Pi in my Eye

I am an escapist. This is only the second time in recent memory that I've demonstrated it so definitively. The first time was when on the eve of a final year exam paper I was severely unprepared for, I did this: after covering only 1/5th of the syllabus stock, I climbed into my loft, pulled out Gone with the Wind marvelled at the film poster cover art and read the novel, end to end till the exam morning. even down to revisiting the most modestly arousing stretches. This behaviour is nothing short of depraved and a signal of something rugged sounding in psychology.

This time it's a freelance assignment I have to submit on Saturday. I had a whole weekend; sure I did all the relevant reading but something hard was coming in the way of putting it to msword. Then in crucial midweek ie. wednesday, I stole into my sister's room and saw this on her bed: Life of Pi. Who would have though this neighbour of mine, who was going through an Agatha Christie phase (for crying out!), would have the better sense to pick up Pi? I took it away and read it cover to cover and returned it the next day (today). It bears pointing out here that I am a notoriously slow reader in the best of circs. So all this flash reading says something?

As for the assignment, I still have 2 more rolling pages to fix together.
As for Life of Pi - read it!
(I like the way he's mimicked an Indian boy's thoughts but somehow it's easy to see where he was kind of stretching it; like aspects of the Mahabaratha or whatever that only firangs would end up bothering with and other pretty unlikely thinkings.
But Richard Parker and the possibilities are gripping. Read it.)
Yann Martel is exciting.