Life of Pi

By Yann Martel
In the beginning I found this book irritating; a character announces sententiously that “this is a story that will make you believe in God”, and the main character, Pi (short for Piscene) is a little righteous in his unwavering belief in God and his dismissal of agnostics and atheists alike. My hackles went up, me being a card-carrying atheist and all.

Pi, who grows up in his father’s zoo in Pondicherry, India, is also righteous on the matter of zoos, and this also made me cranky. Sure, animals can be content in a well-managed zoo enclosure and zoos are important for preserving endangered species, in particular, but he seemed to have no concept that animals could be bored – food and shelter isn’t everything. Also, he assumes all animals are the same - Pi describes cases where zoo animals have had the opportunity to escape and haven’t budged, or have returned to their cages after a short experience of the wider world. I once left my mouse cage door open all night; out of 11 mice only two bothered to escape. Some animals are just bolder or more curious or more active, whereas their brothers and sisters might be more cautious or afraid.

Listen to me, the animal behaviour expert. Where was I? As a Hindu, Pi becomes interested in other religions in his early teens and ends up becoming a baptised Christian and a Muslim as well. This, unsurprisingly, appalls the local priest, pandit and imam when they all meet (by chance) in the town market and congratulate Pi’s parents on their son’s piety and then realise he has been worshipping “at the altar” (so to speak) of all three on a regular basis.

This made me quite fond of Pi. It was interesting to read Pi’s impressions of two other religions, when compared to the Hindu faith – how ridiculously fallible yet reassuringly human Jesus Christ seemed when compared with Hindu gods (I mean, he walks places! What God does that??); Islam’s physicality of worship and its connection with the earth (worship outside!). I have no idea whether Yann Martel is Hindu himself (he was born in Spain so it seems unlikely) so I don’t know how much we can believe in the authenticity of these perceptions, but Pi’s beliefs are engaging - in Gandhi’s words “All religions are true” and in Pi’s own, “I just want to love God”.

This all reminded me of the CS Lewis’ Narnia series, where in The Last Battle the “good” god Aslan reveals that if you do good things in the name of the “bad” god, Tash, you are really doing them for Aslan, and vice versa. In other words, it doesn’t matter who’s name you are worshipping or the manner in which you are worshipping, it is your actions that count in the end. The Narnia books are often held in deep suspicion as being sneakily religious, like they were the literary form of a Mormon doorknocker, but I can testify that in at least one case they helped make an atheist. How silly it seemed to me that a religion should declare that there is only one right way to worship! If there is a God, or gods, it seems pretty unfair to condemn the majority of humanity to hell (or wherever) merely for using the wrong name.

I seem to have got distracted again. Anyway, the book picked up for me from there – Pi’s family decides to move to Canada during the political upheavals of the 1970s and arrange to sell all their animals, many to zoos in North America. They board a cargo ship, with their animals, and set sail. The ship sinks, and Pi finds himself on a life raft with a wounded zebra, a hyena, an orang-utan and very large Royal Bengal tiger.

The zebra, hyena and orang-utan don’t last very long; it is only Pi’s knowledge of animal behaviour that allows him to set up an uneasy truce with the tiger. This part of the book is quite lovely, even though it portrays suffering – in particular, Pi’s descriptions of the sea life he observes. It actually made me want to be adrift in a lifeboat, which I know is silly. (Also I would love to be adrift with a tiger, even though that is really silly, because it would eat me).

So I came round to this book in the end. There were some interesting philosophical bits, some thoughts are provoked (obviously, looking back at my previous rants!) and a mean twist at the end. (I won’t give it away for those who haven’t read it). In the end Martel seems to want you to think about what you want to believe is true – Christian, Muslim, Hindu or atheist – rather than what there is proof for.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Frankenstein (2005)

By Mary Shelley

Heyyy, wait a minute…where’s Igor? Where’s the lightning? Where are the bolts coming out of Frankenstein’s head?? Where’s Sting???

Well it certainly was interesting finally reading the original. There is no Igor about to say “A brain, a brain, I need a brain for my master!” and Shelley is surprisingly coy about the whole how-to-bring-a-bag-of-bones to life thing. All of a sudden, Frankenstein’s monster opens his eyes, and there he is. Descriptions of the monster are few, apart from a general suggestions of supreme ugliness and the yellowness of his eyes. He is also very agile and strong, which does not suggest the lumbering zombie of the films.

What is more surprising than the lack of Hollywood special effects, though, is that whatever brains Frankenstein managed to get hold of (yes he did all his own dirty work), they appear to be top quality. No grunting here – Frankenstein’s monster teaches himself to read and write and is quite happy to converse on topics as in-depth as man’s inhumanity to man, the nature of God, the meaning of life etc…You see, the monster taught himself to read and speak from such noble texts as Milton’s Paradise Lost and Plutarch’s Lives. Also he finds Frankenstein’s diary, carelessly left lying around when he fled his laboratory, and so learns the circumstances of his creation.

The creation of the monster casts Frankenstein into a deep existential funk, into which he relapses numerous times throughout the novel, beating his breast and cursing himself for bringing this evil upon the world. (This gets a bit tiresome). He makes it his mission to destroy the “daemon” he has created. Yet we seem almost invited to side with the monster, who was created imperfect and then spurned – mirroring Satan’s struggle in Paradise Lost.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Even though Frankenstein drones on a bit, beautifully gothic.

The Picture of Dorian Gray (2005)

By Oscar Wilde
Amongst other things, this novel was accused by contemporary critics of being effeminate – and it really is quite startlingly so, in places, especially at the beginning. I did catch myself thinking at the start, oh for goodness sakes stop poncing around (oh look at the pretty flowers ooh ahh), but then thought I was being mean and that I may as well say something like “this is so gay”, in the unfortunate terminology of today’s yoof – today’s yoof! Don’t get me started – and after all, Wilde does write about those flowers so prettily. (An interesting aside – The Picture of Dorian Gray started life as a short story, and Wilde consciously made the longer version much less “effeminate” than the original).

However, I did find myself agreeing a bit with the critic in the June 1980 St James’s Gazette, who found Dorian’s petulant behaviour near the start of the novel a bit silly: “…when he is rebuked for being a naughty, wilful boy, he makes a pretty moue – this man of twenty!”. I mean really. In my defence I will say that I find moues unbecoming in women also; if you’re going to be sulky you should at least stomp around a bit and maybe throw something and stop trying to be sexy at the same time. (I tell you what, though, they knew how to write a totally decimating review back in the 1890s).

The book does get going a bit after the moue incident, when Dorian starts to dabble in doubtful activities, all the while staying youthful and unblemished while his portrait becomes steadily more ugly and decrepit. His friend Lord Henry, who really should cop more flak than he does for his part in the whole sorry story, really started to tick me off during his long speeches on how nothing is important except for pleasure and the senses and enjoying yourself. Oh yes, you’re so clever, Lord Henry, now shut up will you? Perhaps I inherited more of the Scottish Protestant Work Ethic than I thought. This all makes it sound like I didn’t like the book, which is not true; I enjoyed it very much. It is a strange mix of philosophy and horror; lovely writing; a good book for a cold rainy winter’s night with the fire going and a bottle of vintage port nearby.

Rating: 8 out of 10
One point deducted for the bit about the moue.