Thoughts on 'Life of Pi', read only if you've already read the book, your thoughts appreciated

What is it about Yann Martel's ‘Life of Pi’ that is so disturbing? I think my problem with it is that the story I had so loved for 300 pages I suddenly discovered is a lie. A fabrication. In 300 pages, the incredulous story about a young boy and a tiger coexisting on a lifeboat had become somehow plausible – I believed him and believed in the relationship. My heart went out to young Pi and his many ordeals. I loved Richard Parker. I craved more insights into their interaction. All the details fit so well – so like Kaiser Shozei from the Usual Suspects!

But if Pi's tiger story is indeed a fabrication, then our alternative is the reality. But for a boy to make up a story about his mother being murdered doesn’t fit either – that would not be a fabrication. Boys don’t make up stories about the mothers that they love being brutally murdered – for him to, in his imagination, put her to death in the sea would be more generous. I suppose I feel as if I’ve been tricked. I feel as if the wonderful characters I knew have died, along with young Pi himself who, though he lives, dies tragically in my heart as the not-as-resourceful, not-as-courageous Pi.

I also dislike the deeper implications of Pi's question about which story his interrogators prefer. Through Pi, the author seems to be trying to defend religion because it provides us with ‘a better story’ than just reason. As if the fabrication is better. Religion – presenting a way of life and a belief system and a measure and a justification for action – all of these important things it supposedly provides yet…it’s a fabrication. And the author is somehow saying that God the fabrication is better than reality, the result of ‘reason.’ My gut reaction is, we don’t like lies in the first place, so why would we enjoy such an elaborate one as religion? I haven’t enjoyed this feeling that the entire book was a lie… (not to mention that the resolution is a cop out -- a subtle appeal to madness). That does not satisfy me. Maybe in much the same way that the Bible does not satisfy me.

Or maybe the point is that we don’t know the answer. Either of Pi's stories could be true (but for the fabrication of his mother meeting a terrible death). God or no God could be true and we just don’t know, so we might as well believe in God (which is a fallacy). In religion as in Life of Pi, Reality (reason) is the more grim of the two stories. But if it is reality, then I think it more important, more significant.

Why? Why is reality better? Because reality is where we act; it's where our actions and reactions count. So our knowledge and thought processes must be grounded in reality in order to make good choices for our lives. But what is a good choice? If a good choice means one that maximizes happiness, then perhaps for some people maximizing the happiness of their souls is priority, regardless of reality. Delusional or not, they are happy and it was a good choice.

Does it mean that those of us without such elaborate stories to guide us are simply lost? If we are not tending to our souls then what should we be tending to? Maybe nothing. But if 'nothing' is in fact the reality, wouldn’t you rather know that than think otherwise?