What may serve merely as an inconsequential footnote for history is enough to seal the fate for a man or woman in Red Dust Lane.  

Years of Red Dust: Stories of Shanghai.
Looks like a marvelous book!

Life in France in the year 2000 - hmmmmm...

A very useful bookmarklet...

Anyone who cares about words and about the English language will treasure this. Thanks, Mark Willis, for posting.

I just ordered a pair of these shoes after trying them on here...the perfect solution to my toe rubbing problem which causes blisters! :-)
Of course, I am used to going barefoot indoors all the time.

Original Essays

How I Wrote Life of Pi

by Yann Martel

 

I would guess that most books come from the same mix of three elements: influence, inspiration and hard work. Let me detail how each one came into play in the writing of Life of Pi.

Influence

Ten or so years ago, I read a review by John Updike in the New York Times Review of Books. It was of a novel by a Brazilian writer, Moacyr Scliar. I forget the title [editor's note: it's Max and the Cats], and John Updike did worse: he clearly thought the book as a whole was forgettable. His review — one of those that makes you suspicious by being mostly descriptive, without critical teeth, as if the reviewer were holding back — oozed indifference. But one thing about it struck me: the premise. The novel, as far as I can remember, was about a zoo in Berlin run by a Jewish family. The year is 1933 and, not surprisingly, business is bad. The family decides to emigrate to Brazil. Alas, the ship sinks and one lone Jew ends up in a lifeboat with a black panther. What displeased Updike about the story? I don't remember him being clear about it. Was it that the allegory marched with too heavy a tread, the parallel between the black panther and the Nazis too obvious? Did the premise wear its welcome out? Was it the tone? The style? The translation? Whatever it was, the book fatigued Updike but it had the effect on my imagination of electric caffeine. I marvelled. What perfect unity of time, action and place. What stark, rich simplicity. Oh, the wondrous things I could do with this premise. I felt that same mix of envy and frustration I had felt with Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea, that if only I had thought of it I could have done something great with it. But — damn! — the idea had been faxed to the wrong muse. I looked for the book, but booksellers consulted their computers and shook their heads. And then I forgot about it. I wanted to forget about it. I didn't really want to read the book. Why put up with the gall? Why put up with a brilliant premise ruined by a lesser writer. Worse, what if Updike had been wrong? What if not only the premise but also its rendition were perfect? Best to move on. I wrote my first novel. I travelled. Romances started and ended. I travelled some more. Four or five years went by.

Inspiration

I was in India. It was my second time. Another stint to shake me and dazzle me. The start of the trip had been rough. I had arrived in Bombay, which is indeed a crowd, but one that was bypassing me. I felt terribly lonely. One night I sat on my bed and wept, muffling the sounds so that my neighbours would not hear me through the thin walls. Where was my life going? Nothing about it seemed to have started or added up to much. I had written two paltry books that had sold about a thousand copies each. I had neither family nor career to show for my 33 years on Earth. I felt dry and indifferent. Emotions were a bother. My mind was turning into a wall. And if that weren't enough, the novel I had planned to write while in India had died. Every writer knows the feeling. A story is born in your mind and it thrills you. You nurture it like you would a fire. You hope to see it grow and eventually be born on paper. But at one point, you look at it and you feel nothing. You feel no pulse. The characters don't speak naturally, the plot does not move, the descriptions don't come to you ? everything about your story is thankless work. It has died.

I was in need of a story. More than that, I was in need of a Story.

I got to Matheran, the hill station closest to Bombay. It's a small place high up, with beautiful views over the surrounding plains, and it has the peculiarity of not being able to accommodate cars, autorickshaws or motorcycles. You get there by toy train or by taxi, and then you must walk or ride a horse. The closest you get to the noises of a motor on Matheran's streets of fine, reddish earth are the rumbling, horking sounds of Indians spewing out betel juice. The peace of the place is blessed and utterly un-Indian. It was there, on top of a big boulder to be precise, that I remembered Scliar's premise.

Suddenly, my mind was exploding with ideas. I could hardly keep up with them. In jubilant minutes whole portions of the novel emerged fully formed: the lifeboat, the animals, the intermingling of the religious and the zoological, the parallel stories.

Where did that moment of inspiration come from? Why did I think that religion and zoology would make a good mix? How did I think up the theme that reality is a story and we can choose our story and so why not pick "the better story" (the novel's key words)?

I could give approximate answers. That India, where there are so many animals and religions, lent itself to such a story. That tensions simmering just below my level of consciousness were probably feverishly pushing me to come up with a story. But in truth I don't know. It just happened. Some synapses in my brain started firing off and I came up with ideas that were not there a moment before.

I now had a reason to be in India.

Hard Work

I visited all the zoos I could find in the south of India. I interviewed the director of the Trivandrum Zoo. I spent time in temples, churches and mosques. I explored the urban settings for my novel and took in the nature around them. I tried to immerse myself as much as possible in the Indianness of my main character. After six months I had enough local colour and detail.

I returned to Canada and spent a year and a half doing research. I read the foundational texts of Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. I read books on zoo biology and animal psychology. I read castaway and other disaster stories.

All the while, in India and in Canada, I took notes. On the page, in a smashed-up, kaleidoscopic way, Life of Pi began to take shape. I took a while to decide what animal would be my main animal protagonist. At first I had an elephant in mind. The Indian elephant is smaller than the African, and I thought an adolescent male would fit nicely in the lifeboat. But the image of an elephant in a lifeboat struck me as more comical than I wanted. I changed to a rhinoceros. But rhinos are herbivores and I could not see how I could keep a herbivore alive in the high seas. And a constant diet of algae struck me as monotonous for both reader and writer, if not for the rhino. I finally settled upon the choice that in retrospect seems the obvious one: a tiger. The other animals in the lifeboat ? the zebra, the hyena and the orang-utan ? arose naturally, each one a function of a human trait I wanted to embody, the hyena cowardliness, the orang-utan maternal instincts and the zebra exoticism.

I chose meerkats because I wanted a small ferret-like creature without the connotations that ferrets have. I wanted a neutral animal upon which I could paint a personality of my choice. Also, meerkats rhymed somewhat with mirage and meekness.

The blind, cannibal Frenchman in the other boat came to me in those first moments of inspiration in Matheran; in other words, I don't know where he came from. In my first draft, the scene with the Frenchman was much longer, close to 45 pages. It was one of my favourite sections. It was Beckett in the Pacific, I thought. Which was precisely the problem, my editor told me. It was funny and absurd, she told me, but in the wrong place, like a good joke told at a funeral. The tone was wrong; it broke with what came before and after. So I had to cut it down substantially.

The algae island floated into my imagination from the same dark luminous place from whence came the meerkats, the Frenchman and, indeed, the novel as a whole.

The rest was hard, fun work, a daily getting it down on the page that came not without hurdles, not without moments of doubt, not without mistakes and rewrites, but always, always with deep, gratifying pleasure, with a knowledge that no matter how the novel would fare, I would be happy with it, that it helped me understand my world a bit better.

Yann Martel after winning the 2002 Booker prize

Question: Congratulations on your win. You've said that you like simple stories and can't finish Günter Grass or Salman Rushdie... So which authors do you like?

Yann Martel: Did I really say that? Funny, because my favourite book, the one I'd take to a desert island, would be Dante's Divine Comedy, hardly a "simple story". I guess what I meant - what I was balking at - were stories that are overly, deliberately convoluted. The Grass I had in mind was The Flounder. Couldn't finish that. But I loved The Tin Drum. And I love Rushdie. Admittedly, I didn't finish The Satanic Verses.

Q: This year's Booker was surrounded by controversy, from the suggestion that US writers should be allowed to enter, to the accidental announcement of your win, and the debates over the number and types of books that should be submitted to the judges. So... were you interested in all the news and gossip around the prize or did it pass you by?

YM: I followed it. But the Booker doesn't make as much noise in Berlin, where I'm living at the moment, as it does in Britain or in Canada, so I didn't get the gossip hot off the press but indirectly, through my publicist. It all seemed quite unreal. I only started taking it in once I got to London for the gala.

Q: Do you think American novels should be submitted?

YM: No. It wouldn't add anything to the Booker as far as British and Commonwealth readers are concerned - we're already quite aware of good books that come out of the US - and it wouldn't help Commonwealth writers in the US. The prize is well known there. Opening it up to Americans would make it less foreign, and therefore less interesting to them. There's another point to be considered: the prize mustn't become unwieldy. Opening it up to the entire English-speaking world would make it just that.

Q: I'm writing from Brazil. I'm a journalist from a national newspaper, called Folha de S Paulo. I read that you decided to write your Life of Pi after reading a review of the Brazilian Moacyr Scliar. I would like to know if you read his book, or just the review.

YM: No, I never read the book. But since the "scandal" I've been sent three photocopies of it, so now I'm swimming in copies of Max and His Cats. I'll read it as soon as the Booker madness dies down.

Q: What impact do you think literary prizes have on literary culture?

YM: They bring attention to literary books, which is a good thing. If they make people buy a good book they otherwise wouldn't have bought, that's great. If, because of that, they buy other books, that's even better. On the down side, it does create a "celebrity" culture around certain books and authors, casting into darkness other, more demanding works. But I don't know what we would gain by eliminating prizes, and I don't see how the jury system for awarding them can be improved. There will always be an element of the arbitrary in literary prizes.

Q: What do you think about globalisation?

YM: If by globalisation you mean fair trade on a level playing field, it's great. If you mean hypocritical posturing that favours first-world economies over third-world economies, I hate it. I also take globalisation to be strictly an economic term. Cultural globalisation is anathema to real culture, which is local.

Q: I finished Life of Pi today. So - which is the real story? Was Richard Parker in fact Pi all along? His evil side (or real side)? Anyway, I loved it. I'm going to read it for a second time, starting tomorrow.

YM: You decide which is the real story.

Q: I've read that Life of Pi was rejected by several publishers. Did you become discouraged at any stage? How did you maintain a measure of psychological fortitude? As a writer, I know only too well the anguish of that rejection note.

YM: It was rejected by several publishers, but only in the UK. And only my agent knew that. I only heard of the ones who accepted my book. That's the good thing about agents: they sometimes keep you blissfully ignorant. Mostly I have had extraordinary good luck with Pi.

Q: What is your favourite type of pie?

YM: Pumpkin pie.

Q: What kind of fractions does a typical "writing day" break down into? 10% doodling; 30% preparing elaborate meals; 5% writing; 55% walking an imaginary dog? How does the day usually shape up?

YM: I'm not that inefficient! I do play a few games of solitaire and FreeCell before I get started, but once I'm working my only breaks are to make tea and answer phone calls. I'm not a fast writer, but I am hardworking: when I'm in front of my computer I can spend hours on end getting sentences down from the dream world on to my screen. It's a joy.

Q: Martin Amis, writing in reaction to a young novelist's book which plagiarised The Rachel Papers, said something to the effect that all plagiarism contains something of the deathwish - that plagiarists want to be caught and punished. Now that the New York Times has publicly debunked your Powell's article, How I Wrote Life of Pi, would you please explain how you could have written so many fatal misstatements about the novel from which you so clearly appropriated the premise for The Life of Pi?

It is very curious indeed why you should begin an article ostensibly about the "influence" and "inspiration" behind the writing of The Life of Pi by publicly and falsely ridiculing the novel from which you took its premise. Were you trying to justify its influence? If there is nothing wrong with using other people's ideas, why would you go to such lengths to condemn the author and book which provided the creative origin for your work? How would your amend your statements now that they have been refuted?

Could you also explain what you believe to be the difference between plagiarism and influence and tell the reader why your writing isn't an example of the former?

sources:
1: www.nytimes.com/2002/11/06/books/06NOVE.html
2: www.powells.com/fromtheauthor/martel.html

YM: "Debunked"? "Fatal misstatements"? What are you, some weirdo conspiracy theorist? Let me debunk your stupid questions and their many fatal misstatements. These are the facts: (1) 12 years ago I read in an American paper a review of a novel by a writer I'd never heard of. The premise struck me. I tried to find the book in Montreal. Couldn't find it. Forgot about the book, never read it, end of story. (2) Seven years later, I'm in India. I remember the premise - its bare bones: boy, wild animal, lifeboat - and suddenly all kinds of ideas come to my mind. I decide to write my own book. (3) Five years later, I'm asked to write an essay on how I wrote the book. Which I do, quickly and for no money, and honestly. Clearly I got some of my facts wrong: it wasn't John Updike and it wasn't the New York Times. So, I got it wrong. So what? Do I gain anything by dragging in one of the most famous writers in the world and one of the most famous newspapers? I'll tell you something: I got other things wrong too. I told people the Scliar book was about a Jew who ends up in a lifeboat with a panther. Well, Max apparently isn't a Jew, and it's a jaguar. I suppose I'm up to something evil with that one. The mistakes I made in the Powell's essay were due to poor memory.

And what's this about me "publicly and falsely ridiculing" the Scliar novel? I suggest you go back to school and learn how to read. I never ridiculed Scliar in any way, shape or form. The Powell's essay makes clear that I was struck by his premise and that I was reacting to what the review had to say about his book.

In the essay and in every interview I've done, print, radio and television, I've mentioned where I got my premise. It was public knowledge for months before the Brazilian press decided to turn it into a scandal.

I have suffered from honestly mentioning where I got "the spark of life". But the idea of a person on a craft with an animal is a premise that has a long history. I could have said I got it from the Bible and no one would have raised an eyebrow.

If you think every author who borrows is a plagiariser, you clearly know nothing about creativity (or the history of literature). I would suggest this to you: don't read anything more recent than Gilgamesh, otherwise you might get upset. My God, I've wasted a lot of breath on you.

Q: What do you know of the works of the Brazilian writer Moacyr Scliar apart from the book Max and the Cats?

YM: Since this stupid scandal broke, I've learned much about Scliar and his work. In fact, I've spoken to the man. He's a gentleman.

Q: Is your exploration of multifaith in Life of Pi a part of your exploration of the boundaries and blurrings of reality, fiction and storytelling? Is multifaith comparable to a multiple-reality existence?

YM: Yes. And yes. Reality is how we interpret it. Imagination and volition play a part in that interpretation. Which means that all reality is to some extent a fiction. This is what I explore in the novel.

Q: I am not so sure whether the implicit or explicit questions of plagiarism are at all interesting. I am far more interested in this image of the tiger and how that beautiful creature figures in so many novels and stories - one thinks of Rudyard Kipling and others. I always wanted to write a tale about a boy and a tiger. I had a friend who had polio who lived in Malaya, who once walked home followed all the way to the mission house by a man-eating tiger. The animal creates fear and wonderment, and I only hope that more people read your novel.

YM: Thank you. May Richard Parker always be at your side.

Q: I think I understand at least some of the things the narrator learns in the novel, but what does Richard Parker learn?

YM: Survival.

Q: What is your favourite place to be? And what are your feelings about Canada (not Montreal)?

YM: I'm happy pretty well anywhere on this big, beautiful planet. I love Canada. It's a wonderful political act of faith that exists atop a breathtakingly beautiful land.

Q: Do you think that "magic realism" is a form of fiction that can only be written by marginalised people, or those who feel a gap between their roots and the country/language they live in? Do you think a writer who did not have such a "gap" in their consciousness could write in that particular mode?

YM: Interesting question. I'm not sure I know how to answer it. I'm a child of a white, western, middle-class family, so hardly marginalised, yet I've written a novel that some call magical realist. Clearly I don't fit the pattern you have in mind. I think art comes from some sense of discomfort with the world, some sense of not quite fitting with it. That sense of not fitting might happen more frequently with peoples who are marginalised, but would that result in magic realism being a favoured mode of storytelling - I don't know.

Q: I believed it all, up until the island and the meerkats, and then my suspended disbelief started to wobble earthwards... did you intend to create that effect in the reader? To see how far they would follow you?

YM: Yes, I did. I wanted to push the reader till he/she was forced to make some leap of faith. If the island didn't do it, then I hoped the second story would.

Q: Are you an animal lover? Which are your favourites, and why?

YM: Animals, all of them, fill me with a sense of wonder. To me, they are walking and breathing mystery.

Q: What was your first novel about (I can't find it anywhere here in England)?

YM: It's about a boy who becomes a woman at 18, is a woman for seven years and then becomes a man again at 25. It's an exploration of sexual identity and orientation. It's more or less successful, I feel. Parts work well, but overall it doesn't do what I meant it to do.

Q: Do you find writing easy, or difficult? Did you always know it was what you wanted to do? Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

YM: I find creative writing a joy when I'm inspired. When I'm not, I can hardly string words together into coherent sentences. So, writing for me is either easy, or impossibly difficult. When it's easy, it's still a lot of work. But it doesn't feel like work.

I came to writing late, after dreaming myself into all kinds of other professions.

Advice? None. You've got to do it yourself and in your own way.

· This is an edited transcript of Yann Martel's online Q&A. To read the full thread, click here.