Raise your hand if you liked it.
Raise your hand if you got at least partway through it, thinking that it was a true story.
(I feel so sheepish. Yes, the premise is a little fantastical, but I was just so caught up in the story that I didn't really pause to consider that it might not be at all realistic.)
So, yes, a while ago I cracked open Life of Pi—and subsequently devoured the whole thing in a short amount of time. A really good book, by the way. I saw it at the library and knew that a couple of friends had read it and liked it, so I thought I would give it a whirl. I had kind of missed the boat on this one up until now, since it was published 10 years ago, or something. (Oh man. So many unintentional puns already.)
Also, in an interesting bit of news, I just read that they are making a movie about it and it will be directed by Ang Lee, to be released next year. Very interesting.
So it was a good book, but the point today is something else. The story is basically about a boy who is on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean—with a tiger. There is a lot of discussion in the book about wild animals and their wildness, but I just kept thinking that, with the tiger knowing where his meals were coming from and having no one else around but the boy, he would eventually calm down a bit and get used to him. I'm probably just totally naive about such things, but these were the thoughts crossing my mind. So I was a little dubious that the tiger would remain so untamed and so ferocious the whole time. But then I learned my lesson a couple nights after I finished the book.
It was nighttime and I was busy working on my book when I heard some scratching and hubbub outside my window. The blinds were closed so I couldn't see anything. Our cat sometimes hangs out by my window, but she never scratches or makes a ruckus. And this was definitely a ruckus. I didn't want to raise the blinds and scare the creature away, so I went outside to see what it was. When I got out there, I saw that it was a raccoon. Probably a young one, judging by its size. (But, like I said, I'm no wild animal expert.)
I watched as it came away from my window, navigated around the porch railing. and moved toward me until it was about six feet away—when we made eye contact. At this point, I was honestly trying to think back to the book, wondering if I should make eye contact with it and stare it down or avoid any eye contact at all. What would Pi have done? I couldn't remember! Nonetheless, eye contact was made and I watched it for a good, long 20 seconds. It didn't budge. It didn't blink. It just kept its wide eyes locked on mine, and I'll admit that it made me a bit nervous. I could sense the wildness in it, the capability to pounce at any minute and claw me into oblivion. I don't know. It's silly, to be scared of animal that was maybe a foot tall, but I'll admit that I was a little. It was the uncertainty that did it, I think. I didn't know what to expect from it. I didn't know how to read it. I didn't know what it would do next. I could tell it felt a little threatened, and its fear transferred to me.
After our stare down, it looked away and walked off into the night. But I learned that evening that if a wild raccoon can scare me like that, I believe a tiger on a lifeboat could be, maybe, a hundred times worse. The fear of the wildness is real. So I guess I'll believe that part of it, but not the whole story. (Dang gullibility...) And how's that for a real-world connection to literature?
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