影片最後 Pi 問作家:"Which story do you prefer?"
注意:他不是問你覺得哪一個是真的,或哪一個比較可能發生,等等。他問的是「你會選擇相信哪一個故事?」
prefer 本身代表有不只一個選項可以讓你自由選擇,沒有強迫中獎。例如如果我去早餐店,服務生問我想喝甚麼,我問他有哪些選項,然後假如他說有茶又有咖啡。我可能會說這樣一句話:I prefer tea over coffee for breakfast.
回到電影情節。作家說:"The one with the tiger - it's a better story!"
Pi 微笑說:"Thank you. And so it goes with God."
看完電影應該很少人看不出這部電影不是動物頻道,而是講個人信仰和用甚麼態度怎麼面對人生困境。
但是很多人(台灣和中國)在這邊會錯意。
有的人說 Pi 是無神論,他比較信第二個故事。也有人說 Pi 信第一個故事,但是其實只是因為第一個故事讓他感覺比較好 (feel better),其實他在逃避現實,他知道第二個故事才是真的,等等。
雖然電影本來就是隨人看,但我想這邊有些人對英文的認知出了錯。
"It's a better story." 這句話的確很不精準,"better"的定義是甚麼? 但是腳本這麼寫可能是因為是兩個人在家喝茶對話。即使如此不精準,找任何一個母語是英文的人來都會說,這裡是指作家覺得第一個故事有意義多了! 跟哪個故事讓人自我感覺良好沒有關係。
Pi 微笑說謝謝,意思就是他本人也比較喜歡第一個故事,有老虎的那個。他最後突然回到作者之前很期待他的故事會讓他相信神這個話題上,然後說了這句:"And so it goes with God." 純粹字面上的翻譯,阿貓阿狗都會翻的那種,為;「信不信上帝也是如此」但是我換個方式翻:
- 你比較喜歡有上帝的人生還是沒上帝的人生正如同挑一個好故事一樣,換句話說,有沒有上帝是其次,你真正在找的是如何解釋人生的意義。
------- 從作家採訪學英文 (2013.05.31) ------
作者Q&A
I thought religion is like that (the number Pi), too: It's something "irrational" that helps make sense of things. ...
His (Pi's) argument (and mine) is that a vision of life that has a transcendental element is better than one that is purely secular and materialist. ...
My narrative strategy in writting this book was to write a story that was progressively harder to believe. ... Now will you believe in this crazy carnivorous island? I figure most readers will not believe it. ...
But I wanted that better story to have something unbelievable about it. ... BECAUSE every great thing in life — be it religion, love, any ideal — has an element of the unreasonable to it. We are not computers. We need the pull of the unreasonable to get us through life. The island represents that unreasonable element in the first story.
I would guess that every book is to some extent the intellectual autobiography of its author. Pi is interested in religions: so am I. Pi is open to all faiths: so am I. Pi is comfortable in different Godhouses: so am I. There is a sociocultural component to religions. Just as there are different ways of feeding the body, there are different ways of feeding the soul. Each religion is one group of people's attempt to understand ultimate reality. I think in each one there is a portion of truth and a portion of error. So I see in all great religions the same frame of being, only seen from a different perspective.
採訪影片2
主持人: One of the primary motivations for writing this book is to deal with the issue of human evil.
作者: Religion is a wonderful machine for digesting evil.
None of them (religions) are perfect. All of them are cultural attempts to understand what goes beyond culture.
------- 接下來為我個人看完影片後的感想,但不算是影評 -------