The Life of Pi: Choosing Between Stories
#Spoilers
I think I originally read The Life Of Pie because I liked it’s cover. It had fish and the mathematical concept pi both of which signalled its suitability. I was in my teens and mainly read fantasy novels so it was a shock to my system, but not an unwelcome one. Probably I wish I’d read more books on spirituality whilst growing up.
I love a good story as much as anyone else and this provides it. It has some The Martian-esque problem solving, an ocean and a tiger. But what really drew me in was the moral of the story — was there really a tiger? Or was it an externalisation of Pi’s power to hurt and his guilt at having done so. But this is really a meta-metaphor. Is there really a God or is it just an externalisation of our need for justice in an unjust world?
This analogy is phenomenally well written. And much like good fantasy, eases you through a philosophy lesson whilst you thought you were watching an epic battle. While I grew up the philosophical theme of many of the novels I read was utilitarianism vs deontology, so it was good to read a book about pessimistic naturalism vs optimistic spirituality.
Except that I misread it. Anyone who plays board games with me will know that I like understanding games but get board reading rule books. I tend to skim them and have on occasion got the rules completely wrong. The same was true of The Life of Pi. Somehow I read a novel where the naturalistic story just didn’t make sense. I think perhaps I thought the tiger, Richard Parker, was the chef, but then he wasn’t found on the boat.
For me, the moral was that the investigators want to believe the “animal story” because it’s a nicer story, but when you carefully investigate the facts it’s the only one that can be true. This really chimed with me. As an intellectually rigorous Evangelical Christian, I was tired of people thinking my faith was just a crutch or a “nice story”, when I knew I could argue my case from the evidence. The Life of Pi seemed like a slightly twee fable on the power of better stories, but was actually a subtle high five to the ordoxically religious. Except for the Muslim and Hindu bits, which confused me.
Looking back, this all looks very convenient. Ideological person misinterprets text that supports their beliefs is a headline that surprises noone.
Nor did the rubber of my book review survive the road of reality. When talking to an atheist friend about it, he said that wasn’t his view of the book at all. He saw the naturalistic story as the most reasonable, but the novel was calling for leniency for stories which protected us from the uncaring nature of the world. I went back to my copy and was surprised to find he was right.
Now I didn’t really like the book. It reduced my faith to a fanciful tail told to deal with ones own trauma. What’s more the kind wisdom of the investigators looked deeply suspect — for the welfare of our main character it was really important whether he’d been cooped up with a Tiger or had to kill a murderous chef. If there was a carnivorous floating plant island, wouldn’t that be worth finding?
My faith was never a story I told myself to deal with a callous universe. I thought it was true. Martell’s story was more insulting to me than any Richard Dawkin’s sideswipe. I can deal with disagreement, but infantisation is something I cannot stand. I didn’t want a manifesto for empty spiritualism. At this point, I’d have preferred is Martell was on the other side.
Much time has passed since then. I would no longer call myself a Christian — the Bible seems incoherent to me. A story that doesn’t make sense. Last night a friend asked me what I thought of The Life of Pi and I realised I didn’t know. So I sat and wrote this.
I look at the the book now and see a strong treatment of a poor argument. I don’t see naturalistic and religious narratives as equally plausible stories. More importantly the effect more than our feelings. If there was a Tiger on the boat, Pi should be given one type of therapy, if he killed someone, a different kind. Those details matter. I guess most religious conservatives agree with me — they follow the doctrine of their holy books because that represents reality. If it was the same either way, what would be the point in weekly meetings, prayers etc etc etc.
Which I guess is where we end up. Whilst explaining to be people what Christianity is like, UK and US christians talk about liberals and conservatives. In this context liberal is “take the Bible seriously” and conservative is “take the Bible seriously and literally”. Liberals place their moral intuitions above a more coherent reading of the Bible: They are more likely to support gay marriage, abortion, strong action on climate change. Conservatives place a more coherent reading of the Bible above their intuitions. I have had 3 conservative friends say that Old Testament slavery wasn’t wrong because the Christian god gave instructions around it. Conservatives are more likely to support wives submitting to their husbands, be against abortion and for nation states. Trust me, if you meet a Christian and ask their opinion on one of these issues the others are likely to line up.
The Life of Pi is theologically speaking, a liberal text. That isn’t a dig or high praise, it just is. It is a text that thinks that given the choice between two similar stories we should believe that which is pleasant, rather than digging deeper to find that which is more coherent. And theologically speaking, I am a conservative, or I was. The culture of the novel rubs me up the wrong way.
But what if I’m being rational and empathetic towards the work? If two stories are indistinguishable but one is more pleasant, generally I’d plead ambivalence. That’s my current position on god — I don’t know if there is an all-powerful being. But equally I’m not sure I can argue that altruism is better than selfishness, but I choose it anyway, because it’s a story I prefer. This choice is one of the defining choices of my life and yet suddenly I’m on the boat with the Tiger.
The proper answer to this is you should live by rules of thumb until you know better. Where you have to choose a story do so, but acknowledge you are. The investigators were free to report either story, but they should have investigated more to see which was true, for the sake of the boy whose life it would affect. I intend to believe the altruism story, but also to investigate whether there is some test I can run between the two.
I guess the fact that this book can make me ask these questions shows it’s promise. I think it makes a far more interesting case for “liberalism” than for religion, though I am not convinced we should ever give up and take the easy story even if we have to believe it for a while. Mainly I’m in favour of picking up a book that asks hard questions about hard questions, even if you only read it because it had a tiger on the front.
