Diversity in All Forms! discussion

The topic/theme for May is Religion/Spiritual beliefs/Practices.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Does anyone else sometimes read multiple books about the topic selected? I notice myself doing this a lot. Like, J. California Cooper (author pick) writes about slavery, so I picked up a couple of books from the library about slavery. I've done this with past topics too. Next month is religion and we are reading Life of Pi, so I am reading a book about Scientology right now also.

I was just interested to see if anyone else does this.

I found the election pretty challenging so read Trump Revealed, then Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, Haidt's The Righteous Mind, Putnam and Campbell's American Grace (also a good religion read), and most recently Desmond's Evicted. It's been a fairly circuitous, but helpful journey.

Sometimes I do this journey-taking intentionally – as with these books – but other times I find connections that I hadn't been looking for and wouldn't have found except that I had recently been reading something else.

I do this all the time, often mixing fiction and non-fiction around a specific topic, most recently books on ethnic & racial subcultures.

@Jeanne - I recently wrote an article about the election if you're interested. I'm not mentioning this as a plug, but rather because I'd welcome your feedback after the intellectual journey you've taken.

Michael wrote: "@Jeanne - I recently wrote an article about the election if you're interested. I'm not mentioning this as a plug, but rather because I'd welcome your feedback after the intellectual journey you've ..."

Send me the link??? :)

Michael wrote: "@Jeanne - I recently wrote an article about the election if you're interested. I'm not mentioning this as a plug, but rather because I'd welcome your feedback after the intellectual journey you've ..."

Hi Jeanne. Here's a link:
http://atlantablackstar.com/2017/03/3...

Thx!

This is one of my favourite books and authors. Yann Martel actually sent 101 books to our ex prime minister along with a letter stating what he thought he could get out of reading said book. He did this because our PM seemed to have a lack of appreciation for the arts. I have been reading those books and am discovering some great reads!

Mariah wrote: "Does anyone else sometimes read multiple books about the topic selected? I notice myself doing this a lot. Like, J. California Cooper (author pick) writes about slavery, so I picked up a couple of ..."

I do this all the time. Some of my themed topics are the Holocaust, Slavery, Prisons, Religion, Poverty, Psychology(how the mind works), etc.

Interesting! What books have you been reading currently?
Right now I keep reading about ex-scientologists. That is my latest obsession

I have only read two books on Scientology then I switched to Mormons. I just got one about Amish this week, lol. I'm also picking up one of my library holds today on Buddhism.

This year I have gotten into the court system, politics, and poverty.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption was an excellent book written by an attorney who lives and fights for prisoners, sometimes wrongly accused, in the south.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness which was excellent. I was going to read Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration but I got to bogged down with non fiction....I needed a break, lol.

I read Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs which shows why The War On Drugs in the US doesn't work.

And then
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. I live in an area similar to what the books shows so it wasn't eye opening to me. I also didn't care for the main character. He got a bit full of himself, IMO. I know....not the popular opinion, lol.
Then $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America which is sad.
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City which made me mad.


Then onto African American/slavery/apartheid:
Redfield Farm: A Novel of the Underground Railroad about the Underground Railroad.

Homegoing which I loved about two sisters in Africa, who didn't know it. One lives in the castle above the dungeon and the other is below about to be shipped to the US as a slave. It follows the paths of both of their future families in both places.

Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood Growing up half black and half white during Apartheid. Very good.

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race



And then on to fantasy type books:
The Bear and the Nightingale
The President's Hat
and soon Norse Mythology



When I started the prison book I ordered about 6 more from my library. I ended up leaving them at the library. It was overload, lol.

Jeanne wrote: "I found the election pretty challenging so read Trump Revealed, then Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, Haidt's The Righteous Mind, Putnam and Campbell's American Grace (also a good religion read), and most ..."


Sure I just added 3 of your books to my list, lol.

Did you agree with the findings in The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion? Personally I am tired of all politicians and politics. The world could be a better place without them...after all they "all" got us into the mess we live in today and I don't trust any of them.


From my recent books I've read even presidents I liked fell off the top rungs of the ladder. It was disappointing.

Michael wrote: "Michael wrote: "@Jeanne - I recently wrote an article about the election if you're interested. I'm not mentioning this as a plug, but rather because I'd welcome your feedback after the intellectual..."


Ha....I think Tesla is the new Enron.

Lisa, I was going down your poverty/class list and it looks like our reading tastes overlap significantly. I've read about half from that list this year – or previously.

Michael, I haven't yet made it to your article, but plan to do so. Thanks!

Jeanne wrote: "Lisa, I was going down your poverty/class list and it looks like our reading tastes overlap significantly. I've read about half from that list this year – or previously.

Michael, I haven't yet ma..."

I think we will be able to share a lot of books. I was reading a few of your reviews this morning and picked up Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis and Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience from my library today. I have quite a few books to read before that but I'll get to it.

Lisa wrote: "Did you agree with the findings in The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion?"

There are parts of Haidt's book that are very compelling, especially as ways of understanding others who are different than us and understanding the election. Where I run aground, though, is that Haidt suggests that all conservatives tend to value purity, loyalty, and authority to a greater degree than liberals (and he doesn't really mean all). There are lots of ways to be conservative, just as there are lots of ways to be liberal.

I like Haidt's Happiness Hypothesis more, although may have been more influenced by Righteous Mind

Has anyone else finished Life of Pi yet? I liked it much more than Room, which I'm currently reading.

Jeanne wrote: "Has anyone else finished Life of Pi yet? I liked it much more than Room, which I'm currently reading."

I love Life of pi!

Veronica PARENTAL GUIDANCE ALERT: A Court of Mist and Fury is an EROTICA/NEW ADULT but most booktubers won't tell you wrote: "I love Life of pi!"

Me, too! I think there are so many ways of thinking about this book, so many layers. We made a good choice with this one!

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

This is my second time reading 'life of Pi'.

What is kinda mind-blowing to me is that in finding out there were so many different religions caused me to become an atheist, unlike Pi, who became a champion cherry picker.

aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "What is kinda mind-blowing to me is that in finding out there were so many different religions caused me to become an atheist, unlike Pi, who became a champion cherry picker. "

Cherry picker and synthesizer.

I am still waiting for this book to come in. It must be super popular. Anyone else having that problem?

I can't help but wonder why the author is conflating TWO things together consistently, because it must mean something since this is a literary novel. What I think:

Pi's fear-based obsession with worshiping all of the gods at the same time as his experience of the tooth and claw of animals. (view spoiler)[His father took him to the zoo at age 8 where he saw an animal torn apart. Again on the raft and lifeboat, he not only saw a hyena which he thought ugly disembowel a zebra which he had thought beautiful, and he saw a favorite animal he has known most of his life, Orange Juice, whom he loved, have her head torn off. (hide spoiler)]

On one hand, he prays and prays and prays and prays hoping there is life after death, while seeing animals he likes die and die and die and die and die and die. (view spoiler)[Not to mention the deaths of his family. (hide spoiler)]

I think his obsession with making sure he prays to every god he hears about is about a sweaty, bowel-loosing horror he is feeling. The surface of the story to some readers is gee, I love life! Affirm life! But underlying his fierce determination is a terror of dying. I think he is afraid there is no afterlife. It might be praying to every god in the world is an expression of a desperate anxiety and lack of faith.

aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "The surface of the story to some readers is gee, I love life! Affirm life! But underlying his fierce determination is a terror of dying."

Existentialists say it's always about fear of death, separation, meaninglessness, responsibility, finiteness, making choices.

Btw, I believe the tiger story, not the cook story. I think Pi had one delusion - the Frenchman.

That island, though....

Quoted from Wikipedia:

"In Yann Martel's 2001 novel Life of Pi, the protagonist encounters a floating island of carnivorous algae inhabited by meerkats while shipwrecked in the Pacific Ocean. At a book reading in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Martel explained that the carnivorous algae island had the purpose of representing the more fantastical of two competing stories in his novel and challenge the reader to a "leap of faith."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preda...

; )

Just for fun, I googled stuff that seems to be maybe sources for some of this book's ideas. But it is too deep for me, actually. However, I thought I'd put it in...

Remember the ship's name? Tzimtzum. It turns out this is a concept in the Kabbala, specifically a version developed by a man called Isaac Luria (1534-1572). Tzimtzum describes how The Infinite Divine withdraws leaving a space for the finite to be created. (Don't ask me what it means, I'm just copying the description.)

The character Pi was studying Isaac Luria's cosmology theory for his religious studies thesis in college.

The author was born in Spain. The Kabbalah was expanded on famously after an expulsion of Kabbalah thinkers in 16th century from Spain.

Quoted from Wikipedia:

"The 16th century renaissance of Kabbalah in the Galilean community of Safed, which included Joseph Karo, Moshe Alshich, Cordovero, Luria and others, was shaped by their particular spiritual and historical outlook. After the 1492 Expulsion from Spain they felt a personal urgency and responsibility on behalf of the Jewish people to hasten Messianic redemption. "

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luria...

"The tzimtzum or tsimtsum (Hebrew צמצום ṣimṣūm "contraction/constriction/condensation") is a term used in the Lurianic Kabbalah to explain Isaac Luria's new doctrine that God began the process of creation by "contracting" his Ein Sof (infinite) light in order to allow for a "conceptual space" in which finite and seemingly independent realms could exist. This primordial initial contraction, forming a Khalal/Khalal Hapanui ("vacant space", חלל הפנוי‎) into which new creative light could beam, is denoted by general reference to the tzimtzum. In contrast to earlier, Medieval Kabbalah, this made the first creative act a concealment/Divine exile rather than unfolding revelation. This dynamic crisis-catharsis in the Divine flow is repeated throughout the Lurianic scheme.

Because the tzimtzum results in the "empty space" in which spiritual and physical Worlds and ultimately, free will can exist, God is often referred to as "Ha-Makom" (המקום‎ lit. "the Place", "the Omnipresent") in Rabbinic literature ("He is the Place of the World, but the World is not His Place"). In Kabbalistic interpretation, this describes the paradox of simultaneous Divine presence and absence within the vacuum and resultant Creation. Relatedly, Olam — the Hebrew for "World/Realm" — is derived from the root עלם meaning "concealment". This etymology is complementary with the concept of Tzimtzum in that the subsequent spiritual realms and the ultimate physical universe conceal to different degrees the infinite spiritual lifeforce of creation. Their progressive diminutions of the Divine Ohr (Light) from realm to realm in creation are also referred to in the plural as secondary tzimtzumim (innumerable "condensations/veilings/constrictions" of the lifeforce). However, these subsequent concealments are found in earlier, Medieval Kabbalah. The new doctrine of Luria advanced the notion of the primordial withdrawal (a dilug – radical "leap") in order to reconcile a causal creative chain from the Infinite with finite Existence."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzimtzum

Thank you, aPriL! So another way of looking at Life of Pi is as an existential crisis, where Pi needs to make some existential space and find some sort of resolution about the sort of person he is? That he needed to leave home, be thrown into the void (metaphorically rather than literally as a straightforward reading of this book suggests) to become himself?

I should read Life of Pi again already.

Jeanne wrote: "Thank you, aPriL! So another way of looking at Life of Pi is as an existential crisis, where Pi needs to make some existential space and find some sort of resolution about the sort of person he is?..."

That is how I am interpretating it! : )

Plus about the name 'Pi"

"No number can claim more fame than pi. ... Defined as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, pi, or in symbol form, π, seems a simple enough concept. But it turns out to be an "irrational number," meaning its exact value is inherently unknowable."

"Ancient mathematicians apparently found the concept of irrationality completely maddening. It struck them as an affront to the omniscience of God, for how could the Almighty know everything if numbers exist that are inherently unknowable?"

http://www.livescience.com/34132-what...

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I can't believe it's the end of May already. I haven't even opened this book yet. Lol. It's next on my list. Hopefully, I'll get through it in time to post here.

Lulu wrote: "I can't believe it's the end of May already. I haven't even opened this book yet. Lol. It's next on my list. Hopefully, I'll get through it in time to post here."

If you can't, no worries! I am still waiting for my copy to come in hahah Then I will read it.

I've started the audiobook. It has my attention so far.

aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "I can't help but wonder why the author is conflating TWO things together consistently, because it must mean something since this is a literary novel. What I think:

Pi's fear-based obsession with ..."


This pretty much sums up my thoughts on this book!

Because of Pi's views on religion and lack of faith. I tend to believe the cook story.

I finished this a few weeks ago, and to be honest, I wasn't sure I'd like it. Given the subject matter, but to my surprise I did. In fact, I still find myself thinking of Pi, all these weeks later. If anything, this book made me consider my own spirituality and beliefs and their place in my own life. Although, I must say that while I would rather prefer the animal story, I can't help but believe the cook story is the truth.