Photo: Maarten Zeehandelaar
“So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way, which story do you prefer?”
The rational marvels of the mind of mankind, next to the world of imagination, hope and protection that mankind so direly needs – both incredible feats, having been put up on that impossible mountain.They remind me of a book that brought me, by all accounts a born infidel, closer to God.
The person who utters that line is named Pi. Pi has lost his entire family in an oceanic accident of Titanic proportions. As he speaks those words he has just recounted almost 300 pages of incredulous adventures, spawned by being stuck on a life boat with a hyena, a zebra, an orang-utan and a Bengal tiger. He tells the story to two Japanese journalists, and they contest it. They find it hard to believe and bring logic and realism to prove its non-factuality. At which point Pi puts forth the question that opens this PotW edition. He asks the men: “Which is the better story, the story with the animals or the story without the animals?” The Japanese journalists then concur that the story with the animals is far better than their own version of a lonely boy on a lifeboat hallucinating from hunger, thirst, heat and terrible grief over the loss of his family. At which point Pi says this: “Thank you. And so it is with God.”
PS The film-makers managed to miss this story-line, or they simply dismissed it. So you’ll have to read the book to become acquainted with it, which I recommend you do, if you haven’t already:
Yann Martel – ‘Life of Pi’, 2001. It is a marvelous piece of work, I can tell you that.
Text by: Peter-Jan Vermeij
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