Saturday, September 13, 2014

Can you please answer my question from "Life of Pi"?"The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding...

In the book, you have two versions of the story:  the one with animals, and the one without. So the main question is, which one was real, or were they both real, and why?  If you tie this concept to the quote above, the people version of the story could be considered as the world "just the way it is."  That is the more logical, more realistic scenario.  But what an awful, depressing, morbid, violent story about the nature of mankind!  So, take the story as how Pi understands it.  Isn't it much more managable to add his understanding of animals to the story, and use that to help him to deal with the harsh reality of what really happened?  In order to understand the ferocity of his survival tale, he brought something to it-his love for and understanding of animals.  And in the end, that made it a better story too.  The animal story is Pi's story; it is his version of life, it is how he understands what happened to him.  And, just as the two Japanese interrogators at the end state, the animal version makes a much better story.

I also provided links below to further discussion of theme and an analysis of the book itself; those should be useful too.

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