Life of Pi

My book group is reading “Life of Pi” this month. I suggested the book because my father was reading it this past summer. I found it interesting that he decided to pick up a novel that is unrelated to war or church history.

I was expecting a bit of spiritual enlightenment from the novel. On the cover of the paperback a quote from the LA Times book review claims “A story to make you believe in the soul sustaining power of fiction.” The author, Yann Martel, claims in his author’s note that the story he recounts, or at least the story within the story, “was, indeed, a story to make you believe in God.”

So, here’s the thing: I came away from this novel feeling that the only compelling reason Martel gives us to believe in god is that, if we do not, we will be forced to confront the “yeastless factuality” of life as he presents it– that humans are beasts and that our time on this planet is nasty, brutish, and short (to quote Hobbes). Even if we are in a space where our needs are met, we are being slowly swallowed by time and nature. God comes in when we construct our stories and understanding, not through the use of fact and reason, but instead by taking a leap of faith: believing love lies behind all that is and that ultimate morality and purpose are fundamental truths.

It’s not that I don’t buy what I’ve just written, it’s that the story Martel spins presents such a horrid “factuality.” Why is it that the spiritual can only have importance at the expense of the potential and beauty of life in this world? Is there nothing redeemable in humanity short of the ability to bracket life in the world from the life of the soul or the mind?

Maybe my intellect is hopelessly mundane and I’m just not getting it. Maybe I am too much of a materialist… I don’t know….