Thoughts on 'Pi' (part 1)

In my mind, Life of Pi generated one of the better Page Turners discussions of late, despite there being only four of us present. As I am yet to finish the novel, I will hold my comments until I complete the experience (nearly there!), but I am very keen to record the thoughts of those who couldn't make the meeting, yet felt compelled to write their thoughts down. If anyone else has thoughts, please either post or send to me for posting!

Helen
What did I think? I think I got some of the point of the book. To start with I should mark the spot at which I stopped believing the "story" which was when he got off the lifeboat onto the floating island of seaweed and it was so big that it had palm trees growing on it. At that point I thought to myself...well now he is clearly hallucinating/dreaming. Which brings me to what I think is the point of the book at the end - how we all have different belief systems based on our experience/information/knowledge collected over a lifetime. I'm sure other readers will have stopped believing at a different point from me.


That's all well and good - and I did already know this (anyone who has done the Forum will know about filters) but I don't think I got much more out of it than that.

The other idea, that a story is more or less believable if it is more or less pallatable seems obvious - but I found the less nice story he told more believeable, is that the way everyone else felt?

With all the religion at the start, I'm guessing there is supposed to be some revelation about this at the end and I got nothing?!!Was it just trying to say that all religions have stories that are just metaphors and should not be interpreted as fact..or that the reason we have different religions is that people develop with different filters and need to find "their" explanation?

Really disappointed to miss this discussion as I was hoping this would reveal something for me.

Nat
I really enjoyed reading 'Life of Pi'. This was an interesting and well written book with quite a twist at the end.

I found the beginning of the book a bit drawn out and spent about the beginning quarter wondering when the story was going to start. I also found that the religious discussion over done and generally difficult to relate to. I found the interludes with the author injecting himself into the story confusing and detracting, particularly in the beginning.

The survival part of the story was riveting and, although I was under no illusions that it was true, was very well told. The imagery in the story was particularly well done. Some of my favourites:

Chapter 3: "deep pleasure of doing a stroke with increasing ease and speed, over and over, till hypnosis practically, the water turning from molten lead to liquid light" (I like this one because I'm a swimmer...)

Chapter 4: "it was a huge zoo... Now it's so small it fits in my head"

Chapter 25: "For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart."

Chapter 61: "I was sixteen years old, a harmless boy, bookish and religious" Actually, on reflection, I think this quote wins the irony award.

Chapter 82: "I ate like an animal, that this noisy, frantic, unchewing wolfing-down of mine was exactly the way Richard Parker ate."

Chapter 92: "... strength and comfort seemed to be physically pouring into my system through my eyes."

Chapter 92: "I felt even my soul had been corroded by salt"

In the face of such beautiful phrasing, the whole overt religious mentions are coarse, unnecessary and I felt detracted from the story. I even thought in the early part of the book that he was kind of cynical about organised religion, viewing it as a competition between who had the better story. But maybe that was the point? That organised religion gets in the way of communing with G-d?

The humour was pretty good too and I guess important in such a sad story:

Chapter 3: "The porters... were... friendly in an ill-tempered way"

Chapter 34: "the paperwork involved in trading a shrew weighs more than an elephant, that the paperwork involved in trading an elephant weighs more than a whale, and that you must never try to trade a whale, never."

Chapter ??: "The only reason I didn't stand up and beat it [the hyena] off the lifeboat with a stick was lack of strength and a stick..."

Chapter 77: "I was at the mercy of turtle meat for smiles"

The part where he is waiting at the zoo for Mr Kumar and meets the other Mr Kumar is really very funny and extremely cleverly written, so you don't know throughout the entire exchange which one is speaking.

This is the sort of story that once you reach the end makes you want to go back to the beginning and read it again with different eyes. Magnificent choice.

Currently Reading . . .

We are now reading Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, selected by Erin.

Wikipedia describes it as 'a factual adventure novel'.
Fantastic Fiction says: Life of Pi is a tale of disaster at sea. Both a boys' own adventure (for grown-ups) and a meditation on faith and the value of religious metaphor, it was one of the most extraordinary and original novels of 2002.

Hmmm. Get reading folks, because this one looks to be interesting!!

NOTE: Meeting is Wednesday 31 March, owing to Easter.

Interpreter of Maladies - Hayley's thoughts

I managed to pick up a copy of the book from the library, and immediately from reading the first line of the blurb on the back of the book, I was intrigued.

'Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant stories tell the lives of Indians in exile, of people navigating between the strict traditions they've inherited and the baffling New World they must encounter every day.'

I have seen Indian friends of mine go through similar types of situations, and so I was looking forward to seeing how Lahiri would portray this in her stories. However, I shouldn't read a book with preconceived expectations, as it always seems to let me down. These short stories were easy to read and entertaining, but for me, they didn't always capture the emotion that I was expecting. I could not connect to many of the characters, and I think that this is partly due to the way Lahiri portrayed them. Her writing style is almost distant, as though she is observing these people from afar. As a result, I found that the characters seemed to lack personality and I found myself feeling emotionally detached from them. I am not sure if this was somewhat intentional, as a means of highlighting their isolation. I have my doubts.

As for being stories of Indians in exile, in some cases I thought that the stories could have applied to almost anyone (A Temporary Matter, Sexy and This Blessed House, for example). Just change the name, and you could equally imagine very similar situations taking place almost anywhere in the world. There are cultural differences in the way people cope with being away from their own country, and Lahiri didn't always captured this in her stories.

For me, the best story was 'Mrs Sen's'. I could really image how isolated Mrs Sen must have felt, by not having her support network, and the comforts of home around her. There is also a difference in how people cope with living away from home, depending on whether they chose to leave, or were more or less forced to move away. In my experience, my female Indian friends who moved to another country to be with their husbands seem to have the most difficulty adjusting. When you chose to move to a new place, you mentally and emotionally prepare yourself for the experience and you are usually willing to invest the energy to make it work. The same does not always apply to those who are displaced for other reasons (which includes for a partner and employment reasons).

After reading the book, it did surprise me that it was awarded the Pulitzer prize. Although nicely written, I think that there are other similar types of books that are better at depicting the lives of outsiders. I was perusing the reviews on Amazon, many of which seem to suggest that Lahiri had hit on a fashionable topic - Indians living in the USA. The skeptic in me would tend to agree.