The Ink of the Pacific

I had an adventure. It involved public transportation across the Lion's Gate Bridge in after-dark torrential rain, squinting with map in hand for a venue I had never been to, attached to a non-descript high school in the high, green leafy hills of the north shore and come hell or high water (and there was a lot of it falling from the sky that night), I would get there.

The bus I needed, I missed -- and the one I got, was packed full of exhaling, wet and post-work damaged spirits. Due to many, many unfortunates and the realities of Adventure-taking, I was an hour late for Yann Martel. I slipped through the back door (which felt like bursting), soaked through amongst the well-read, well-bred, well-dressed of Vancouver. The room was not as full as it should have been in my opinion, and as far as I could tell, I was the only person in attendance under the age of 40. I will now lament the loss of the young fiction-reader. Lament.

As I tried to silence my breathing and ignore the frowning truth of water seeping into every fiber of skin and cloth, I tried to get my bearings around just what exactly I was an hour late for. Yann Martel (of Life of Pi, and of Spanish -- as in Spain -- descent), with Anosh Irani, an Indian playwright and novelist, were both discussing their new works (a novel for Yann and a play for Anosh) -- and I had just made it for the question and answer time. One of those "draw out of a hat" sort of things. I was too late to put a query in of my own but enjoyed hearing others speak without me having to participate (as usual). Two questions in particular stood out for me.

One was in regards to the great severity of opinion towards Yann's newest -- Beatrice & Virgil. Folks either hated it or loved it. The New York Times for example, trashed it. It was wondered how he reacted to the negative opinions, if it affected him or his confidence. I enjoyed Yann's tall and lanky presence -- soft-spoken and articulate and yet very confident in his way. His answer was this:

"I write what I write and when I feel it is complete as it can be, I give it up. I have no control over how it is received once it is out there; art is a gift and it is meant to be given away."

I liked that. I do not like that art is often seen as an interior thing; artists possess a higher gift that mere mortals can not fathom, so art is created out of hurt, pain, anguish and anger against the world, and out of my favourite: the raised banner of, "You Don't Understand Me" -- and kept for the artist and the artist alone to dwell in. An isolating thing indeed (though I will not disagree that isolation is needed for part of the process of creating -- I need much of it -- if the artist remains in said isolation, then their art is never shared and is grasped in a vice-grip of gollumesque-groping possession).

And the other question from the hat, asked how Yann's life had been changed after Life of Pi exploded into the world (with so much grace and beauty). He answered thus:

"I have a lot more money now. Doing taxes used to be a lot easier. But I was really happy when I was poor. I lived in Montreal and paid $250 for rent -- I had a bike and virtually no other expenses. I was like a monk living in Montreal, working on this novel."

After it was over, the two said they would be in the lobby signing books. I was thinking about how I was going to get home because buses from there barely ran at rush hour and it was edging towards 10 pm. I was walking down the sidewalk with the ceaseless rain coming down on my purple raincoat that makes me look like a giant crayola, considering these realities, when I stopped and thought, "I've come all this way and there's not that many people. I should at least try and meet the guy." So I trudged my way back in, Converse slapping in the puddles -- no point in avoiding them now -- and merged with the back of the line. Everyone was clutching a copy of Beatrice & Virgil in their hot little hands, but I, no, the price for a hardcover copy was more of a luxury than I was willing to consider.

I made it up to the table in a relatively short amount of time and said in a clear voice (I'm told I mutter) but no doubt in a rather rambling sort of way:

"I don't have a book for you to sign because I'm kind of like a monk living in Vancouver and I can't afford it right now but I wanted to shake your hand anyway and say thank you for sharing your art."

Yann: "Are you a writer?"

Me: (slightly abashed but still going strong): "Yes." (for I promised myself that if he asked me this question that I would respond with yes, simply because I need to get better at it).

Y: "What are you writing?"

Me: "Mostly short stories, blog posts, the odd music bio for friends. Attempted articles. The long term goal is fiction, real fiction. But I'm in school right now so I'm having a hard time being creative with my own stuff, even though I'm studying English literature and writing."

Y (a very good listener and not the least fussed that there was still quite the line up behind me): "You know... if you have stories, you just need to write them, no matter where you are. You don't have to go to school to be a writer."

I listened to what Yann had to say and boy did I listen hard. This guy completely baptized me with every image, with every colourful page he wrote. He wrote magic. He shared an incredible work of fiction with the world and he was talking to me about the craft, disregarding the page flippers waiting for him to sign their blank page. (And when I say craft, I do not mean some magical experience of Writing that is married to inspiration, hillsides in sunshine and hair flutterings -- as Stephen King says, "there is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers..." Writing is a day in and day out job that Yann simply did with Life of Pi because he had a story to tell).

And so before I left the table I said: "Will you sign my map? It's all I have on me, and I got lost -- really, really, lost -- trying to get here." I handed over my still damp 12 inch map book and opened it to the page with a section of north Vancouver pasted on it. He signed in the ocean:

"May the pacific be the ink of your pen."

The image of the boy and the Bengal tiger in the lifeboat on the great wide sea came to my heart when I read what he wrote.

I shook his hand and exited, just a little elated.

I suppose it was not so much the content of what he said -- I know that I don't have to go to school to write -- many people have told me this, some more smugly than others. It was more the timing of the matter and who it was coming from and how it was said. I will not bore you constant reader (as Stephen King would say), with the state of my heart and mind the night I swam in from the street to hear this author speak. I simply needed encouragement, the immersion into five minutes of conversation with someone who has Done it, and I had not realized it.

I am now living in Vancouver and writing and reading (for to write, one. must. read). Going to school I am not, writing what, I do not know -- to what end, I have no idea. But all that matters is that I am.

I celebrated this mental and emotional shift by drinking a beer, listening to Josh Ritter at full steam and by reading Life of Pi, this glorious tale of magic realism, once again.

"A shiver went through my body. Between the life jackets, partially, as if through some leaves, I had my first, unambiguous, clear-headed glimpse of Richard Parker. It was his haunches I could see, and part of his back. Tawny and striped and simply enormous. He was facing the stern, lying flat on his stomach. He was still except for the breathing motion of his sides. I blinked in disbelief at how close he was. He was right there, two feet beneath me. Stretching, I could have pinched his bottom. And between us there was nothing but a thin tarpaulin, easily got round.

'God preserve me!'

No supplication was ever more passionate yet more gently carried by the breath."