Yann Martel believes that writing helps him understand the complex things around him. His works are his quest to make the unknown known. In doing so, he has expressed his understanding of various aspects of life. Here are a few words of wisdom from the Compagnon de l’ordre du Canada (CC). Some of Yann Martel’s best quotes are handpicked for a better understanding of him.
Literature
Literature’s not just entertainment. It is an essential tool to look at the human condition. I don’t care if fellow citizens read or not; it’s not up to me to say how people should live their lives. But I believe people who lead should read.
Martel strongly believes that Literature is not just an art but a way of life. He highlights it in his interview with Stephen Moss. During the interview, when asked about his purpose in sending books to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He explained that Literature is not mere entertainment but a tool for understanding people. Further, he said that the person who wants to lead must read.
Reading helps one to understand people and their lives, particularly literary works. While reading, a person imagines what the author narrates, which allows him to sympathize and empathize with the characters. Thus, by reading wide, a leader experiences various emotions and understands the needs and expectations of the people better.
Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is colour that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.
Martel argues here that a literary work has a life of its own and makes sense. Like music that energizes a person and soothes a pained heart, a painting that relieves mental strain and pain, a literary work significantly affects its readers. For anyone who cannot enjoy music or a painting, it may seem like noise and scattered colors, but when one learns to enjoy it, it makes sense. So does a story.
Understanding Life
The world isn’t just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn’t that make life a story?
In his understanding of life, Martel believes that everything in this world does not stay the same for everyone. It changes according to people as their perspective changes. He believes that everyone’s life is a story. Depending on how each one views the world, multiple meanings are added, making every life a story.
It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.
Changing is inevitably human nature. It happens throughout a person’s life, both physically and mentally. Individuals change for many reasons; sometimes, they could be a person they meet. It could be more profound that one could never be the same again. In ‘Life of Pi‘ (Page 22), Martel reflects on the profound effects an individual leaves on other people.
When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival.
The survival instinct is standard in every living being, whether an animal or a human. Martel understands it and enumerates it through the lifeboat incidents in ‘Life of Pi‘. People are good as long they lead a peaceful life, but once their survival is questioned, they do not hold on to all their goodness. Pi’s life before and after losing his family is evidence of people’s selfish notions for survival.
You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.
The author of ‘Life of Pi‘ believes that one must understand life on the go. There is no way to stop life, plan the future, or expect it to go as one wishes. Life does not stay the same way for everyone. There are many bends and surprises on the go. One has to take the challenge and give their best.
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 at what it can.
Martel sees death as an envious lover clings to their beloved with the fear of being separated. Death is jealous and worried that something or someone might separate life from it. For that reason, it grabs onto whatever things it can take from the time at all possible opportunities.
Human Nature & Emotions
I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy.
Yann Martel deliberates on how fear enters a person and what it does to him. In the beginning, it is a mere doubt, yet fear could become a magnanimous thing quickly. It could destroy all the positivity, like happiness, calm, satisfaction, and many others. If one does not stop the fear, it will become a person’s weakest point within the blink of an eye.
Fear can shake one to their foundation, like how one feels when they are brought face to face with a dead end. It nestles memory like an infection.
Grief is a disease. We were riddled with its pockmarks, tormented by its fevers, broken by its blows. It ate at us like maggots, attacked us like lice- we scratched ourselves to the edge of madness. In the process we became as withered as crickets, as tired as old dogs.
In The High Mountains of Portugal, Martel says that grief, like a disease, could eat one alive. A person grieving would be tormented by it and left with its marks. Letting grief take over would allow it to consume like maggots and lice, leaving one to scratch oneself with madness. If one continues to grieve over things, it is natural that they will lose all energy and become like withered crickets and old dogs.
Love is a house with many rooms, this room to feed the love, this one to entertain it, this one to clean it, this one to dress it, this one to allow it to rest, and each of these rooms can also just as well be the room for laughing or the room for listening or the room for telling one’s secrets or the room for sulking or the room for apologising or the room for intimate togetherness, and, of course, there are the rooms for the new members of the household. Love is a house in which plumbing brings bubbly new emotions every morning, and sewers flush out disputes, and bright windows open up to admit the fresh air of renewed goodwill. Love is a house with an unshakable foundation and an indestructible roof.
Speaking of Love, Martel compares love to a house with many rooms. Like in a house with various rooms for various purposes, love has many rooms for cleaning, dressing, resting, laughing, listening to secrets, apologizing, etc. Martel highlights that it brings in new emotions every morning, flushes out disputes, and renews good things. He believes love is like a house with an unshakable foundation and indestructible roof, which cannot be destroyed easily.
When you’ve suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.
Martel knows that like love, fear, and grief, pain and suffering are also an inevitable part of a person’s life. However, he knows that if it follows a person one after another, it could significantly affect him. Thinking of it, Martel feels somber and says that experiencing pain is also an experience. When pain and suffering become a part of one’s life, any misfortune becomes meaningless, even though it is unbearable.
FAQ
What does Martel speak about in his writings?
Martel uses his writings to experiment with the things he does not understand. His writings are his way of understanding life around him. Thus, he explores various emotions and situations in human life, including faith, pain, love, fear, and many others.
Where does Yann Martel live?
Yann Martel’s family moved around a lot. Thus, he lived in various places, including Canada, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, India, Iran, and Turkey. Finally, he accepted a position as the Saskatoon Public Library’s writer-in-residence and settled in Saskatoon after receiving the prestigious award.
Which book inspired Yann Martel?
Martel received inspiration from writers like Dante Alighieri, Franz Kafka, Joseph Conrad, Nikolai Gogol, Sinclair Lewis, Moacyr Scliar, Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy, Alphonse Daudet, J.M. Coetzee, and Knut Hamsun. Among all the works, he said, Dante’s Divine Comedy is “the single most impressive book” he has ever read.
How does Yann Martel’s grounding in philosophy shape his fiction?
Yann Martel was a philosophy student in college, which influenced his writings considerably. In close observation, it is clear that all his works have a philosophical tint. His choice of questions to understand the meaning and interpret reality is quite philosophical, especially in Life of Pi.
