The
Life of Pi in both film and novel offers a unique perspective it
enables its central character to both live scientifically and
mythologically. It reminds me of my own position both as being who
cannot imagine or perceive a non material existence and yet all my
experiences and observations lead to me to the wonder of a sense of
being that is non material. I like Derrida am both an atheist and
not an atheist.
Pi`s
favourite teacher at school is a biologist and atheist and clearly
advocates a scientific and material basis for reality. Pi knows that
it is science that teaches us how to survive in the world yet he
still has an overwhelming sense of what we could call mythology and
magic.. He acknowledges that science explains much of the world and
yet it can go only so far, Science is good at what it does but only
to a point. At that point usefulness ends and only mythology and
spirituality can then help us live fully.
The
two character Pi and Richard Thomas the tiger occupy the two sided of
the life boat and represent the duality or clash between science and
spirituality. In a very explicit way they form an allegory of pi`s
spiritual journey. In one half of the lifeboat is Richard Parker. A
pure and beautiful animal, and in the other half Pi, a boy who is so
religious that he takes on board three faiths at once.. The purpose
of the 227 day journey across the Pacific is the reconciliation of
the two halves that are found within Pi science and faith.
For
survival pi must be a scientist, an animal trainer, in some ways he
must become an animal himself to do what he has to do to survive.
This part of him is dominant while on the lifeboat. He notices each
day how he becomes more like Richard Parker at both the same time and
particularly in the worst times.. Pi tries to keep alive his sense of
spirituality and wonder at the lowest points and seeks the divine in
the world of nature.
There
is a complicated point of view seen in the text that illustrates
these themes. It begins with a first person narrative about a writer
having trouble writing his next novel. There is a coffee ship in
Pondicherry where the novelist meets an old man who says he knows a
story that will make the writer believe in a spiritual reality. The
man send the novelist to Canada to meet a Mr Patel whose story this
is. The them of meeting an old man, a psycho pomp comes straight out
of a spiritual and mythological genre. The man is lost, his
creativity is gone and the story is as old as the Fisher King
tradition.
From
this point on we expect a detached story in which the novelist tells
someone elses` story or a third persons account. Instead we can a
first person account by pi or as he called here Mr Patel. We
experience the shift of awareness as we move from the bland name
patel to the intimacy of Pi. In maths Pi is a constant essential for
calculation and yet we can never find its exact value. Perhaps
ideally suited for a metaphor or metonymy of the link between science
and mythology. Throughout the story the novelist breaks into Pi`s
account several times reminding us that he is there, mediating the
story to us. pi`s and Richard Parker's story end when they reach
Mexico. In Buddhism a metaphor of crossing a vast sea is often used
to illustrate the concept of reaching nirvana.
When
we read the book we are given the same test that the investigators
are given. Which story do you prefer? And why do we choose as we do?
Is it that we believe in spirituality and the divine in the same way
that we believe fiction because it makes a better story? And if so is
there anything wrong with that? I will leave the last word to Derrida
when he says 'The Animal That Therefore I Am'
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