Email questions & replies from Yann Martel:
It struck me as the right metaphor. A lifeboat crossing the Pacific is like a soul crossing life. And the two opposing poles found in the lifeboat--religion, in the form of Pi, and wildness, in the form of the tiger--are the same opposing poles found in life. What did I learn? That art and religion (the last defined broadly) are the best ways to examine life deeply.
Yann Martel
May 21, 2010 3:43 PM
Reality is a veneer. Just because it is hard and in front of our eyes doesn't mean it has any truth greater than material truth. The meaning of life, that greater truth, lies beyond the material. Or at least, that is the proposition that faith makes. It's possible not to have faith and believe only in material truth, in which case, yes, I suppose I'm lying to my readers by positing more than less about existence. But I prefer the "lie" of faith than the hollow "truth" of materialism.
Yann Martel
May 21, 2010 3:47 PM
Would Life of Pi have been different if you wrote it after 9/11?
I don't know if Life of Pi would have been different. It was a very personal story to me, without any obvious political subtext. Same with Beatrice and Virgil. I've always been interested in the Holocaust and wanted to write about it for years. Politics is an essential but mundane activity, concerned with the here and now. Art has a longer perspective, one that is more obvious to me in the quiet of my office.
Yann Martel
May 21, 2010 3:49 PM
I did meet a Francis Adirubasamy, but he didn't tell me the story I tell in Life of Pi. He rather impressed me with his openness to things religious. He had that attitude that enlightened HIndus have: if it works for someone, it must be true and is worthy of respect. I think religion is the opposite of animalness; animals don't have religious thoughts. Many humans don't have religious thoughts. I think religious thought goes to the limits of what humans can think, which is why it's often non-rational.
Yann Martel
May 21, 2010 3:51 PM
The border between animals and humans is a fascinating one to explore for scientists. But my interest lies more in the symbolic potential of animals. An animal can be just what it is--a tiger in a lifeboat, for example--but it can also have tremendous symbolic resonance. So the tiger can symbolize any number of things. So the overlap you mention is in the order of symbolism.
Yann Martel
May 21, 2010 3:53 PM
"Why is literature still important? Because it increases your experience of life. Every book you read vicariously gives you some of the life experience of the writer who wrote it. After you've read a book, you know more. If you know more, you can think better. If you can think better, you're smarter. If you're smarter, you're wiser. And if you're wiser, you're a better person.
How is literature relevant to current young people? It's relevant to young people because stories will always be relevant to people, no matter their age. We are the stories that we have to tell. A person who has no stories to tell has lived an empty life. It's in stories that we best find out who we are and why we are.
What are the benefits, both tangible and not? I answered that already in part, but I forgot one important thing: it's fun. Best, Yann"
April 20, 2008 9:24 AM
How is it that fiction can become so believable? "Fictional stories are so believable because in a very real sense they are true; that is, they speak of the human condition, of what it means to be human. Fiction is true. It's reality, often times, being so superficially analyzed, that is false."
April 22, 2008 9:33 PM
Did you always love writing and want to be a writer or did you have
different aspirations as a kid?
ANSWER: As a kid I dreamed of politics. But it was the theatre of politics that attracted me, I realize now. I started writing at the age of 19, with a very bad play, followed by bad short stories and a bad first novel. I got better slowly.
April 27, 2008 10:24 AM
Was there an actual person that inspired the character Pi? Or is Pi a symbol for all of humanity or religions?
ANSWER: For each reader to decide. I'm the author, not every reader. But I'll say this: fiction is true because it speaks about what it means to be human.
April 27, 2008 10:24 AM
From what I understand, there is going to be a movie made about your
novel "Life of Pi". I was wondering if you plan on helping with the production of this movie or if you plan on seeing it at all? Do you think it will portray your novel "correctly"?
ANSWER: I'll have no formal involvement, but the studio, Fox 2000, has kept me in the loop. I love movies, so I'm not too worried about what the result will be. And whatever happens I win: if it's a great movie, it was based on my book. If it's a terrible movie, it's the director's fault.
April 27, 2008 10:25 AM
I think the most interesting part I have found thus far is your naming of the main character "Pi". To me it seems like throughout the book he comes full circle in his relationship with religion, animals, and life in general. So did you intend for Pi to be a sort of metaphor for him coming around full circle in the novel by using Pi as a sort of mathematical reference or metaphor to a circle, did you choose it for another reason or was it just simply a name you chose?
ANSWER: That's a good reading of Pi's name.
April 27, 2008 10:26 AM
I would like to ask if Pi and Yann are one in the same through the
religious part of this book. Does Yann practice all three of these
religions? I think if you grew up in so many different parts of the
world that practiced such different religions, each religion would rub off on you a little bit.
ANSWER: No, I don't practice three religions. I'm broadly comfortable with Jesus and Christianity. But I also feel no fear or threat from other religions. I think they're all trying to do the same thing: understand something that necessarily goes beyond our understanding.
April 27, 2008 10:26 AM
Good luck with the rest of the book.
Best,
Yann Martel
April 27, 2008 10:27 AM
Why give the tiger a "formal name" like Richard Parker, complete with a story of the name's origin?
ANSWER: Because animals are owed dignity. Because every name has an origin. Because it had a nice ring to it.
April 27, 2008 10:30 AM
A common theme in your writing is what is real vs. what is not; how do you feel your work changes people's perceptions of reality and what does this accomplish on a large scale--and does this reflect your intended legacy?
Man, these aren't easy questions. Not like "What is your favourite colour?"
I'll reply to the extent that I can. Writers don't necessarily know what they're doing when they're writing is a first point I should make. But let me try to answer the question. Yes, I am concerned about the nature of reality, about what we see when we look out. I was good at school and what school in a modern Western society taught me to be is reasonable. Nothing wrong with that--within limits. Rationality is a very powerful tool. It got Neil Armstrong on the moon and it made the computer I'm using right now in Portugal to reply to you in South Dakota. Amazing, simply amazing what we've done with rationality. But there are limits to what reason can give us. It can't give us meaning. Meaning, faith, comes from somewhere else. Yet it must live in the same reality as the reality of those who don't have faith. The matter of faith, then, is mixed in with the same reality that provides the matter of reason. Faith and reason come from the same reality. So it's not a question of "real vs. not real", but "what is real?" Most people choose to see the factual in the real--that's the easiest thing to see if you're taught to be rational. But in my experience, that makes for an empty life. We're not computers. Computers love the factual. We're subjects, not objects. It's better to delve deeper in the real until you find mystery.
How do I feel my work changes people's perceptions of reality? I don't know. I'm the writer, not the reader. I hope readers, when confronted with this choice of realities in Life of Pi, this choice between the story with animals and the story without animals, will not just jump to the factually easiest story. I hope they will see that reality is a co-creation, a matter of perception. But that's up to each reader. Some people can make leaps of faith, others are more hesitant.
What does this accomplish on a large scale? Art works slowly in forming the interior life of individuals. A person who feels for art has a rich inner life that will keep them rich no matter how much money they have in their bank account. The converse is true, too: a person who feels nothing for art will always be poor no matter if they're millionaires.
My legacy? Art is a gift to the world. The artist gives for nothing. What readers do with my books is the concern of readers, not mine. I give; it's up to others to see whether they want to take.
Best,
Yann Martel
April 3, 2009 7:47 AM
We read you send a book to the Prime Minister of Canada every two weeks to help him find a better understanding of humanity and his true self (just as Pi maybe finds his true self in the novel). How did you come about finding your true self and what are/is your view on humanity, reason, politics, and life?
I'm not sure I've found my true self. The self is like a river: it must always be in motion otherwise it stagnates. That said, the my riverbed, what my being runs over, is pebbled with notions about art and religion. I think life is fully graspable, fully explored, only in the language of art and religions. I define both those terms broadly. I don't mean staring at a Picasso painting while listening to Mozart, or living in a cell reading the Bible all day long. To each what is art and what is religion. Both should bring transcendence. A life strictly concerned with material matters--money, commerce, success,etc--is unsatisfying and, ultimately, defeating.
Politics? Modern Western politics has become obsessed with the generating of wealth. Politics has becomes economics. Maybe I'm being naive; maybe it was always like that. But I think, my humble opinion as a citizen, is that the key words in politics should be "community" and "quality of life". Is this policy good for our community? Is this policy good for our quality of life?
Yann Martel
April 3, 2009 7:50 AM
Since you've lived around the world and are Christian, what life experiences have compelled you to write Life of Pi and how can fiction help us better understand the meaning of life?
I wrote Life of Pi because in my early thirties I reached a dead end. I was more reasonable than a Mac computer--and I wasn't happy for it. I was very good at stripping away mystery from life until there was nothing left. And when that happened I happened to be in India. India is a gloriously (but also miserably) unreasonable place. A place where all stories are still possible. Where some people are very reasonable and some people are very unreasonable and most people are openly a mix of the two. It's an intoxicating place. I would urge you all, ALL, to one day visit India. Go with a small backpack, an open heart, an open mind--and you'll come back a different person. When I was in India, I became tired of being reasonable. I asked myself, for the first time really, what do I gain from being so reasonable. Is life a contest to see who can be the most rational? So I started to look at that most unreasonable of activities: the religious, which is alive and well in India. I looked at Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jains, Jews, and in each I saw an approach to life that was, quite suddenly to me, thrilling. Mystery refreshes, reason exhausts. I was so exhausted and here was refreshment. NOT THAT I BECAME A FUNDAMENTALIST! Life is a mystery which the fundamentalist ruins by flattening with certainty. I am, broadly speaking, a Christian. I'm comfortable, or, rather, comfortably uncomfortable, with Jesus. But I see the same well reaching to deep spiritual waters in Islam and Hinduism and most other serious religions.
Fiction is the last great laboratory in which alternate realities can be explored. Fiction is the great democracy of ideas in which every idea, even the craziest, can have their vote. You try in fiction what you don't want to do, should not do, in reality. Fiction is where the mind is at its widest and largest. You, all of you, should, your whole life, always be reading a book. You don't have to read quickly. But you should always be reading. That way your mind will stay alive.
Yann Martel
April 3, 2009 7:51 AM
What made you write the novel "backwards," telling us that Pi lives in the beginning; why not use third person to make readers wonder about Pi's fate--does this first-person decision connect to your life in any way?
Backwards because I wanted it to be established right from the start that Pi survives--because, in a sense, with the right attitude, we never die. And I told the story in a first-person fashion because I wanted to get inside Pi's head. I wanted the reader to settle inside Pi's head and see things the way you might if you are a passenger in the front seat of a car. I wanted the I of Life of Pi to be the I of the reader. A third person voice would have been exterior, looking at Pi like some rat in an experiment.
Life if a first-person experience, as is religion. And so with Life of Pi.
May you all reach the coast of Mexico.
Yann Martel