Life of Pi (a short review) from my 'Book-It' list

The Book-It List update.

Several weeks ago Caroline, Paul and I posted a ‘Book-It’ list for each of us (see the lists on the Facebook page for The Book Garden in Frenchtown New Jersey).  I do, of course, love to read but, I am quite slow and usually have three books in play at any one time.  With that said I finished my January selection and now would like to share a few thoughts.  Before I do I will ask: what book(s) are on your list for January?

Mine was Life of Pi  by Yann Martel.

I had put Life of Pi on my reading list a good long time ago (way before I even knew they were going to make a movie out of it or a ‘Book-It’ list).  I have not yet seen the movie.  I had hoped to finish the book first and then race out and see Ang Lee’s adaptation on film.  But, one thing led to another and, well, as I said, I’m a very slow reader.  When I finally finished (this past week) the movie was no longer playing nearby.  So, this short review is totally based upon what I found on the printed page.

Now, as I prepared to write these lines I did look up a number of other takes (reviews) on the movie.   In this regard I have to say, most got it wrong (of course this is my opinion). 

I do have to be careful and not give away the ending since many have not yet read the book (or seen the movie).  However, it is hard to phrase my interpretations of the book’s meaning in vague generalities when the answers are screaming out in the last ten pages of the text.  But … I will try.

First, if you don’t speak French, Piscine means pool, usually referring to a swimming pool.  Piscine (Pi) Patel spends his young life in Pondicherry, India.  He is the son of a zookeeper. Growing up beside the plethora of non humans exposes Pi to a greater span and depth of nature’s bounty (it is a very large pool from which to draw) than is usual and in response Pi develops an encyclopedic knowledge of the animal world. His curious mind also leaps from the teachings in his native Hinduism to Christianity and then on to Islamic studies, all three ideologies he embraces with joyous abandon. This act alone tells us Pi views spirituality as a sum of all its parts, each important, each necessary, like the interactions of the animal kingdom on a differing plane of existence. 

For reasons hiding in the depths of political preferences, the Patel’s set sail, with some of their menagerie, to start a new life in Canada. Halfway across the Pacific ocean, the ship sinks.  Pi becomes stranded on a 26-foot-long life raft with a hyena, an orangutan, an injured zebra and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. In short order all of the animals are gone except for Pi and Richard Parker.  For 227 days Pi survives with his large feline companion on the life raft.  To do this he needs all of the knowledge of animals he has stored up in his memory, the information he reads in the boat’s how-to manual, his wits and … his beliefs. The scenes flow together effortlessly, and the sharp observations of the young narrator keep the story engaging as the author’s potentially unbelievable plot bring the reader into the realm of belief.  This richly patterned work is like reading Melville’s Moby Dick.  The incredibly detailed chapters of life at the zoo or on the life raft are joined at the hip by the exploration of the internal self as Pi formulates his beliefs and drifts across the ocean.

Then the shoe drops.  When Richard Parker and Pi finally reach the coast of Mexico, the tiger flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." The truth becomes what one is prepared to believe.  Thus, truth can be interpreted in many different ways.

Since President Obama wrote directly to Yann Martell, we know how he interprets the ending: 

"My daughter and I just finished reading Life of Pi together. Both of us agreed we prefer the story with animals.  It is a lovely book -- an elegant proof of God, and the power of storytelling.  Thank you."

--             Barak Obama

Wait… I’m a Boomer Too? Part III

A short time ago a book called The Generational Puzzle was published.  It is a chapter book of sorts written by various guests and put together by Joyce Knudsen.  Joyce asked me to contribute and so I tried but, in the end she passed on my effort.  Why?  How should I know?  Perhaps I’m not really baby boomer material.  On Digital Journal I’ve posted the first two installments of this piece and below you will find my third posting.  The chapter itself is ~7000 words and this is why I’m posting it in sections.  Have a look. 

Then read some of what Knudsen accepted.  http://www.amazon.com/The-Generational-Puzzle-ebook/dp/B00A1I0VGY. 

Then let me know what ya’ think.

Saverio Monachino

http://comicfictionnoir.blogspot.com/

@Author_Saverio

Wait… I’m a Boomer Too?

Posting III

As I said, my father served in the Korean conflict.  When he returned home he attended law school at Columbia University.  After this he joined back up with the government.  This time he was assigned to The State Department.  He was in the corps, the consulate corp.  I always thought my father’s job put my family in the ‘middle class.’   The spectrum of middle class though didn’t show itself until much later as I began to visit friends who lived in different neighborhoods.  Now, the best I could say was “yes, we were middle class, but on the lower end of things.”  For the longest time I thought this was the destiny of all those who worked for the federal government.  I didn’t understand at the time how political appointees were brought on, or how much extra money those in congress managed to rake in.  My father was a government worker after all and I thought they were all under the same system.   

His first assignment was in Naples, Italy.  Just so you know, my father was born in Sicily and was brought to the U.S. when he was young.  Then his father loaded up the truck and took the family back to Sicily.  Eventually the family seesawed once again over to the U.S. around the time my father was in high school.  When he was living in America his family lived in Queens.  I always call it Long Island, unless I’m speaking with someone from Queens, then I have to mind my manners.  My mother’s parents hailed from the same small town in Sicily as my father’s family and, imagine this, they settled in the exact same enclave in Queens.  This is how my parents met, fell in love, lived together, yes for several years while growing up in Queens my father lived in the same house with my mother (and her parents), and eventually got married.  I am not sure why, perhaps to get their feet back on the ol’ home turf, but my parents waited to have their first child until they had gotten off the plane in Naples.   My brother is an Italian citizen even though he hasn’t lived outside of Virginia since he was a one year.

Two years after my brother’s birth my father was stationed back at the home office in Washington, D.C.   This was in the late 1950’s and this is where I was born.  The Columbia Hospital for Women on L Street in Washington is no longer there, no longer helping crank out the babies.  I have no pictures of the place myself but this guy named Gore, Al Gore to be precise, keeps trying to friend me on facebook, saying we were roommates at the hospital for a few days.  I wonder if he is reaching out to the other twenty or so odd babies that shared the same room.  My sister was born a few years later and about this time our nice little middle class American family of five moved into our one and only house.  This was in Falls Church, Virginia.  Way back then Fairfax County was bucolic.  It had rolling, open spaces and just a few subdivisions, some shopping centers, but no malls.  If you got in your car you could drive out to Harper’s Ferry in no time and along the way one would see horses, a lot of horses.  It isn’t like that anymore.  The metropolis came, the urban development did not.  

When I was young, Falls Church seemed to be such a long way from Washington, D.C.  My father would drive off, or his carpool ride would pick him up, at 7:30 in the morning to make sure they all made it to work by 8:00.  We wouldn’t see him again until almost 5:00 in the afternoon.  The poor guy looked so worn out.  He would walk in the door, put down his briefcase, find his way into the kitchen, and then we would eat dinner, together, as all families did.  I always thought those long grueling days would eventually take its toll on him.  It did, and so he retired, thirty years later.   Good thing for all of us my mother spent her days doing our laundry, cleaning the house, cooking our dinner and a variety of other tasks, all of which she accomplished without a driver’s license.   We were like every other household in the neighborhood back then: one car, husband worked, wife stayed home and tended house.   We had no maid and we didn’t take our clothes to the cleaners.  We did our own yard work.  The family and social structure we lived in was workin’ fine.   Slowly, more cars appeared in the surrounding driveways, but at first this was only the high school-age boys buying into the system.  Eventually the two-car family emerged and my mother, for a while, was the only one on the block who did not drive.  Once when I was running around barefoot in the yard, I had an accident and needed to be rushed to the hospital.  My mother had to rope in one of the neighbors to take us.  She could have called an ambulance, but back then, like today, ambulances cost money. 

My father’s “terrible” work schedule came home to roost when I grew up, got a job and had to commute over an hour to work, each way.  A normal work day was a wee bit longer than the 7.5 hours my father was burdened with.  The distances I had to commute to my various jobs were usually long because it was just too expensive to live closer.  When I would return home from work my wife and I would sit down to some quick dinner, if she had beaten me home from her job that is; otherwise it was fetch your own.  Once we finished slurping down the food we both usually did homework, or crashed.  If you wanted to stay employed or advance out of the proletariat ranks you needed to keep one step ahead of the Joneses, right?  This is when I realized exactly how close, rush hour traffic or no rush hour traffic, Falls Church was to Washington, D.C.  What’s worse, in our brave new world, working professionals are no longer working 30 or 40 years at the same place like my father and my wife’s father did.  These days we are changing jobs at the drop of a hat or as often as the companies come and go into and out of existence.  Along the way we reinvent ourselves, career-wise, to fit into the changing base of the jobs on hand.  Is this better or worse than the way our parents had it?  You have more freedom to find the perfect fit, but at the same time it is hard to develop any commitment to the job when the jobs change so often.  Without commitment, where is the value added?  And, to make it more interesting, we are no longer keeping up with just the Joneses, now we have to keep up with all of their relatives who happen to be living at home, with home being anywhere but the USA.  What this all means to me is there is a lack of depth in professional individuals today.  

Well take a look at the bridegroom smilin' pleased as pie
Shakin' hands all around with a glassy look it his eye
He got a real good job and his shirt and tie is nice
But I remember a time when she never would have looked at him twice.

                                                -- Nick Lowe