slices of pi

i may have told you at some point about how taken i was with the novel "the life of pi." and how i was very confused about the tooth in the tree on the island.

well, last night on finally seeing the movie version, that was finally cleared up for me. and i feel like "duh. why didn't i get that? i got that the island was carnivorous, but i somehow didn't get the tooth thing."

anyway, i know that there has been lots of speculation on what the purpose of the book was. to me, i felt it showed that man sometimes has the need to create a religion for himself so that he can cope with life's events. i rejected the "stated" purpose as it being a story that would make you believe in god and thought of it more as a reason for people making up gods to help them understand and deal with the cruel events of life.

the movie, while some different than the book, is breathtaking. the visual work is magical and extraordinary, i think. what they did with the storm and the island was stunning.

but here's what mightly surprised me when i watched the movie. somehow i missed completely in the book's animal version of pi's survival----- that richard parker just "disappears" at the end of the traumatic journey." i HONESTLY thought he had died. yes, i got that he wandered into the forest at the end. but somehow i read that as -that he died, even while i did understand the meaning of him not looking back. but i now can't figure out how i interpreted it or misread it as that he actually died.

i wanted to go back and read at least that part of the book, but alas, i'd given the book away to one of my son's friends and i didn't get it back. if i had, it might have been one of the very few books that survived my belongings purge awhile ago. anyway, since i couldn't reread, i went to the internet. and yes, richard parker doesn't die. and it is a big deal his not looking back. because it shows that even while richard parker owed his life to pi, he wasn't grateful or loyal. he just says "yeah ok" and moves on.

anyway, now i understand it that while pi was disconsolate over richard parker leaving without ceremony, that it was essential to convey that he no longer needed the richard parker part of him to survive. and that it needed to be wrenched from him with what seemed like another cruelty at the time. it was the book's way of shwoing that life was going to go back to "normal" and that he no longer required the animalistic part of his being to live, even while he realized that it had been an essential part of him that he had to depend on to the point where he accepted and even grown to love it for keeping him alive. and so maybe i just thought when i read the story that the richard parker part of him needed to die now. i didn't want any of the ugly part of him to live. i don't know.

and all of this pondering is highlighted to me as i ponder the whole boston bombing thing. i'm doubting now that we'll ever hear the younger brother's story. sounds to me like if he survives, he might be brain-damaged. too much so to communicate. and i am disconcerted by that, because what i want to believe about this whole thing is that the older brother was the mastermind and that the younger brother was unduly influenced by him or even forced by him to "play along." i want him to recover and to say that. why do i want to believe that? i don't know that either.

is it just that i still want to believe that evil dies and that good survives? am i still seeking a religion of some kind that makes things make sense in the end? i still want to believe in karma even-ing things out. give me some disney, damn it?

i cringe a lot though at the people that wanted the newtown shooter dead. and people that want the younger bomber dead. i really don't want a zero tolerance type of world. i don't really hate the newtown shooter. i think he was batshit crazy and he had an even more batshit mother. and you can't really blame the batshit crazy. put them behind bars for our safety, yes. but blame them for being batshit and executing them, no. i do however think the people who vote to continue to allow guns to be as readily available to these kinds of people as the scum of the earth and it wouldn't bother me if they dropped dead. to me they are the bigger villains in these stories. they are the ones i want to die.

see, there are even evil parts in me that i would like to die. the part of me that wants some politicians to drop dead and the person that broke my heart and left me for dead, to suffer. i freely admit that i want this. and i know those parts of me aren't at all in keeping with me being a loving and caring person. that i want to be.

and so i marvel in the end that pi solves the issue for himself and puts all of his grief behind him with a story that makes it all make sense to him and allows him to cope. he deals with the death of his mother by putting her death in the hands of evil and then he avenges her death by killing her killer with a greater and more powerful evil. that he later has to tame in order to continue to survive. he has to allow it to live in order to conquer it. and it has to still be out there somewhere in order for it to stay conquered.

and maybe that's what i need. a way to conquer the evil in me.

so perhaps what i've missed is just what i missed in the story. that evil is not something that you can expect to die, but that you can learn to conquer. in order for survival.