Life of (Ne)Pi

[Anonymous]

So i just watched Life of Pi for the first time. I learned something I figured had been discussed here but I couldn’t find anything devoted to it. This has movie/book spoilers so you probably wouldn’t want to read past here. It either won’t make sense or could ruin it. Either way, not my fault.

***spoilers***

So anyways those who have seen/read Life of Pi you learn at the end that there are 2 stories that could have happened. There’s the one with the animals that is mystical and fantastic that the book focuses on, and the one explained at the end which is the same story only with people substituted for the animals and no mention of the tiger.

I mainly want to deal with these dueling stories at the end and a minor epiphany I think I had.

The moral to me was basically “does it really matter which story actually happened?”. This hit me as a metaphor for all scripture and for the BoM in particular. There are a lot of fantastical things in the scriptures that may or may not have happened as they are written. We can look at them in the same way we look at the end of the story here. There is the story we’ve been given with all of it’s morals and lessons and teachings, and perhaps there is an underlying story that is more concrete that ultimately teaches the same lessons but in a way that may not be as easy to understand or as exciting.

So which story is more true? The fantastical story or the more mundane one that may underlie it? Is it worth worrying about the specifics of what actually happened when the morals and lessons are handed down intact? Would it help or hurt our faith in those lessons to know? And ultimately would we even be better people for knowing exactly what happened?

Mind=blown.

I’m going to read the book now.

[Anonymous]

wuwei wrote:

So anyways those who have seen/read Life of Pi you learn at the end that there are 2 stories that could have happened. There’s the one with the animals that is mystical and fantastic that the book focuses on, and the one explained at the end which is the same story only with people substituted for the animals and no mention of the tiger.

I mainly want to deal with these dueling stories at the end and a minor epiphany I think I had.

The moral to me was basically “does it really matter which story actually happened?”. This hit me as a metaphor for all scripture and for the BoM in particular. There are a lot of fantastical things in the scriptures that may or may not have happened as they are written. We can look at them in the same way we look at the end of the story here. There is the story we’ve been given with all of it’s morals and lessons and teachings, and perhaps there is an underlying story that is more concrete that ultimately teaches the same lessons but in a way that may not be as easy to understand or as exciting.

It’s a very good comparison, I’d thought the same after watching it.

Quote:

So which story is more true? The fantastical story or the more mundane one that may underlie it? Is it worth worrying about the specifics of what actually happened when the morals and lessons are handed down intact? Would it help or hurt our faith in those lessons to know? And ultimately would we even be better people for knowing exactly what happened?

Mind=blown.

I’m going to read the book now.

I’m going round in circles to be honest.

I ‘believed’ the first story while watching, right up to the floating meerkat island scene. At that point I heard someone mutter ‘this is ridiculous.’ I agreed. That was when I stopped believing and instead dismissed it as sci-fi. I know it wasn’t a ‘factual’ story, but I lost confidence that it ‘could have been.’

So when he then told the other story it made me think ‘ahah, we’ve just seen his psychological coping mechanism for the trauma of what really happened.’

But then… I still consider it a story about over-coming the dangers of a tiger. That’s how it lives in my mind. It becomes far more of a victory and a celebration of his achievement in the first version. I prefer the first version. But I know it could never have been real.

I’ve not read the book in full, but I’ve flicked through and the author gives the second version a lot more detail and space. I think the film-makers gave a lot more weight to the first and didn’t let you ‘see it.’ As a result the first was always going to be more vivid in the film version. I guess it makes better cinema.

Anyway… I’m rambling.

Where do I net out. I realise that I’m often prepared to believe things that appear ridiculous. The island scene was similar to my ‘seer stone/first vision account/Mitchill & Harris’ moments. It was the moment I realised the foundational stories were not fantastic but fantastical. Ridiculous. And I stopped believing it really happened as documented.

And yet… After a while… I still prefer the first version. Of both Pi and (Ne)pi… I don’t consider Nephi’s to be a factually accurate story… But I prefer it to the realism in version 2 which implies that, like Pi, version 1 was a complete fabrication (either concious or sub-concious).

As the older version of Pi says at the end “and so it goes with God.” An atheist might consider it a sophisticated dig at the deluded theist. I suppose I take it as a reminder that I embrace things despite their apparent ridiculousness. Not because I’m convinced of their historical merit, but because they’re useful and applicable to my life in that form. The ‘words work’ as I keep reminding myself.

[Anonymous]

A couple of interesting quotes from the author:

Quote:

I chose Pi as my main character’s nickname because Pi, the number used so often in mathematics and engineering, is an irrational number; that is, a number that goes on forever without any discernable pattern. It stuck me that a number used to come to a rational, scientific understanding of things should be called “irrational.” I thought religion is like that, too: It’s something “irrational” that helps make sense of things.

And:

Quote:

Q. What a thought-provoking story! My question is which story was in your mind the actual one? Was it his faith in God which allowed him to experience the “animal” version and to protect him from the gruesome reality? Was that the wonder of the story that you intended? I have difficulty even asking because I firmly believe that a story is determined somewhere in the intersection of reader and text. I am curious though, what your intended interpretation was. — Sarah

A. Dear Sarah, I leave it to the reader to choose which is the better story. It can go both ways. Pi survived with Richard Parker and then, confronted with the skepticism of the Japanese, and wanting his suffering to be validated, to be accepted, he creates another story, the story without animals. That’s one reading. Or Pi and his mother and the French cook and a Taiwanese sailor survive, it turns into a butchery and Pi invents the story with animals presumably to pass the time and to make acceptable the unacceptable, that is, the murder of his mother by the Frenchman and Pi’s killing of the Frenchman. Both stories are offered, one is on the outer edges of the barely believable, the other is nearly unbearable in its violence, neither explains the sinking of the ship, in both Pi suffers and loses his family, in both he is the only human survivor to reach the coast of Mexico. The investigators must choose and the reader must choose. When the investigators choose the story with animals, Pi answers “And so it goes with God.” In other words, Pi makes a parallel between the two stories and religion. His argument (and mine) is that a vision of life that has a transcendental element is better than one that is purely secular and materialist. A story with God (“God” defined in the broadest sense) is the better story, I argue, just as I think the story with animals is the better story. But you choose.

Quote:

Q. Your book is the most artfully, skillfully book I have ever read. However, am I reading too much into the story? I woke up at 3 a.m. this morning, having finished it yesterday, and began worrying about the horrible-surreal situation the boy found himself in with his mother and two crewmen — and seeing the horrible cannibalism they were forced into and all the symbolism. I kept wondering what the island and its inhabitants represented. Is it another manifestation of being alone on an island, coping the only way they could figure to? And what about the electrical current at night? I appreciate your time, and I hope you keep writing, and I look forward to more books. — Ruth

A. Dear Ruth, The island, ah, the island. The most frequently asked question: What does the island mean? It means what you choose to see in it. My narrative strategy in writting this book was to write a story that was progressively harder to believe. Will you believe that a boy could survive with a tiger? Yes? Good. Will you believe that the boy could go blind, the tiger could go blind and they could meet another blind man in another lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific? Yes? Great. Now will you believe in this crazy carnivorous island? I figure most readers will not believe it. Their suspension of disbelief will break down and readers will start making excuses for Pi: He’s starving and hallucinating. In other words, reason will kick in. That’s fine with me. But I hope that when readers get to Part Three of the novel and read the other story, the one without animals, that their revulsion at that story will be such that they, like the investigators, will choose the first story as the BETTER story. But I wanted that better story to have something unbelievable about it. I wanted it to get beyond the reasonable and the plausible. BECAUSE every great thing in life — be it religion, love, any ideal — has an element of the unreasonable to it. We are not computers. We need the pull of the unreasonable to get us through life. The island represents that unreasonable element in the first story.

And

Quote:

Q. I am curious to know your inspiration for the use of Pi seeking spiritual guidance from various religions. Is this something you are struggling with as well? — Michele

A. Dear Michele, I would guess that every book is to some extent the intellectual autobiography of its author. Pi is interested in religions: so am I. Pi is open to all faiths: so am I. Pi is comfortable in different Godhouses: so am I. There is a sociocultural component to religions. Just as there are different ways of feeding the body, there are different ways of feeding the soul. Each religion is one group of people’s attempt to understand ultimate reality. I think in each one there is a portion of truth and a portion of error. So I see in all great religions the same frame of being, only seen from a different perspective

http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=124838

[Anonymous]

That’s not the only thing Pi and Nephi share in common. For another, there was a big plagiarism row over Life of Pi.

Quote:

Yann Martel, the Canadian author and winner of this year’s Booker prize has become entangled in a row over the plagiarism of fictional ideas after freely admitting the inspiration for his prize-winning novel came from another writer’s work. In the Life of Pi, Martel, 39, tells the story of a shipwrecked Indian teenager who ends up in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger after the ship taking him and his family to Canada sinks. It is this similarity to a story by one of Brazil’s most respected authors, Moacyr Scliar, which has started the row over how much of the idea Martel “borrowed” from Scliar’s Max and the Cats, in which a teenage Jewish boy is adrift in a boat with a panther after a shipwreck. Although Martel readily credits the story by Scliar, a doctor, as the inspiration for his novel, he says he only read a review of the book. “I saw a premise that I liked and I told my own story with it,” Martel said on Wednesday from Berlin, where he is teaching a five-month university course on animals in literature. “I don’t feel I’ve done something dishonest.”

Quote:

Martel has said he must have been confused as to where he read the review, and who wrote it, and he caused more controversy in Brazil when he said: “I didn’t really want to read it. Why put up with the gall? Why put up with a brilliant premise ruined by a lesser writer?” Scliar said he was hurt not only by Martel’s comments about his work but because he felt Brazilian culture was being slighted.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/08/bookerprize2002.awardsandprizes

There’s even a row about the film music:

http://hindustantimes.com/Entertainment/hollywood/Life-of-Pi-s-lullaby-in-a-plagiarism-row/Article1-989095.aspx

[Anonymous]

It makes a big difference if the story is real or not. If you are just trying to teach a concept or a moral lesson then sure you can use fictional characters and situations to relay a message. Asops fabels does just that, but we do not think animals can actually speak. The parables of Jesus taught lessons but no one thinks those were actual events. But If you are using fictional stories as actual events as a means to indoctrinate and force individuals into a certain behavior model that is very wrong. The story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac is used all the time in the church as a literal story to convince you of the importance of obedience above all else. If Abraham was willing to literally kill his son then I better do whatever my leaders say. That is why it is important to separate truth from fiction

[Anonymous]

mackay11 wrote:

We need the pull of the unreasonable to get us through life.

Thanks for this guys. I am intrigued! :thumbup:

[Anonymous]

In our home the debate comes down to validity vs. utility. Especially with scriptures like BOM – if it isn’t valid is it useful. For some people it’s fine, but for others it’s not. Kind of like if google maps really wasn’t accurate. You are driving to a house but surprise there was no house there. If the BOM events didn’t occur, then all the promises it’s the back bone, too may be totally unreliable.

I think that is the dividing line between the two opinions cannot be fixed. The individual reader gets to make their choice. As an active member it’s hard to claim your use in utility but state you’re not certain about the validity – at least in the public discourse. That’s a card you have to keep close to your heart.

[Anonymous]

Cadence wrote:

but we do not think animals can actually speak.

Tell that to Balaam.

I agree that using fiction as fact and trying to form a religion around it isn’t always the best (Scientology?).

Abraham has always been an interesting story and one that has caused me big problems. But once again. Do I believe it happened that way? I don’t know… But the idea of the pain that Abraham went through in that story that he was going to have to sacrifice his only son that he’d waited forever to even have, and Isaac’s submission to his will, allows me to relate to the emotions that God and Jesus must have felt at the crucifixion. In this case Abraham doing what must be done, and Isaac submitting to his will, mirror God and Jesus so well. I know it’s taught as a lesson in obedience but for me it’s a window into the character of the beings that I worship. In this case by moving an aspect of the story of the crucifixion to a more easily understood, completely earthly setting, I understand the fantastic story of Jesus’ resurrection and why God would allow His son to be killed and how much faith in His father that Jesus himself had.

Did it happen? Maybe…but If a leader told me it meant I needed to obey them I’d just tell them they weren’t God….

I’ll admit it’s a slippery slope since I accepted not all scripture can be read literally. Discerning where historicity ends is impossible. That’s the main question I’ve been pondering though. Would it bring me closer to God knowing what actually happened or are the stories the way they are because they better inspire us?

SamBee wrote:

That’s not the only thing Pi and Nephi share in common. For another, there was a big plagiarism row over Life of Pi…

I read about this but didn’t want my original post to go longer. I found it very interesting because the way the author explained that he was inspired by the premise but didn’t copy the book wholesale kind of mirrors what I’ve accepted about Joseph Smith. I don’t doubt he’d heard the theories of Spalding or A View of the Hebrews, but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t trigger a greater inspiration in him that led to more revealed truth. Obviously there was something deeper in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith than the earlier works that connected with people. Just as there’s something deeper about Life of Pi over the other work. I’m not saying the Life of Pi is scripture or really intending to compare it to the Book of Mormon at all. Just that I think people can be legitimately inspired by someone else’s work and build off of it in a way that takes it to an entirely new level not envisioned by the original creator. Although Martel being cocky and putting down the original authors wasn’t helpful…. I’ll let others draw the comparisons there…

mackay11 wrote:

A couple of interesting quotes from the author:

….

Quote:

Q. I am curious to know your inspiration for the use of Pi seeking spiritual guidance from various religions. Is this something you are struggling with as well? — Michele

A. Dear Michele, I would guess that every book is to some extent the intellectual autobiography of its author. Pi is interested in religions: so am I. Pi is open to all faiths: so am I. Pi is comfortable in different Godhouses: so am I. There is a sociocultural component to religions. Just as there are different ways of feeding the body, there are different ways of feeding the soul. Each religion is one group of people’s attempt to understand ultimate reality. I think in each one there is a portion of truth and a portion of error. So I see in all great religions the same frame of being, only seen from a different perspective

I especially liked this part. It represents a lot of how I feel about world religions. I really like that the author didn’t say which story happened. We are left to reflect on it ourselves and take what we can. It’s sad for me that the second story is more believable. But it’s a horrible story. It doesn’t reflect my views of man or his potential. I want to believe the story with the animals happened.

The part that caught me was the meerkat island as well. That’s where it lost me. Although I’ve read that in the book when he turns up in mexico there are meerkat skeletons in the boat with him.

Before I’d read that I thought it was a sad comment on me that the island was what sold me that the second story was true and the island represented a state of acceptance of his fate that brought relief. My wife thought it represented how God works miracles in our lives. I love how good stories can bring different conclusions about the same things.

Since then I’ve reevaluated and I’m not sure which story is true. I don’t think we can know and I’m left with “which story do I want to be true?” which is what the author intended.

mom3 wrote:

I think that is the dividing line between the two opinions cannot be fixed. The individual reader gets to make their choice. As an active member it’s hard to claim your use in utility but state you’re not certain about the validity – at least in the public discourse. That’s a card you have to keep close to your heart.

Indeed.

[Anonymous]

There are two reasons why animals often turn up in fantastic literature: firstly, they are seen to embody concepts that are culture-wide (lion = royalty and power, owl = wisdom, snake = viciousness and cunning, donkey = tough work, clumsiness and stubborn) and secondly like some science fiction, their otherness paradoxically allows us to deal frankly with matters closer to home by our detachment from them.

Martel was thoroughly rude to the late Scilar, but to his credit, the latter praised Martel’s ability, and made peace with him. In Scilar’s story, the boy was a Jew and the panther is supposed to represent Nazism. But would Martel have admitted plagiarism without pressure? The Book of Mormon is based partly on other works. Maybe not the whole thing, but if nothing else it quotes a lot of Isaiah.

[Anonymous]

Great topic, and one where I am completely comfortable taking whatever I want from a story and leaving the rest – choosing how I want to interpret it.

Where I am convinced of its allegorical, figurative or mythical nature (Jonah, Job, some of the more extreme narratives in the Book of Mormon, etc.), I don’t try to draw lessons from a literal interpretation – but in cases where I simply can’t be certain, I pick whatever interpretation gives me the most powerful message – and, in some cases, I pick multiple interpretations (one literal, one allegorical, one mythical, for example) and take multiple lessons from each one.

Some people can’t stand that approach, but it works for me.

[Anonymous]

SamBee wrote:

There are two reasons why animals often turn up in fantastic literature: firstly, they are seen to embody concepts that are culture-wide (lion = royalty and power, owl = wisdom, snake = viciousness and cunning, donkey = tough work, clumsiness and stubborn) and secondly like some science fiction, their otherness paradoxically allows us to deal frankly with matters closer to home by our detachment from them.

Martel was thoroughly rude to the late Scilar, but to his credit, the latter praised Martel’s ability, and made peace with him. In Scilar’s story, the boy was a Jew and the panther is supposed to represent Nazism. But would Martel have admitted plagiarism without pressure? The Book of Mormon is based partly on other works. Maybe not the whole thing, but if nothing else it quotes a lot of Isaiah.

After reading more about this it appears that Martel acknowledged Scilar for giving his book “the spark of life” or something like that in the author’s notes of Life of Pi. So from the beginning he acknowledged he got the premise from him. I just don’t think he took this as plagiarism. Others disagree. But like A View of the Hebrews and The Book of Mormon the two start with a premise but go very different places with only a few connections. For AVotH and the BoM, quoting Isaiah happens to be one of those commonalities. But Isaiah is full of allegory and symbolism that allows for very different conclusions to be reached anyways. And it uses lots of animal symbolism. Hmm….

As for animals as symbols as relates to this book, here’s my thoughts i guess,

If we read it that the second story were true then the Tiger becomes a symbol of our own animal nature and allows that wildness to be confronted in an exterior way that is more readily understood and easier to digest than the internal struggle of the mind. Watching a tiger be tamed is much easier to understand than the internal process of taming our own natural man.

So in that view the tiger was a construct that helped explain what happened to Pi.

Alternately, Pi was struggling with this nature after losing his family and being forced to survive and the tiger was indeed a blessing to him in that by learning how to deal with the tiger outwardly it taught him how to deal with and accept the tiger that was inside of him.

Either way it’s up to us to figure out what that story means. And something I’ve been pondering since my FC is that it’s up to us to figure out for ourselves what everything means. Each of us can have our own meaningful relationship with God. We can interpret scripture according to how God uses them to speak to us. We can use them to be better people. We can take the counsel of leaders for what they are and incorporate the parts that make us better and shrug off the tangential stuff.

[Anonymous]

I think the biggest thing I’ve learned in the last while is that it’s OK to disagree. I know this seems anathema to much of what is taught at church but I truly believe it. If there is a complete and universal understanding of everything, we probably won’t obtain it in this life. Mormonism points me in a good direction and has given me a personal relationship with God that other paths might approach in different ways. For me this is the best way I’ve found. And in that path I’ve wandered a few times. And I probably will wander more. But not all who wander are lost, right?

And within the framework of Mormonism I think we can each chart our own course largely. There are some aspects of specifically belonging to TCoJCoLdS that might impose limits on that. Such as wanting a TR. But I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that it is what it is. If I want it, I should do what I need to get it. If not, then don’t. If I feel the temple helps me, then I should follow the rules to be worthy of it. If I feel it’s not worth compromising my personal beliefs in order to go there, then I should just let it go.

mom3 wrote:

That’s a card you have to keep close to your heart.

This is truer than my original reply made it sound.

Ray actually quoted the Life of Pi back in 2009 this thread I found before starting this one: http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=954&p=10740

Old-Timer wrote:

A good friend of mine shared this quote:

Quote:

“There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think “Business as usual.” But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.

These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defense, not God’s, that the self-righteous should rush.“

from Life Of Pi by Yann Martel

I almost can’t comment on those two paragraphs because they are so strikingly true to me. I never felt closer to God on my mission than when I was volunteering at a soup kitchen or a food pantry. It was far more satisfying to show the disadvantaged and downtrodden that there was a god than to show the privileged that they had the wrong god.

It hurt me that we were told to focus on families with a husband and wife who would make good active members. I understand the logic, but too often I felt like the apostles trying to shoo the women away that just wanted to touch Jesus’ robe. I need to start volunteering again…

I think that’s what I’m missing at church. It’s been all about figuring out what’s right or wrong, true or not true, whether I should be offended or not lately. I should just be serving others, not parsing talks or arguing doctrine.

Sorry for the long post. Watching this movie really struck me and has set my mind on a journey far beyond what was actually in the film.

I’m sure some of you will disagree with everything I’ve written. But that’s OK.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

I should just be serving others, not parsing talks or arguing doctrine.

I talked with our HPGL after the lesson on Sunday and asked specifically if we could have someone in the group assigned to be our Service Opportunity Identification Leader (since I like the symbolism of the acronym “SOIL”). I know the ideal is to find ways to serve personally and/or anonymously, but it’s easier for a lot of people to serve as part of an organized group effort. He loved the idea and said he would talk with his wife (former RS Pres and wonderful lady) about it.

Have you thought about volunteering for something like that – then finding ways to get the members involved in the lives of people they normally wouldn’t serve? Just a thought.

[Anonymous]

I am the Service Opportunity Identifier in my ward. We didn’t use the same name, but that is exactly what I do. I’ve been doing it for 2 years and could do it the rest of my life. We have done some fantastic things, we’ve packed lunches for hungry kids, we’ve held community food drives, painted and remodeled rooms in the local homeless shelter, packed Easter baskets and Christmas packages for homeless families. It’s been wonderful. I think any Bishop would embrace the calling.

[Anonymous]

I just watched this movie and came back here to re-read the comments.

I guess my problem is if the animal story was intentional embellishment or not. I am perfectly ok with Pi having delusions, visions, and nervous breakdowns so that the animal story was his actual experience. I would also be ok if he was somewhat confused and remembered parts of both stories (the animal story and the murder and cannibalism one) as disjointed flashbacks. But the older Pi seemed to be able to put his narrative together so cleanly and with so many details and then when challenged he is also able to deliver a very clear alternate explanation of events.

And so it is for me with JS. I need to believe that his experiences (as mystical, visionary, and hard to describe as they may have been) were genuine. If someone confronted JS about the incredible nature of his first vision account and he suddenly gave an alternate account as to how he one day decided to start a new religion – and then he asked which was the better story… I’d be upset.

[Author]

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