Story Portals

Yann Martel’s novel The Life of Pi is about a boy stranded on small boat with a tiger. The book was immensely popular, won the Man Book Prize (the UK’s Pulitzer), and was made into a hit movie. I interviewed Martel for his subsequent novel, Beatrice and Virgil. Like The Life of Pi, it was a book wrestling with some big philosophical ideas, in the latter case, humanity’s genocidal impulse.

We eventually talked about his experience with Pi, which sent him around the world and let him meet a lot of people. One of those was a woman who had simply loved the novel. She wanted to thank him for writing, “such a great book about marriage.”

“About marriage?” he said.

“Yes,” she replied firmly. “I’ve been married, and that tiger is clearly a metaphor for marriage.”

He didn’t disagree with her, though that’s not what he had in mind when he was writing it. I’m not exactly sure what he had mind, though I suspect it had something to do with God and nature and death. I didn’t ask him, and, to be honest, I don’t care. It’s none of my business. One of the reasons the novel was so successful was that it wasn’t about a boy stuck on a boat with a tiger, but it nonetheless faithfully and compellingly portrayed a boy stuck on a boat with a tiger. If you enjoy it as a kind of odd survival story, that’s fine. If you think it’s a coming-of-age story, that’s fine too.

That’s the beauty of stories. Once we’re finished telling them, they belong to the reader. I often encourage my students, who are always thoughtful and reflective people, the type who keep journals and talk openly about their feelings, to resist interpreting what they’re describing. Yes, the memoir is about more than running marathons, but make sure you actually describe what it’s like to run a marathon. The places and events we render in our stories are all portals to something else if we will let them be so. Bring all your heart to what write, let it inform your choices, then trust it will open what must for anyone who finds it.

Check out Fearless Writing with Bill Kenower on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com