What exactly is the point of Life Of Pi?

[even_sven]

@Chefguy

That’s too cryptic for me.

Let’s dig in. You know allegory and fable, right? Think about how the Velveteen Rabbit is a poignant story about a talking stuffed animal, but it is really about growing up. “Magical realism” does the same thing, but uses that technique to address complex, nuanced, adult themes.

In Life of Pi you have a story of tiger and a boy and a boat. That the “toy rabbit” level. You also have a larger story about survival (the “growing up” level). This story addresses a lot of themes: fear and uncertainty, embracing the primal and savage to survive, the dangers of solipsism, etc. I don’t think you are really intended to do a in-depth dissection here of what part of the story symbolizes what. It’s not really a one-to-one symbolic thing. It’s more of a dream-like wash of narrative, emotion, and symbolism that should, if the author did it right, feel very evocative and provoke you to meditate on these themes, often drawing your own personal insight from them.

Next comes the other literal story (lots of spoilers in box).

[spoiler]In the end, it is revealed that the tiger and boat story, which the viewer/reader has spent most of the time thinking was the main surface-level story, didn’t happen (or, if you like ambiguity, almost certainly didn’t happen). Instead, the real story of the shipwreck was a pretty brutal one where the boy saw his family die in horrible ways, and then had to resort to killing and cannibalism to survive.

All of the animals are a one-to-one representation of real people, but the storyteller is represented by both the tiger and the boy. The tiger is the primal, survival-oriented, fierce part of him that was needed to do the horrific things he had to endure, and the boy is the “thinking” part of himself, which is surprised and scared by this aspect of himself, but needs to come to terms with it if he is going to make it through. If you are feeling ambitious and spiritual, you can probably expand this line of thought to include the messy stuff we do with our bodies, and the purity of our souls.

So this leads us to the question- why did he tell this crazy far-fetched story about animals rather than telling the truth? It becomes clear the animal story is the story he tells himself to cope. It creates some distance between the horror of what happened, and lets him think about it in a way that he is emotionally able to handle without falling apart. The story with the animals helps him move on with his life and make sense of the world. And when you really think about it, that’s fine. What’s done is done, and there isn’t really any objective need to know the literal story anymore.

Which brings us to spirituality. Through the work, it’s left ambiguous which story is “true.” One is a literal truth, and one is the emotional truth that lives on with the boy- or as he puts it, it is the “better story.”

The implication here (at least, as I see it) is that it’s not useful to ask if spirituality is the literal truth. That’s not the point. It’s an emotional truth that helps us cope with the world and live our lives despite how messy they can get. It helps us organize our thoughts and stay whole emotionally. So, literal truth being irrelevant, believing in God is the “better story.” In a less cynical interpretation, you might say that “God” is all mixed up in whatever part of the spirit that allows us to fit our experiences into narrative, rather than living the un-contemplative lives of animals. This kind of storytelling is literally a part of the human spirit. [/spoiler]

Now, my one claim to fame is I travelled around India with the author’s higher school nemesis, so this may affect my views. I can enjoy Magical Realism at times, but most of the time I find it overused and poorly executed. I found Life of Pi to be a little late-night undergrad philosophy for my tastes. But the author did successfully use innovative but understandable storytelling techniques to say something coherent.

[Ponch8]

I learned that eating tiger feces isn’t totally revolting, but there just isn’t any point in doing it.

[Disheavel]

@even_sven

Let’s dig in. You know allegory and fable, right? Think about how the Velveteen Rabbit is a poignant story about a talking stuffed animal, but it is really about growing up. “Magical realism” does the same thing, but uses that technique to address complex, nuanced, adult themes.

In Life of Pi you have a story of tiger and a boy and a boat. That the “toy rabbit” level. You also have a larger story about survival (the “growing up” level). This story addresses a lot of themes: fear and uncertainty, embracing the primal and savage to survive, the dangers of solipsism, etc. I don’t think you are really intended to do a in-depth dissection here of what part of the story symbolizes what. It’s not really a one-to-one symbolic thing. It’s more of a dream-like wash of narrative, emotion, and symbolism that should, if the author did it right, feel very evocative and provoke you to meditate on these themes, often drawing your own personal insight from them.

Where can I subscribe to your newsletter? Hopefully no one needing to write a report stumbles upon your post as it would be too easy for them to flesh it out and have the whole paper done. So very well written synopsis!

[TreacherousCretin]

@even_sven

On the most basic level, it’s a fable. It’s an allegorical tale about living in a precarious world. It draws heavily on the “magical realism” literary genre, which tells fantastical but grounded folktale-like stories that evoke strong emotions while, underneath it all, telling a story about the real world.

On a larger level, it’s a story about how one man discovered that human need to use narrative to make sense of the world.

On an even larger level, it’s making a statement about the role of religion and spirituality in individual world views and society as a whole.

Whether or not it’s particularly deep is up to debate. But it is certainly using well-established storytelling techniques to make a pretty straightforward point.

Well put. You’ve made me want to read it again. Then I’ll give the movie a try.

[grude]

Even Sven, WOW um are you a professional writer in any capacity?

I have no reason to doubt your insider knowledge, but even knowing the source…I can’t say this makes the movie any more enjoyable to me, and I thought it WAS intentionally ambiguous.

This was fighting ignorance and possibly one of the best posts I’ve seen in well the board. Would you kill me if I said while fascinating it may not have improved my like of LOP?

[even_sven]

Haha. Thanks. A lifetime ago, I was a film student. Turns out I wasn’t very good at making movies, but I still love picking them apart.

[Postariti]

For those of you who weren’t fond of the movie, The Editing Room did a great satirical take on it.

[Infovore]

@Postariti

For those of you who weren’t fond of the movie, The Editing Room did a great satirical take on it.

Okay, the bit at the end with the insurance agents cracked me up.

[Skammer]

I reject the idea that the story about the tiger is a ‘coping mechanism.’ I believe it’s just as valid - just as ‘true’ - as the other story. Probably more deeply true. But like the protagonist, I come to the experience with a well developed religious openess that lets me examine mythical stories for the turth within them.

shrug Plus, it’s a better story.

[LinusK]

I’ve read the book, and seen the movie, (both excellent) and the moral I draw is, that faced with a choice between a story that is true, and one that is good, people will always choose the good one.

Is there another interpretation?

[Thudlow_Boink]

Check out even sven’s posts in this thread: What exactly is the point of Life Of Pi?

[Skammer]

“True” is a loaded word. There is truth in any good narrative, whether it is fictional or not.

I would say that some people will choose the truth of a fantastical story that may not have happened over a mundane or disturbing, but rational, one.

[Sampiro]

Did anybody see the Johnny Depp movie Don Juan DeMarco? A similar plot.

[Superhal]

That pi is a dirty liar. My interpretation is that there is a third story, the true story, that he never told anyone.

[Maserschmidt]

@Superhal

That pi is a dirty liar. My interpretation is that there is a third story, the true story, that he never told anyone.

Agreed. I think he was really a Somali pirate, and the tiger was Captain Phillips.

[Frylock]

@LinusK

I’ve read the book, and seen the movie, (both excellent) and the moral I draw is, that faced with a choice between a story that is true, and one that is good, people will always choose the good one.

Is there another interpretation?

I’ve only seen the movie. I don’t really see how you could get a conclusion from it about what “people will always choose.” Rather, the point seems to be just to illustrate how there can be norms governing assertion that can trump the norm of correspondence with facts.

[SenorBeef]

I’ve always been perplexed that religious people seem to react to this movie as if it’s affirming and validating their faith, that it’s fundamentally a story that supports a belief in god. But it seems much more clearly subversive to me. It’s telling us that life is hard, and messy, and we’re at the whim of circumstance - there’s no great plan, no great meaning - all that suffering has no ultimate payoff, no ultimate point - and to cope with this, we invent new truths that give meaning to it. To me, the book/film could’ve been written by an atheist trying to relate to people why religions are created.

And yet it seems that it’s upheld by religious people as something that upholds their faith. I never understood that at all, and in fact even sven’s explanation kind of makes me understand. Still seems odd.

It’s kind of clever in a way, if both an atheist and theist can view it as clearly supporting their position.

I liked the movie quite a bit, I just have no idea why at the end they had to beat us over the head with the dumbest hammer ever, when the writer tells Pi “So your mother was the orangutan, and the cook was the hyena…” - No shit? You don’t think your audience understands the entire premise of the movie without hammering that home?

[Grrr]

Don’t anthropomorphise tigers. That’s the message I took away from it. But heck, I knew that already.

[salinqmind]

@SenorBeef

I’ve always been perplexed that religious people seem to react to this movie as if it’s affirming and validating their faith, that it’s fundamentally a story that supports a belief in god. But it seems much more clearly subversive to me. It’s telling us that life is hard, and messy, and we’re at the whim of circumstance - there’s no great plan, no great meaning - all that suffering has no ultimate payoff, no ultimate point - and to cope with this, we invent new truths that give meaning to it. To me, the book/film could’ve been written by an atheist trying to relate to people why religions are created.

And yet it seems that it’s upheld by religious people as something that upholds their faith. I never understood that at all, and in fact even sven’s explanation kind of makes me understand. Still seems odd.

It’s kind of clever in a way, if both an atheist and theist can view it as clearly supporting their position.

I liked the movie quite a bit, I just have no idea why at the end they had to beat us over the head with the dumbest hammer ever, when the writer tells Pi “So your mother was the orangutan, and the cook was the hyena…” - No shit? You don’t think your audience understands the entire premise of the movie without hammering that home?

I’ve watched this movie on DVD with a few people, and two of them were, indeed, surprised and enlightened to learn the entire premise of the movie, with the comparison of humans to animals. “Oh, yeah!..yeah, that makes sense…”

[Bryan_Ekers]

Be yourself.