I bought this book after watching the movie. That happened in December 2012. I remember it clearly. I enjoyed the story and specials effects from the movie. The movie itself is directed masterfully. But something did not click. In the movie the writer who looks for the grown Piscine Molitor Patel is told that if we wants to hear a story that can make him believe in God he should look for Mr Patel. So, I remember staying some minutes seating in the theater after the movie was finished, and I was not sure that what I saw made me believe in God. So I bought the book hoping that it would help me to clarify this point.
It took me two years since I bought it until I finished the reading of its last page. And still, I do not feel that I can connect the dots and say that the book made me believe in God. It is not that I do not believe in God. It is just that I do not feel that the book has produced that effect on me.
Despite of this, I did find so many parts of the story, quotes and thoughts that resonated with me. For some reason, I had the idea that the book was based on a true story, specially in the part where the boat ends in the coast of Mexico, the country where I was born and raised. In the end, I did enjoy the story. And hopefully, someday, when I come back to its pages, my new gained experience will help me to grasp a bigger portion of wisdom from it.
Some quotes and phrases from the book that I found very interesting and to which, at some point, I relate.
“Just beyond the ticket booth Father had had painted on a wall in bright red letters the question: DO YOU KNOW WHICH IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL IN THE ZOO? An arrow pointed to a small curtain. There were so many eager, curious hands that pulled at the curtain that we had to replace it regularly. Behind, it was a mirror.”
“Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can.”
“It was my luck to have a few good teachers in my youth, men and women who came into my dark head and lit a match.”
“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?”
“It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.”
“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 unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always … so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”
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