Yann Martel on the discovery about art and religion that brought him 'back to life'

24:06Yann Martel: Life of Pi and the case for being a bit less reasonable

Just before Yann Martel wrote his breakthrough novel Life of Pi, he felt like he was "drying up."

In an interview with Q's Tom Power, the Canadian writer says he had grown up in a "fiercely secular family, scarred by Quebec Catholicism." He'd studied philosophy in university, which was "a guaranteed way of turning into, if not an agnostic, certainly an atheist."

By the time he'd reached his early 30s, Martel was suffering the effects of being excessively dedicated to reason. "I wasn't feeling life; I was just sort of observing it sourly," he says. "I needed to water my soul."

It was a fateful trip to India that brought him "back to life" and inspired his Booker Prize-winning novel, which was adapted into an Oscar-winning film in 2012 and, more recently, a Tony-winning play (the theatrical adaptation is on stage now at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto).

"I was in India and I sort of noticed these temples of faith, which until then, I completely dismissed," Martel says. "For the first time in my life, I thought, 'What is this about? There must be something there that I've missed.'

"Life of Pi is the result of that single observation — that there must be something I missed.… I realized that in a sense, there's something very artful about religion and something very religious about art. Both of them posit alternate realities that you can access, but you can't just use the tools of reason."

He realized that both ask you to use the tools of the imagination, rather than those of reason. Much the same as art, "[religion] always posits that there's something more there," Martel says. "You just must stir yourself and see more."

Ultimately, reason is kind of silent. It just reflects my own nothingness to myself.- Yann Martel

Now, his feeling about life is that you ought to "throw yourself at it," which means believing in more than less.

"You might as well believe in all kinds of things, because why not?" he tells Power. "If it's true or not, well, I guess you'll find out when you die. But in the meantime, you will have danced through life. You'll have heard music through life — whereas I find, ultimately, reason is kind of silent. It just reflects my own nothingness to myself."

That doesn't mean, however, there is no use for doubt, the author clarifies.

"That's part of being alive," he says. "Believing and doubting, believing and doubting. It's like love, you know? We love people. We love causes. That doesn't mean we close our eyes and shut down. We have to use our reason to vivify that faith, to keep it alive and well. That's whether you love a man or a woman or a novel or a god or a football club."

The full interview with Yann Martel is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Yann Martel produced by Ben Edwards.