts to cover all my thoughts. BUt-- here we go--
I, at first, thought it was silly that anyone would draw the conclusion that this story would make you believe in God. But, by the end I understood what he was trying to say. In chapter 22 Pi talks about "the better story". And how an atheist, while dying, might say, as he is slipping away "White! White! Love! My God!" Where as an agnostic would say, in the same situation "Possibly a failing oxygenation of the brain," and lack the imagination to think otherwise.
I see how if the author is insinuating that God= imagination, then in his view of God, I absolutly believe. My brother told me once that religion was a type of art that humans create. I think it is what Martel is saying.
When Pi cries at the end, when the men choose the "better story" rather than the truth, I felt he cried at the confermation that people do not WANT to know the truth. It is something he suspected all along. It is why he told them "his version" vs. the facts. And for them to admit that, yes, they would have rather not know the facts, was heartbreaking for him because he realized how alone he was in his suffering.
And as for being "alone in his suffering"-- in chapter 60 he talks about this very thing. Pi says that sometimes while drifting off to sleep he would realize how very insignificant his suffering was. "I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still." And at night he could accept that this was the case.
In the morning, thought-- he said he would forget what he knew the night before and protest "No! NO!!! My suffering DOES matter!".. "Life is a peephole, a single entery onto a vastness- how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view I have of things? This peephole is all I've got!"
I think the question of whether or not his experience mattered was a question he had from begining to end-- and in the end he realized that he was right in his initinal feeling-- that it did not.
At his juncture-- this is what I wrote in the margins of the book:
'Suffering must be able to bounce off of something to be real and to matter. We need to pin it down in a poem or a song or a painting... or a religion. Otherwise you begin to realize that your suffering is not yours. It is the Universe's. It belongs to everyone and no one. It belongs to God."
So-- that is it for now-- but I have a ton more thoughts that I will share! I hope you all write in! This book was so beautiful! And, seriously-- what did oyu think about the island? I have a theory, but I want to hear some of yours. It seems to have not "fit in", but mabye it did, in a way.
I have to go out of town in 2 days-- so I am trying to write all my feedback from this book today and tomorow.
