First of all, I’m very glad I was right all the time when I corrected my friends who corrected me while pronouncing „Pi”. It is pronounced [pee], not [pai] because Pi (the name of the main character) is shortened form the French „Piscine”. And I know French! And knew it all the time!

Second of all, I was somehow disappointed. I had expectations, big ones actually, and they weren’t fulfilled. The book is funny and philosophical in the first part. It was a real pleasure reading those passages, but then, what followed wasn’t very convincing. At all! I didn’t like the message of the book even if I was excited when I read that this book would convince people (like me) to believe (more) in God. The book didn’t change anything in me on that matter! Lack of details when they were needed the most, lack of cohesion from time to time, a story hard to believe and an end to it quite blurred made me an unsatisfied reader. My bad!

However, the book had parts I truly loved. I loved the images it offered and the symbols gathered in just one story. I also liked the main character’s depiction.

Christianity is a religion in a rush. Look at the world created in seven days. Even on a symbolic level, that’s creation in a frenzy.

Another man was  nabbed in the process of stealing a cobra. He was a snake charmer whose own snake had died. Both were saved: the cobra from a life of servitude and bad music, and the man from a possible death bite.

„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?” „Uhh…” „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?”

If you took the city of Tokyo and turned it upside down and shook it, you’d be amazed at all the animals that would fall out.

No greatness without goodness.

I never had problems with scientists. Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard- working, beer- drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science.

„Don’t you bully me with your politeness! 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?”

„Why tolerate darkness? Everything is here and clear, if only we look carefully.”

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.