Thursday, December 14, 2006

 

Section 11: Chapters 92-94

The island that Pi comes across is absolutely amazing. If I have have transported to a beautiful place by language, this is a hundred times better at least.
I love green; I love nature, so full of vibrant life, and I love far-removed paradises where I can imagine myself living, my body and my mind preserved for thousands of years solely by the vitality emanating from the growth around me.
To me, that is paradise. A beautiful, remote island of lush green-ness and vibrant colors of the rainbow splashed upon everything. A place where the imagination can roam free, and life's troubles disappear into the depths of the warm, sapphire ocean, and are drowned by by the colors so radiant and numerous that no words ca describe them.
I can imagine plants, both rare and exotic, that no one has ever seen before, air so clean and clear that every breath is a joyous event, water so pure and untainted that you can see the glorious fish swimming freely at its deepest, animals so alive and lovely that you can spend your whole day gazing at them, running, playing, jumping, and you can't hep but think that maybe, just maybe, life is perfect.
My island is such a place that your lips are always curved upwards in a smile, and your soul soars with the eagles through light, wispy clouds. It's a place where no frown or look of anger has ever been seen, nor sadness ever felt.
It's a place of perfection, a place of peave and tranquility and reflection. And, best of all, it's my place, untouched by others, protected from the evil, decay, death, sorrow and hurt that plague our natural world, and best of all, it's saved eternally for me and the select few I choose to share it with, just as each person's special place is saved for them and theirs. I love my island, and Pi's reminds me of it a lot.

I was just thinking about how cool it would be to draw, design and program my actual island into a sort of game - a game in which just abotu anything is possible (swimming, climbing trees, introducing new species of plants and animals, creating a family, and interacting in millions of other ways).

"The island was Gandhian: it resisted by not resisting" (pg 300). This is sometimes the best solution: Don't fight back, or go offensive, nor defensive, but just don't even acknowledge negative thoughts that enter the mind. This isn't always the best way though, as nothing is conquered this way, but sometimes, it is the only way to avoid being crushed.

On page 301, Pi talks of his idea that the island isn't anchored to the bottom of the ocean, but rather is a floating mass of algae, a true 'living island'. I would like to research this and see what I can find.

The deadly danger of the island was surprising, to say the least. Haha, my island certainly doesn't have acidic algae. Anyway, I don't quite understand why Pi decided to leave the island. Though it can't be stood upon at nightm the rest of the time it is perfect, and people normally sleep at night anyway. What suddenly changed his attitude toward the island? The teeth? He's eaten human flesh before, so that shouldn't bother him. Was is the prospect of never being found? Nope, he said himself that the island might make itself to land, thereby saving him. If not these, then what?

Update:
He would rather search for land and people than live a half-life of "physical comfort and spiritual death". This is another theme in the book. Pi decides that life is more than nice scenery and good food; life requires a spiritual aspect as well. However good our lives seem, they amount to death without God.

It was really sad the way Richard Parker left Pi. I can understand Pi's sorrow. His only friend, his only family, gone, with no words of gratitude or farewell spoken. Gone forever. That is a sad thing, very sad.

I agree with Martel when he says, "It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go" (pgs 316-317).
When things are left hanging, left uncompleted, we can only move so far ahead in life before having to come back and deal with those things which were left behind.

I like how martel includes in the book Pi's 'Thank You' to all the kind people who helped him when he landed. Though short and simple, it was well-done.

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