Is yann martel still alive
Yann Martel: 'Life of Pi' a window into our beliefs
- Lifeboat scene pits solitude against loneliness
- In some ways%2C Pi and Richard Parker need each other
- Book requires thought%2C and leap of faith
The book Life of Pi came out in , and it got new life late last year when movie director Ang Lee released the film version.
At last week's Academy Awards, the movie won big with Oscars for best director, cinematography, original score and visual effects.
Here, author Yann Martel discusses the book that sold more than 2 million copies.
Let's talk about the genesis of the book.
That has many answers. A banal one is reading a book review of a Brazilian novel that had an interesting premise of someone being in a lifeboat with an owl.
Ten years later, I went to India. I went to India before and I was blown away by it, a stunning country. It's all of life in one place at one moment. So I went there because it's inexpensive for Westerners. So I go to this exotic place, settle in one spot and work on this novel.
So this novel didn't come alive; it just wasn't working.
And then I had nothing to do. I'm in India and I had nothing to do. Of course, I wasn't there as a tourist; I was there to work on something….
So what I finally did was open my eyes to what was in front of me. And India, being a tropical country, has a lot of animals, quite literally, animals in the street.
You know, dogs, stray dogs, pigs, cows, of course. You see elephants occasionally. You see monkeys. You see animals in a way you don't see in the West.
And also, I saw manifestations of religion. My background is very, very secular. Canada is a much more secular country than the United States, and Quebec, where I'm from, French Canada, is even more secular….
Among the educated middle class, religion is sort of replaced by art.
If you want to understand life, you don't pray to God, you consult with Mozart or Picasso or with Tolstoy or Voltaire. And that's how I grew up, and it's an exciting way to grow up, and imaginatively, it's very stimulating. And it does help make sense of life by comparing what other people have said about it.
So I grew up believing in art, and that's how I became a writer.
But in India, I notice for the first time religion. And about that time, I was around 33 years old, I started to dry up on the inside.
Yann martel religion in schools book: It does matter because each way of thinking reflects where the reader's coming from, whether they're more disposed to being rational beings or those who are more able to use reality as a platform from which to make leaps of faith. There's a radical choice between these two stories. But in India, I notice for the first time religion. It's a question of reaching some sort of accommodation with them, a sense of balance with them.
I had taken philosophy at university, which is a great way to make you reasonable. And at 33, I was tired of being reasonable.
I noticed two disparate things (in India), religion and animals. And I remembered that book review from years ago. And there was suddenly this alchemical moment where I suddenly imagined writing about a religious character.
I suddenly was interested in faith.
At one point in Pi's adventure, he speaks of the role of taking care of the tiger as saving his own life. Do I sense a little Buddhist thinking there, that when we're outwardly focused, that's when we find serenity. When we get rid of self?
Yeah, well, that's exactly right.
I think one of the most killing things for the soul is solitude, our aloneness. Solitude can be positive.
Yann martel religion in schools today Facebook Twitter Email. I happen to use a writer who is stalled because it suited my fictional purpose. All of these things Pi later experiences. You know, dogs, stray dogs, pigs, cows, of course.Aloneness is not.
When you're alone, you start to lose perspective on things. You think inwardly without something to take care of. I think that's the same thing single parents have. They can't just sit there and despair. They have to change the baby's diaper. They have to struggle, and as hard as it is, in some ways it's what keeps them going.
So in the story, yeah, in some sense, Richard Parker (the tiger), extraordinarily dangerous as he is, prevents (Pi) from sinking into despair.
It's something he has to take care of. He has many chances of getting rid of the tiger.
Yann martel religion in schools pictures Ten years later, I went to India. Ritual Observances 4. It's something he has to take care of. As a castaway estranged at sea, Pi struggles for life while faithfully grasping on to what remains of his morality.If he gets rid of him, then he's all alone. And where does that leave him?
It can be a metaphor for our selfish planet. We can't get rid of the people we don't like, and in a sense, nor do we want to. It's a question of reaching some sort of accommodation with them, a sense of balance with them.
In both the book and the movie, Pi tells two stories, one where he's on the lifeboat with animals, the other with humans, and in that one, the cook kills his mother and Pi kills the cook.
Yann martel religion in schools By balancing the primacy of Pi's survival needs with moral conscience and revealing the dire extent to which creatures will go when faced with extinction, Martel illuminates how miracles may be asserted from a religious-neutral perspective. Thus, taking a leap of faith and losing himself in a story of humans and living creatures may be to Pi most realized by regaining a consciousness that reunites with the eternal in gaining completion. While all beliefs face the test of experience and Pi finds common ground in the spirituality and miracles of religious pluralism, it is evident that Pi himself uses his rational intellect to take him as far as he can go. It may be asked, if you have an all-knowing God, how can God know limitation?We never find out which one is "real."
The same facts — a ship sinks, days later, a boy reached the coast of Mexico. Ultimately, he tells two stories. Do you want your suffering to be accepted, as everyone does? Or do you want someone who's laughing, saying, oh come on, don't be silly?
Pi ultimately tells two stories to satisfy these investigators who've come from Japan.
Yann martel biography Facing the horrific realities of survival, Pi's moral system is unbearably challenged as a castaway at sea. Their symbolic potential to me is infinite. Fifteen Minutes: Are you tired of people asking you shipwreck-related questions yet? The other one is a traditional theme you used to hear in high school, about man's inhumanity toward man.The investigators and therefore the readers are presented with a choice of what happened at sea. And neither can be proved. In both cases, the only witness is this one person. And there's no outward proof.
There's a radical choice between these two stories. You have to choose: One story's more fantastical in the sense that it's fairly rare to have a castaway with a tiger, with a wild animal.
The other one is a traditional theme you used to hear in high school, about man's inhumanity toward man. It's four castaways in a lifeboat and things get nasty.
And Pi asks, "Which is the better story?" And the investigator, the younger one says the story with animals is the better story. And Pi says, "And so it goes with God."
You only have a few minutes to live on Earth.
In the meantime, to believe there's some sort of transcendental reality, that we're not just the result of chemistry, that there might be some sort of plan out there, makes for a better life.
In terms of walking, you dance, in terms of living in black and white, it's full of color.
It does matter (which version of what happened to Pi you believe) in the sense that it reflects your style of living.
It does matter because each way of thinking reflects where the reader's coming from, whether they're more disposed to being rational beings or those who are more able to use reality as a platform from which to make leaps of faith.