Our book club met today. For the first time. It was rather fun.We had loads of cheese and bread and crackers and wine and drinks and chips and salsa and desserty num nums galore.
And the banter we had...we practically talked ourselves into a meaningful discussion. Almost.
The book I felt was truly one of its kind. It was prolly a good choice for being the first in line. It elicited a good amount of discussion and among us there were those who hadn't read the book - providing the rest with the chance to relive the story(s).
Several topics that the book covers were brought up: the various religions, faith, natural progression, zoomorphism, anthromorphism and humanism. Furthermore, it was a book that showed what kind of an ideology one chooses to embrace, how much of a role faith has to play in your life - given the choice.
It was simulatenously enlightening and scary noticing the differences in the way people accept the casualties in the book.
Mostly everyone logically accepted the 'humans' story as being true. And to that end they tried to see what implication it had on the character(s).
A very realist approach to the whole situation was adopted. The animalistic characteristics of the humans were played upon - rather than agree to be part of the better story, many in the group chose to think that the book seemed to be a commentary on the tendency of humans to degenerate to the point where the distinction between animal and human becomes faint, almost unrecognizable. Delusion was attributed to the main character. The primary focus became what we can backslide into given the right motivation. So thar went the narrative. It slid from a story of utter faith to the a story of utter depravity.
Surprisingly no-one else was disturbed by that.
It is my belief that Yann Martel is a brilliantly sly writer. For he not only proposes to draw an analogy between a lot of the storylines in the first, second and third part of the book, and to the extent that he goes as far as creating a mythical author's note. So for all purposes the story is real, or as real as we want to make it. It can be a story meant for delving deeper into human psyche/nature or it can be a story proposing a simple choice in the story-telling. Whether we try to reconcile the nuances and apply them or whether we skip over them altogether, is entirely upto us - and therein lies his subtle ingenuity.
For if you choose the first: essentially you side with the humanist and believe in the inherent problems with the race for survival within us and accept them, making the second ('humans') a reasonable, more acceptable story - note: acceptable in terms of logic.
But if you choose the other - you choose to believe in the natural tendencies of animals to react to their surroundings and the triumph of a little boy over a naturally superior animal under highly unusual circumstances.
What disturbs me is that we'd rather believe in the degenerate tendencies of humans for the sake of reason than a slightly implausible story about a boy and 450lb Bengal tiger in a life-boat.
The second story is the one that requires the leap of faith. The first one is purely convenient for the lazy interpreter.
To make a choice between one fictional account and another is left to us and among us - almost all took the choice that left little to benefit from. Little to the imagination.
It increased no-one's faith in anything. It challenged no ideas, no pre-existing notions. We chose to believe in that which we already believe. The comfort of the usual with a tad bit more analysis thrown in. If anything, it reassures us of our vile tendencies and how we try to protect ourselves on a daily basis from that which is our own creation.
Thus, I felt differently from them...I felt very strongly that the story of Pi was not a story of the degenerate nature of survival tendencies - for these are fairly obvious to anyone reading the first part of the book. The natural order and yet chaotic manner of dominance of the animal kingdom (even/esp. in captivity) is constantly asserted.
To me the story spoke of only the better choice - and that this choice was left up to us - and I chose the story with the animals. For it required faith to believe in 16-year old Pi and his abilities as a trainer. It required faith to believe that the story-teller is not weaving an impossible tale of conquer over an obviously superior predator on an ocean filled with greater dangers. It required faith to believe that a tale of companionship between a Tiger and a boy is not utterly impossible. It required faith to believe that Pi came out of this unbelievably traumatic situation unscarred by it at all to believe in...nay...love God in all his forms still.
It required faith in the story originale.
I think it is utterly useless if the book were used only as a companion to the normal understanding we have of humans anyway. So what? I know that we have horrible tendencies. But to choose that over the story with the better message, the story that required active invocation of faith by the reader - that I think is truly worth thinking over.
It is quite sad what a maddeningly scientific mind can do to a well-feeling human being.
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