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Last night I spent some time trying to write a haiku for the blog to capture my thoughts about _Life of Pi_ succinctly, but I kept having too much to put in there (which I guess is very American of me), but only a little too much which is why I kept trying. Plus, it's fun to try to put together a good haiku - a beautiful portrait of a small perfect moment, with the requisite 5-7-5, but also with a sense of balance and of completeness in each segment. My last one abt the girls sleeping got minus points on that front, although a decent effort overall. (Did I mention that very short form poems are really good when you write your posts with your thumbs?) Anyway, back to the book.

As J will tell you, I try hard not to read front or back matter on books (while she always reads it - go figure). This time I did read the author's note. I'm a writer, here's how I found this great story. So I read the story. Whoa! Double take on Richard Parker. 227 days! Boggle! Then as he degrades I figure it's just the hallucinations talking for a few of the chapters. But he's alive! Humans are full of power, resilience, determination. Brains > claws / fangs / bad luck / the elements and all that. And so I reach the end. And I have to ask, wait, is it real? *spoiler*

No. And I was sad. The story with animals in it is better. If I had known it was fiction I could have thoroughly enjoyed it. But thinking (foolishly perhaps) that it was another specific evidence of the spectacular awesomeness possible in us and finding out it wasn't made me feel a little less hope in the world. I want to believe. I love the happy ending or the triumphant rise up or the victory of the underdog. As I said to my fellow runners a few weeks back - "go humans!" I guess I just like to have things to balance out all the filth and gore and corruption and just plain meanness in the world. It's why I always like the "small and simple things" section of the Ensign. So to wrap up, it was good, I liked it, but I wish my expectations had been different going into it. And to think I was going to fit all of that into 17 syllables.