Now to the life of Pi and just like this mixed up book I too am mixed up about it.
I could not understand as I began it why we needed a " present day" nor why we needed a dialogue from the Author pomposity or what. The first 90 odd pages were drivel mainly although I did love the way his name Piscine became Pi that was a magic bit. In this section I could not grasp why some chapters were in italics and some in normal print. that is until page 91 when he talked in italics about "my daughter" only then did I realise the italics were in the present.
I found the guts of the story about the emigration, the ship sinking, and the subsequent dialogue about the boat Richard Parker, the tiger really good in fact enchanting in the way of Cinderella to a child. The plot at this point ways very clever although I think the bit about the meerkats on trees made out of gelatinous glue gave me the impression he was hallucinating.
The book was spoiled for me therefore by the questioning of the salvors and the revelation that Pi could but another view of the occurrences not nearly so beguiling.
Was it about God no but I loved the thought that one could be a follower of all the religions that brings me to the Indian Pakistani folk I have met in my career that shrug their shoulders with a "maybe".
This is reinforced as we prepare for friends tonight who are about to visit Japan so I have been re-reading my notes on that lovely place where 90% of the population are Shinto's and 90% are Bhuddists in other words cover my back with both. Neither of these are about a GOD but a belief in a trait and oneself.
Finally though the questions for book clubs ended the pomposity of the beginning " how does the voyage compare with Noah and the Ark" not at all Noah loaded the ark to save TWO of each creature to maintain their existence"
What is the effect of giving such a precise structure of exactly 100 chapters. How does that contrast with Pi's name an irrational and infinite number? Why should an author not play with numbers and have 100 chapters. The divisions of the chapter did not follow logically anyway, and what is irrational about the mathematical formula pi, it is what it is an infinite number that when used can give the area, ciricumference, of circles cones etc. Similarly why is the speed of light what it is .......well it is isn't it.
Back to the 100 chapters. Had the printers wished by increasing font size minutely they COULD have made the book have 400 pages exactly or shortened it to 314 like a Pi number starts instead of the actual 319 pages of the book itself.
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ReplyDeleteYou asked how I found pi, answer: divide the circumference of a circle by its diameter!
ReplyDeleteJoking aside I got the book as a free download at Christmas from Apple. I was sceptical but at work one day I wanted something to read over lunch so thought I'd give it a go. I was hooked fairly quickly, it was an easy and exciting read (the film is good too).
My take on it is that it is about how someone in extreme circumstances can make all sorts of stuff up. Pi was a boy when two of the most stressful things happened to him; he was forced out of his home and then he was shipwrecked! Ignoring all the religious mumbojumbo I believe that the story is an analysis of the psychological impact on the boy of these two events.
His close affinity with the animals was, imho, a way his young mind viewed the stressful world and acted as a salve. The zebra, his mother, who protected and shielded him fell to both her own frailty and the viciousness of Peter Parker/the tiger/the chef. He justified what the chef did to her by viewing it as purely what would happen in the wild to those animals and then continued that viewpoint as a way of keeping himself safe from the chef as time went on. The meerkats I can only presume shows an episode of delirium brought about by dehydration, lack of food and rest. The island they were on may have been a refuge in his head or perhaps a reference to the great rubbish patches that supposedly float over the Pacific or a real island which is uninhabited and forces him to take to sea again to seek an inhabited location. His alternate story is, imho, the truth but I think he feels safe hiding from the facts behind his fantasy story and that is why he believes that is what actually happened to him.
As Pi (Jan Martel) says it is up to you to decide which version you believe or for you to tread the middle ground between both versions or come up with your own solution.
As an aside an irrational number is a mathematical term relating to whether or not a number can be represented by a ratio of real numbers (in other words if there is an infinite number of digits after the decimal point and no set of these ever repeats the number is irrational) thus pi is irrational as is e and root(2) but 1/4 (not an infinite number of digits after the decimal) or 1/3 (a set of digits repeat after the decimal (3 repeats infinitely in a group of 1 as 0.33333...)) are not.
As a further aside the speed of light is not just the speed of light, it can be slowed down! In fact some scientists recently published a paper about this (this week or the week before I think) but it is a phenomenon that has been known about for hundreds of years, the speed of light is dependent on the refractive index of the material it travels through, it's why we get refraction in the first place!
Edited to correct stupid iPhone autocorrect mess ups!
My brain hurts now, mind you it is 00.20! I think I need to read the book ....
ReplyDeleteI think you should go to bed first! But yes, you should it is a nice read and quite A quick easy read too.
DeleteYes it's a"nice" read that was also a challenge I like Jon's interpretation and think it's a plausible explanation of the books content/story but I doubt that I would have chosen it to read.
DeleteSimilarly the fascinating forensics would not have been my delight were I not to have had you make me these challenges. Hope you don't all talk to me in the riddles of Pi. Love dad