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onceacurmudgeon

To all the pages I've read before

Currently reading

The Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path of Loving-Kindness
Pema Chödrön
River of Smoke: A Novel
Amitav Ghosh
Alif the Unseen
G. Willow Wilson
Half of a Yellow Sun
Taoist Qigong for Health and Vitality: A Complete Program of Movement, Meditation, and Healing Sounds
Sea of Poppies
Amitav Ghosh
AyurVeda: The Science of Self-Healing
Medicine Buddha Teachings
Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: The Spiritual Classic and International Bestseller
The Fault in Our Stars
John Green

Life of Pi

Life of Pi - Yann Martel I found the premise of this to be utterly foolish; thus, dismissed this book for many years. Then for a few weeks it came up in conversation at least every other day and my initial opinion of it seemed to wash away.Was it really as good as people were saying?I became ever so curious.But as I have had a lot of other books to read, it fell on to my ever growing to read list.Then when I was in Cambodia I ran into a man who had lost both his arms from a landmine and he was selling books on the street. I felt I needed to buy one from him and the only one he had available that I wanted to read: The Life of Pi.I carried it around a for a few months. Read the first chapter a few times, but never got into it. Till I later visited Laos and sat by the Mekong with nothing else to do but read and chat. So I started it again and wound up plowing through it at record speed.I become utterly captivated by this Pi fellow.I finished it in two days and then talked about it for at least three more straight. I am sure I bored my companions by it, but... one of them traded another book for it.The story is far from believable, but... that is the point.Martel is crafting myth here and he does it well. This is a story about faith but I am not sure it ever even uses that word. But as Pi enamors and entwines himself with competing religions he understands that only faith can hold him, as everyone else laughs at him for his devotions. I found the scenes at sea to be far more interesting than those on land. But was easily transported to Pondicherry by his descriptions. I have walked that town, so it was easily understood. The life boat though kept changing size and shape in my mind. At first it was the size of a overzealous row boat but over time it started to morph into more yacht size. And I like to think this was intended as over time Pi's acceptance of more faiths grew, so would his life boat. Again, this is myth. So it makes sense to not be limited by the laws of physics and such.And though I finished it over a week ago, I keep thinking about it. Pieces of still seem puzzling, but equally interesting. While far from a perfect book, it is one that intrigued me greatly and made me question a lot of my preconceived notions of faith, story telling, and facts in general.I did feel the book ended far poorer than it began, as I wanted to see how his journey effected his life further into the future as there were still questions begging to be answered. But again, I guess that is at the heart of faith, accepting that there are questions that one can not know....