Faith and Reason - Third in a Series

 Illustrations added to the enjoyment

Mr Okamoto, the insurance investigator, doesn't believe Pi Patel's account of his survival during the seven months since the shipwreck:  "For the purposes of our investigation we would like to know what really happened." Pi responds:

"I know what you want. You want a story that won't surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won't make you see higher or further or differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless factuality."

Pi obliges by giving the investigator a typical story of people treating others cruelly, culminating in murder, and mundane efforts that allowed survival. This account was accepted. As to the other account:

"In the experience of this investigator, his story is unparalleled in the history of shipwrecks. Very few castaways can claim to have survived as long at sea as Mr Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger."

That disbelief that the "boy" and the tiger could co-exist was the stumbling block. Mr Okamoto agrees that the story with the animals is the better story, but he cannot take it upon himself to accept it. Pi tells him, with tears:

"And so it is with God".

Postscript: I recommend these two interviews with Yann Martel, one from 2010, and the other from 2013.