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Sep. 2nd, 2005 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
leia131I know no one but me cares, but I care A LOT so here's a follow up to my entry of like an hour ago.
(I edited this down, but I didn't change any of the words)
Ron Carlson:
Pi is afraid a lot, and he deals with it in special ways throughout the book. I'm thinking about the second story and the interrogation, as he recounts it, and the counterbalance -- let me pose a statement or question to you. As I read the book, I understood there was something else going on underneath beside this transcendental level, and then when he tells the second story, I understood that the first story may have been his way of dealing with the world, that it may have been his -- this isn't the right word – but translation of the events. Am I --
Yann Martel:
That's one possible reading. I would argue that would be the rational reading, that we
create stories to accept reality or to disguise reality. The more transcendental reading would be, no, that the first element, the first story took place with the animals. And what happened is that when Pi was interro -- you know, someone who has suffered wants his suffering to be accepted. And if your suffering is not accepted, that's galling. It's deeply hurtful. So the interrogators are skeptics. This is a novel about faith meeting skepticism. Now, the interrogators are skeptical. And so what Pi does is he creates a
second more flat -- flatter story to appease the interrogators.
Ron Carlson:
I get it.
Yann Martel:
So in that case the animals are replaced by human beings because the interrogators are skeptical. So he is just trying to satisfy them.
Ron Carlson:
So it's very provocative for the readers, because you have people coming to you with both the rational and this other side, I'm not going to say irrational. So Pi –
Yann Martel:
I generally notice that how people read this book will often reflect how they look upon their lives, that people who are more able to make leaps of faith will believe the first story. Those who are not -- I'm not going to say less able – but who just have a different bent of mind will believe the second story.
Ron Carlson:
I see.
Yann Martel:
To my mind reality is a co-creation. Of course, you can't deny reality, but it is something that you create with many tools, one of which starts with our sense impressions, our eyes, our ears, our noses, but also our imagination. So this novel is also just a defense of the imagination.
HA! I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE! THE AUTHOR HIMSELF SAYS YOU CAN READ IT EITHER WAY! I AM JUST MORE ABLE TO MAKE LEAPS OF FAITH! GO ME!
(I edited this down, but I didn't change any of the words)
Ron Carlson:
Pi is afraid a lot, and he deals with it in special ways throughout the book. I'm thinking about the second story and the interrogation, as he recounts it, and the counterbalance -- let me pose a statement or question to you. As I read the book, I understood there was something else going on underneath beside this transcendental level, and then when he tells the second story, I understood that the first story may have been his way of dealing with the world, that it may have been his -- this isn't the right word – but translation of the events. Am I --
Yann Martel:
That's one possible reading. I would argue that would be the rational reading, that we
create stories to accept reality or to disguise reality. The more transcendental reading would be, no, that the first element, the first story took place with the animals. And what happened is that when Pi was interro -- you know, someone who has suffered wants his suffering to be accepted. And if your suffering is not accepted, that's galling. It's deeply hurtful. So the interrogators are skeptics. This is a novel about faith meeting skepticism. Now, the interrogators are skeptical. And so what Pi does is he creates a
second more flat -- flatter story to appease the interrogators.
Ron Carlson:
I get it.
Yann Martel:
So in that case the animals are replaced by human beings because the interrogators are skeptical. So he is just trying to satisfy them.
Ron Carlson:
So it's very provocative for the readers, because you have people coming to you with both the rational and this other side, I'm not going to say irrational. So Pi –
Yann Martel:
I generally notice that how people read this book will often reflect how they look upon their lives, that people who are more able to make leaps of faith will believe the first story. Those who are not -- I'm not going to say less able – but who just have a different bent of mind will believe the second story.
Ron Carlson:
I see.
Yann Martel:
To my mind reality is a co-creation. Of course, you can't deny reality, but it is something that you create with many tools, one of which starts with our sense impressions, our eyes, our ears, our noses, but also our imagination. So this novel is also just a defense of the imagination.
HA! I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE! THE AUTHOR HIMSELF SAYS YOU CAN READ IT EITHER WAY! I AM JUST MORE ABLE TO MAKE LEAPS OF FAITH! GO ME!
