possibility over plausibility

I read the Booker Prize winning book, Life of Pi, last week. Author, Yann Martel, says: "I would guess that most books come from the same mix of three elements: influence, inspiration and hard work," in his essay of how he came to write Life of Pi.

I've restrained my voice much in the past year because sometimes the truth stretches credulity.

For instance, the day I was reading about the Pi's upbringing in Hinduism and his adulation of Krishna's divine exploits, I found a brand-new copy of Bhagavad-Gita left unattended in a Decatur Street restroom. The next day, speaking to a friend unspooling the word yarn of "mere cats" -- of which there are none, btw -- led us to a new thread on meerkats. Later that afternoon, in Life of Pi, who could have anticipated a major plot twist involving meerkats. (As well, meerkats not being a common conversation piece in my everyday life.)

In the book itself, Martel describes in that borderland between fiction and factual, that he mailed the notes of newly penned novel he'd recently declared "emotionally dead" to fictitious address in Siberia from an equally fictitious address in Bolivia. After the post office, he saunters the streets, empty-handed and writes:

"I would have liked to say, "I'm a doctor," to those who asked me what I did, doctors being the current purveyors of magic and miracle."

And so that is where I find myself, today on Imbolc and the Feast of St. Brigid. There is a rich lore of symbol with myth associated with Brigid, patron goddess and saint to poet-seers, the fili (a word whose root means "to see').

I don't feel the need to ramble on about the "very fine line existed between story, poetry and incantation" this moment as one of the characters in a serialized story I'm weaving is named Sam MacBride, and so we'll get our chance.

And so, bear with me, as I ramble back into blogging. In other news, I'm starting a narrative game collaborative.

"I can well imagine an atheist's last words: "White, white! L-L-Love! My God!" -- and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, "Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain," and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story. - Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

art credits: Tomislav Torjanac artwork in Life of Pi: Deluxe Illustrated Edition; Brighid.

Comments

[Stillwater]

You do possess the of knack lighting up synapses of thought usually in the dark.

I'm so glad I stumbled over your awesome blog. There is undoubtedly a better suited adjective but it has jumped over a wall of dark synapses and escaped me.

[mike]

good to see you back.