TIGER BY THE TALE:

Tiger in a Lifeboat, Panther in a Lifeboat: A Furor Over a Novel (LARRY ROHTER, November 6, 2002, NY Times)

Mr. Martel indirectly acknowledges his debt to Dr. Scliar in an author's note in "Life of Pi" in which he thanks him for "the spark of life." In an interview with The Guardian, the British newspaper, late last month, he said, "I remember thinking, man, that's a brilliant premise" when he came across a critique of Dr. Scliar's book, which he recalled as having been written by John Updike in The New York Times Book Review.

There are no articles in the digital archives of The Times, however, in which Mr. Updike comments on the book, and in a phone interview Mr. Updike said he had never heard of "Max and the Cats" or of Dr. Scliar. The only review in The Times was published in July 1990, after the book, now out of print, was issued in paperback in the United States. In it Herbert Mitgang describes "Max and the Cats" as "a brilliant novella" and praised Dr. Scliar for "expanding the horizons of South American literature."

Such comments do not have the flavor of the review Mr. Martel remembered. In an essay published on the Web site of Powell's City of Books, an independent bookstore (www.powells.com), Mr. Martel wrote that even though the review he recalled "oozed indifference," Dr. Scliar's concept had "the effect on my imagination of electric caffeine" because of its "perfect unity of time, action and place." But because he also felt a "mix of envy and frustration" that he had not thought of the idea himself, he decided initially to stay away from "Max and the Cats."

"I didn't really want to read the book," Mr. Martel wrote. "Why put up with the gall? Why put up with a brilliant premise ruined by a lesser writer. Worse, what if Updike had been wrong? What if not only the premise but also its rendition were perfect? Best to move on."

Dr. Scliar himself said: "I get all of my reviews from my publishers, and I do not have one by John Updike. So that is another strange aspect of this story."

Regular readers may be sick of hearing about Mr. Martel and his novel by now, but here's what he said about his debt to Dr. Scliar in our interview:

Brothers Judd: This is perhaps related to the prior but, this seems like the kind of book that could have been driven by your need to write about Pi himself, because he's so beguiling, but it's also easy to imagine an author being compelled by just the one mental picture of a man in a boat with a tiger. Did you have some such epiphany or is there a specific story or person or some other trigger that was the original basis for the book or is it a product only of the ideas within its pages?

Yann Martel: Briefly, this is how it happened: Ten years ago. Review in New York Times Book Review  by John Updike of a Brazilian novel by one Moacyr Scliar. About Jewish family running zoo in Berlin in 1933. Business bad (i.e. someone just go elected to power). They decide to move to Brazil. Ship sinks. Jewish zookeeper ends up in lifeboat with black panther. Obvious allegory of Nazi Germany.

Not a good review. Did nothing to Updike. But premise sizzled in my mind. I thought "Man, I could do something with that". But book already written, so I moved on and wrote my first novel and traveled.

Five years later I'm in India. Remember premise. Explosion in my imagination. Whole chunks of the novel--the two stories, the blind Frenchman, the many animals, etc.--emerge fully formed in my head.

I spent the next six months doing practical research in India, then reading books in Canada. Then I wrote the book. Came easily. Pi was a constant pleasure to write.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 6, 2002 11:40 AM