Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi has indeed changed my outlook on life, through beautiful fiction.
But don’t take my word for it: “This is a story that will make you believe in God,” Pi notes; the Los Angeles Times Book Review says on the book’s cover, “A story to make you believe in the soul-searching power of fiction”; the lone reader goodbadi adds, “Pretty sharp poke at religion.”
Indeed, this story does just what I think makes a sweet read also great: in its own entity it enacts exactly that which it demolishes by its self enactment, in this case religion.
Pi tells a fabulous tale, one that his skeptics at the end of the novel embrace as True over an alternative explanation. At the same time, throughout the book Pi professes the beauty of his three religions–Judaism, Islam, and Christianity–all of which he accepts as relevant and True. This is exactly what the readers of this book must do, too: even though we ultimately know that nothing in Martel’s novel actually happened, we find it necessary to choose what story or stories–if any–we believe.
The bigger idea, then, is that choosing a religion is a mere selecting of a beautiful tale (or, as in Pi’s case, several tales) to be accepted as True whether or not factual reality is accommodating. Many ardent believers, for example, include Genesis 6:4 in their “True” religious stories: “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days–and also afterward–when the sons of God went to the daughters of the human beings and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” Does this mythologically bizarre story’s presence in sacred text make it true or True, story or Story?
Martel makes his pretty sharp poke at religion by showing appreciation for story–and then leaving it at that. Factual reality is not necessary that which is True. Lower-case story does not beat out Story, whether or not the Story really happened.
I can’t really help it; the role has rather fallen into my lap. Our puppy, as unruly and disobedient and pesky as she is, obeys me more than anyone. Furthermore, my basketball skills simply tear up, especially when I play my seventh grade, asthmatic students the occasional game of knock-out. And finally, there are days when I just know I could through my own bicycle navigational prowess keep the wind at my back (although, admittedly, I probably wouldn’t get home before taking the long way around the world). Indeed, how can I possibly avoid facing an alpha male complex in light of this Truth?
And that, my friends, is beautiful and True in its own special way.
One Comment
Anonymous
I say the Story Pi tells is his means of finding and receiving forgiveness (mercy/Mercy). Maybe I read this somewhere. I can't have made it up.
Thus Martel is being Religious.
sk