这一段深深地震动了我。 看到自己对于fear已有过的体会被作者这样淋漓尽致地书写出来，不得不佩服。没有丰富的经验和强大的内在是无法对fear有这样深刻的描写的。 I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a cle...
(展开)
I practised religious rituals that I adapted to the circumstances – solitary Masses without priests or consecrated Communion Hosts, darshans without murtis, and pujas with turtle meat for prasad, acts of devotion to Allah not knowing where Mecca was and getting my Arabic wrong. They brought me comfort, that is certain. But it was hard, oh, it was hard. Faith in God is an opening up, a letting ...(1回应)
2012-06-29 21:584人喜欢
I practised religious rituals that I adapted to the circumstances – solitary Masses without priests or consecrated Communion Hosts, darshans without murtis, and pujas with turtle meat for prasad, acts of devotion to Allah not knowing where Mecca was and getting my Arabic wrong. They brought me comfort, that is certain. But it was hard, oh, it was hard. Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love – but sometimes it was so hard to love.
Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation and weariness, I was afraid it would sink to the very bottom of the Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up.
At such moments I tried to elevate myself. I would touch the turban I had made with the remnants of my shirt and I would say aloud, "THIS IS GOD'S HAT!"
I would pat my pants and say aloud, "THIS IS GOD'S ATTIRE!"
I would point to Richard Parker and say aloud, "THIS IS GOD'S CAT!"
I would point to the lifeboat and say aloud, "THIS IS GOD'S ARK!"
I would spread my hands wide and say aloud, "THESE ARE GOD'S WIDE ACRES!"
I would point at the sky and say, "THIS IS GOD'S EAR!"
And in this way I would remind myself of creation and of my place in it.
But God's hat was always unravelling. God's pants were falling apart. God's cat was a constant danger. God's ark was a jail. God's wide acres were slowly killing me. God's ear didn't seem to be listening.
Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression....The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving.引自 Chapter 74
There were many skies. The sky was invaded by great white clouds, flat on the bottom but round and billowy on top. The sky was completely cloudless, of a blue quite shattering to the senses. The sky was a heavy, suffocating blanket of grey cloud, but without promise of rain. The sky was thinly overcast. The sky was dappled with small, white, fleecy clouds. The sky was streaked with high, thin c...
2013-03-26 21:063人喜欢
There were many skies. The sky was invaded by great white clouds, flat on the bottom but round and billowy on top. The sky was completely cloudless, of a blue quite shattering to the senses. The sky was a heavy, suffocating blanket of grey cloud, but without promise of rain. The sky was thinly overcast. The sky was dappled with small, white, fleecy clouds. The sky was streaked with high, thin clouds that looked like a cotton ball stretched apart. The sky was a featureless milky haze. The sky was a density of dark and blustery rain clouds that passed by without delivering rain. The sky was painted with a small number of flat clouds that looked like sandbars. The sky was a mere block to allow a visual effect on the horizon: sunlight flooding the ocean, the vertical edges between light and shadow perfectly distinct. The sky was a distant black curtain of falling rain. The sky was many clouds at many levels, some thick and opaque, others looking like smoke. The sky was black and spitting rain on my smiling face. The sky was nothing but falling water, a ceaseless deluge that wrinkled and bloated my skin and froze me stiff.
There were many seas. The sea roared like a tiger. The sea whispered in your ear like a friend telling you secrets. The sea clinked like small change in a pocket. The sea thundered like avalanches. The sea hissed like sandpaper working on wood. The sea sounded like someone vomiting. The sea was dead silent.
And in between the two, in between the sky and the sea, were all the winds.
And there were all the nights and all the moons.
To be a castaway is to be a point perpetually at the centre of a circle. However much things may appear to change— the sea may shift from whisper to rage, the sky might go from fresh blue to blinding white to darkest black— the geometry never changes. Your gaze is always a radius. The circumference is ever great. In fact, the circles multiply. To be a castaway is to be caught in a harrowing ballet of circles. You are at the centre of one circle, while above you two opposing circles spin about. The sun distresses you like a crowd, a noisy, invasive crowd that makes you cup your ears, that makes you close your eyes, that makes you want to hide. The moon distresses you by silently reminding you of your solitude; you open your eyes wide to escape your loneliness. When you look up, you sometimes wonder if at, the centre of a solar storm, if in the middle of the Sea of Tranquillity, there isn’t another one like you also looking up, also trapped by geometry, also struggling with fear, rage, madness, hopelessness, apathy.
Otherwise, to be a castaway is to be caught up in grim and exhausting opposites. When it is light, the openness of the sea is blinding and frightening. When it is dark, the darkness is claustrophobic. When it is day, you are hot and wish to be cool and dream of ice cream and pour sea water on yourself. When it is night, you are cold and wish to be warm and dream of hot curries and wrap yourself in blankets. When it is hot, you are parched and wish to be wet. When it rains, you are nearly drowned and wish to be dry. When there is food, there is too much of it and you must feast. When there is none, there is truly none and you starve. When the sea is flat and motionless, you wish it would stir. When it rises up and the circle that imprisons you is broken by hills of water, you suffer that peculiarity of the high seas, suffocation in open spaces, and you wish the sea would be flat again. The opposites often take place at the same moment, so that when the sun is scorching you till you are stricken down, you are also aware that it is drying the strips of fish and meat that are hanging from your lines and that it is a blessing for your solar stills. Conversely, when a rain squall is replenishing your fresh-water supplies, you also know that the humidity will affect your cured provisions and that some will probably go bad, turning pasty and green. When rough weather abates, and it becomes clear that you have survived the sky’s attack and the sea’s treachery, your jubilation is tempered by the rage that so much fresh water should fall directly into the sea and by the worry that it is the last rain you will ever see, that you will die of thirst before the next drops fall.
The worst pair of opposites is boredom and terror. Sometimes your life is a pendulum swing from one to the other. The sea is without a wrinkle. There is not a whisper of wind. The hours last forever. You are so bored you sink into a state of apathy close to a coma. Then the sea becomes rough and your emotions are whipped into a frenzy. Yet even these two opposites do not remain distinct. In your boredom there are elements of terror: you break down into tears; you are filled with dread; you scream; you deliberately hurt yourself. And in the grip of terror— the worst storm— you yet feel boredom, a deep weariness with it all.
Only death consistently excites your emotions, whether contemplating it when life is safe and stale, or fleeing it when life is threatened and precious.
Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher. Physically it is extraordinarily arduous, and morally it is killing. You must make adjustments if you want to survive. Much becomes expendable. You get your happiness where you can. You reach a point where you’re at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you’re the luckiest person on earth. Why? Because at your feet you have a tiny dead fish.引自 Chapter 78
Unfortunately, the novel sputtered, coughed and died. 作者自序，觉得这个说法真妙~ Richard Parker has stayed with me. I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without ...(4回应)
2012-11-19 21:203人喜欢
Unfortunately, the novel sputtered, coughed and died.引自 Chapter 1-4
作者自序，觉得这个说法真妙~
Richard Parker has stayed with me. I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. That pain is like an axe that chops at my heart.
It was the only pool that made Mamaji fall silent, his memory making too many lengths to mention.
Mamaji remembered, Father dreamed.
This is how I got my name when I entered this world, a last, welcome addition to my family, there years after Ravi: Piscine Molitor Patel.引自 Chapter 1-4
How he got his name~~~
Consider: the guests never leave their rooms; they expect not only lodging but full board; they receive a constant flow of visitors, some of whom are noisy and unruly. One has to wait until they saunter to their balconies, so to speak, before one can clean their rooms, and then one has to wait until they tire of the view and return to their rooms before one can clean the balconies; and their is such cleaning to do, for the guests are as unhygienic as alcoholics. Each guest is very particular about his or her diet, constantly complains about the slowness of the service, and never, never tips. To speak frankly, many are sexual deviants, either terribly repressed and subject to explosions of frenzied lasciviousness or openly depraved, in either case regular affronting management gross outrages of free sex and incest. Are these the sorts of guests you would welcome to your inn?引自 Chapter 1-4
这段比喻很妙
Every morning before I was out the main gate I had one last impression that was both ordinary and unforgettable: a pyramid of turtles; the iridescent snout of a mandrill; the stately silence of a giraffe; the obese, yellow open mouth of a hippo; the break-and-claw climbing of a macaw parrot up a wire fence; the greeting claps of a shoebill's bil; the senile, lecherous expression of a camel. And all these riches were had quickly, as I hurried to school. It was after school that I discovered in a leisurely way what it's like to have an elephant search your clothes in the snacks, its wheeze of disappointment at what an empty pantry your head is. I wish I could convey the perfection of a seal slipping into water or a spider monkey swinging from point to point or a lion merely turning its head. But language founders in such seas. Better to picture it in your head if you want to feel it.引自 Chapter 1-4
这段画面感太强，很好奇在电影里会有怎样的呈现！
But I don't insist. I don't mean to defend zoos. Close them all sown if you want (and let us hope that what wildlife remains can survive in what is left of the natural world). I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.引自 Chapter 1-4
It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse.
2013-06-11 21:212人喜欢
It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse.
Author's Notes: rich, noisy, functioning madness of India: (So I flew to Bombay.) This is not so illogical if you realize three things: that a stint in India will beat the restlessness out of any living creature; that a little money can go a long way there; and... 您这是多能引起我的共鸣啊！！！ Chapter 1 I miss the heat of India, the food, the house lizards on the walls, the musicals on the sil...
2012-10-05 22:58
Author's Notes:
rich, noisy, functioning madness of India: (So I flew to Bombay.) This is not so illogical if you realize three things: that a stint in India will beat the restlessness out of any living creature; that a little money can go a long way there; and...引自第1页
您这是多能引起我的共鸣啊！！！
Chapter 1
I miss the heat of India, the food, the house lizards on the walls, the musicals on the silver screen, the cows wandering the streets, the crows cawing...That pain is like an axe that chops at my heart...They were like nails being driven into my flesh引自第1页
Chapter 13
Hediger (1950): When two creatures meet, the one that is able to intimidate its opponents is recognized as socially superior, so that a social decision does not always depend on a fight; an encounter in some circumstances may be enough.引自第1页
Chapter 16
Brahman nirguna c.f. Brahman saguna
Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims.引自第1页
Chapter 21
What of God's silence? An intellect confounded yet a trusting sense of presence and of ultimate purpose.引自第1页
Chapter 35
Things didn't turn out the way they were supposed to, but what can you do? You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.引自第1页
Chapter 56
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.引自第1页
Chapter 57
Prusten is the quietest of tiger calls, a puff through the nose to express friendliness and harmless intentions.引自第1页
Chapter 58
A castaway's worst mistake is to hope too much and do too little. Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one's life away.引自第1页
Chapter 59
If you want to see wildlife, it is on foot, and quietly, that you must explore a forest. It is the same with the sea. You must stroll through the Pacific at a walking pace, so to speak, to see the wealth and abundance that it holds.引自第1页
Chapter 60
My suffering was taking place in a grand setting. I saw myself for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still.引自第1页
Chapter 77
The less I had to eat, the larger became the portions I dreamed of. My fantasy meals grew to be the size of India. A Ganges of dhal soup. Hot chapattis the size of Rajasthan. Bowls of rice as big as Uttar Pradesh. Sambars to flood all of Tamil Nadu. Ice cream heaped as high as the Himalayas.引自第1页
Chapter 99
Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?引自第1页
Why do people move? What makes them uproot and leave everything they've known for a great unknown beyond the horizon? Why climb this Mount Everest of formalities that makes you feel like a beggar? Why enter this jungle of foreignness where everything is new, strange and difficult? The answer is the same the world over: people move in hope of a better life.(1回应)
2012-11-21 12:141人喜欢
Why do people move? What makes them uproot and leave everything they've known for a great unknown beyond the horizon? Why climb this Mount Everest of formalities that makes you feel like a beggar? Why enter this jungle of foreignness where everything is new, strange and difficult? The answer is the same the world over: people move in hope of a better life.引自 29
Pi For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. To me, religion is about our dignity, not our depravity. Reason is excellent for getting food, clothing and shelter. Reason is the very best tool kit. Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively...
2013-06-13 22:54
Pi
For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out.
The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart.
To me, religion is about our dignity, not our depravity.
Reason is excellent for getting food, clothing and shelter. Reason is the very best tool kit. Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.”
“Isn’t telling about something—using words, English or Japanese—already something of an invention? Isn’t just looking upon this world already something of an invention?”
“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?”
" The dorado did a most extraordinary thing as it died: it began to flash all kinds of colours in rapid succesion. Blue, green, red, gold and violet flickered and shimmered neon-like on its surface as it struggled. I felt I was beating a rainbow to death." 令人惊叹的句子。
2019-05-13 02:21
" The dorado did a most extraordinary thing as it died: it began to flash all kinds of colours in rapid succesion. Blue, green, red, gold and violet flickered and shimmered neon-like on its surface as it struggled. I felt I was beating a rainbow to death."
“Such is the strangeness of the human heart.I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously,without any sort of goodbye,without looking back even once.That pain is like an axe that chops at my heart.” 夏汤包…居然开始生疏了，果然分开太久了吧，总是梦见我们和好了，明明最不担心你会离开我的😭
2017-08-01 21:34
“Such is the strangeness of the human heart.I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously,without any sort of goodbye,without looking back even once.That pain is like an axe that chops at my heart.”
Things didn't turn out the way they were supposed to, but what can you do? You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.
2017-04-11 12:47
Things didn't turn out the way they were supposed to, but what can you do? You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.引自 chapter 35
和菜头
译林出版社2012版
改之理
译林出版社2005版
张天翼
译林出版社2005版
yihan爱书橱
未知出版社2012版
Paper Tiger
译林出版社2012版
LansPhotoStory
0 有用 [已注销] 2012-12-17
觉得第一个故事没有电影好看，第二个故事比电影好看
2 有用 RIC 2013-02-22
人生第一部完整读完的英文原著。明天再去看一遍电影然后评价
0 有用 Scallet 2007-06-21
0 有用 思阳 2012-12-10
我喜欢书的前半部远胜于后半部。这本书其实在电影出来前朋友就给我推荐过，她说一个无规律的数字却造就了自然规律的根基，我翻完全书没看见这句话，但书里面关于信仰的讨论让我觉得很不错。
0 有用 ζωήιδ 2012-12-28
http://site.douban.com/widget/notes/5902967/note/240347734/
0 有用 不爽就削火车站 2020-05-26
虽然是看过电影后再读，还是读得惊心动魄
0 有用 瑪礁蕾去野餐 2020-05-21
@2015-02-26 22:11:45
0 有用 橘生 2020-05-09
是我读过让我觉得最渴的书 哈哈哈哈哈
0 有用 thy Madam 2020-04-14
为了读懂，背了一遍GRE单词，读了三十五天，在电影的帮助下疏通了逻辑，amazing！两个故事亦真亦假，莫衷一是，到底是厨师，妈妈，TaiWan sailor, 派，还是孟加拉虎，鬣狗，斑马和猩猩呢？前一个故事，逻辑不通，很多地方都说不通，比如人和孟加拉虎能在海上漂流这么多天，无人岛的海藻里面是咸的外面是甜的，海藻诱杀海水鱼，以海水鱼为给养，无人岛的小池塘一到夜间能变成融化海鱼尸体的强酸，无人岛上... 为了读懂，背了一遍GRE单词，读了三十五天，在电影的帮助下疏通了逻辑，amazing！两个故事亦真亦假，莫衷一是，到底是厨师，妈妈，TaiWan sailor, 派，还是孟加拉虎，鬣狗，斑马和猩猩呢？前一个故事，逻辑不通，很多地方都说不通，比如人和孟加拉虎能在海上漂流这么多天，无人岛的海藻里面是咸的外面是甜的，海藻诱杀海水鱼，以海水鱼为给养，无人岛的小池塘一到夜间能变成融化海鱼尸体的强酸，无人岛上的狐獴可以游泳还能爬树抓死鱼还能在陆上生活，以海藻为根基的树，一到夜晚海藻会变成有腐蚀性的酸，如同人的胃酸一般，并且树上的果实莲花形状打开就是人的一副牙齿，32颗，这预示什么呢。。。。精神错乱时候的遗忘和掩饰，派是否食母呢，在饥饿的时候人吃人呢？网上还有各种版本的推测。。。似乎是个阴森恐怖的故事 (展开)
0 有用 华姐 2020-04-04
It reads like a non-fiction.