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Too many fiction books

Friday, June 24, 2005 ★ 12:44 ★ Category Books ★ Permanent url

Last night I finished reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel, (see my previous blog post on this book). A marvellous book with an incredible story. I won’t give any spoilers, but I really recommend it to anyone who likes absurd stories. You can finish it in just a couple of days (although it took me longer because I had a two week reading gap).

Right away I started reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I’ve only read for half an hour now, but I’m already at chapter 59. All chapter numbers are prime numbers, which could be a reason on its own to read the book.

The main character in the book is an autistic boy giving a detailed account on his world. Although the book is funny, it contains no humor. The boy doesn’t like jokes, because they’re all lies. He doesn’t like lies, because if he doesn’t tell the truth, he has to think of all other false stories he could tell, like how there was (or was not) a rhinoceros in the room while he had breakfast. Do you get it?

Oh, another book-related note: I can’t wait for the new Harry Potter to arrive!

Life of Pi, death and religion

Wednesday, June 8, 2005 ★ 21:44 ★ Category Books ★ Permanent url

Yesterday I started reading the novel Life of Pi, a best-seller by Yann Martel, which was recommended to me by a friend. The book tells the extraordinary story of a boy who survived a tragic accident on a cargo ship. His fellow survivors are all animals: a hyena, a zebra, an orang-utan and a tiger. Pi, as the boy is called, drifts at sea for more than two hundred days, fighting for his life and having magical thoughts. Sounds interesting to me.

Until now, I’ve only read a couple of chapters, but there are already two fragments I’d like to share. The first one is a note about the relation between life and death:

The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity—it’s envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs what it can.

The second one is about the three of the most wide-spread religions being basically the same:

... Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed (...) Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims.

Heh, while looking up the book on Amazon, the “related books” section mentions The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, telling the story of a boy who has Asperger Syndrome (some sort of autism). He’s obsessed by math, lists, patterns and structures, not unlike the average programmer… a must-read, according to my girlfriend. Luckily, she owns the book and I already have it here. If only I had time to read it…