Life of Pi

[Bong Lover]

sapphi_snake said:

Bong Lover said:

The stories are parallell explainations. Two different possible stories for what have happened. The book doesn't point to either one being true or false. Pi himself goes out of his way to present the 'realistic' story as an alternative that is easier for the interegators to accept.

The point of the book is not to decide which story is true and which one is not really. Neither is it a defence for religious delusion as someone else says in this thread. The point of the book is basically what thew author says, if you look for the realistic and 'true' in everything you miss the better story.

I think anyone can agree that the story about the animals is more compelling than the grim and realistic account of the mad chef and the wild supressed nature of Pi. So when the author says that the book is a story that will make you want to believe in God, this is what he alludes to. You want the story of the tiger to be true, because it is a much better story. Applying this to other aspects of life the message of the book basically says that if you only focusing on 'facts', 'scientific explanantion' and such presise explanations of things you will miss the better story.

I think the book is great, and accomplishes it's goal in wanting you to believe the story of Richard Parker.

But the book is a defence of religious dellusion. As you yourself stated it makes you want to believe the false story (it's obvious that the first story is false), because it sounds better. This in itself is promoting delusion. You use words like "realistic" and "true" as if they were some dirty words.  The only story that matters is the true one, not the made-up one (which is made up by someone, it doesn't exist otherwise, and anyone can come up with an outrageous story).

  The author also (unwillingly) presents the dangers of such delusions: the ability to commit an attrocicty, without having to suffer any consiquences for it.

No, the book is a story about seeing past a strict realistic explanation. It's about looking for the more fantastic story.

Obviously, for people who subscribe to a Ayn Rand like conviction that reality can not be subjective and that "A is A" as she puts it will reject this view. For those who do they do indeed often miss the better story.

So, I think it's unfair to call it a defence of religious delusion. Pavel converts to and practises all three world religions, and so the book is more a defense for the concept of looking for alternative explanations. It's basically a defense of approaching reality with a creative outlook rather than a stricktly mechanic outlook. The reason why religion is even a part of this book the way I see it is because it is a universal frame for alternative explanations. It is used as the model for creating fantastic stories. And that is what the author defends. The ability of the human mind to be creative and look for different and fantastic stories or explanations.