Martel ... revealed that he recently received a handwritten thank you note from Barack Obama, who had just finished reading Martel’s Life of Pi with his daughter. The president wrote that it was “a lovely book – an elegant proof of God, and the power of storytelling.” Martel told Harper that he would frame the note “for sure,” and still takes it out sometimes to marvel at it:
What amazes me is the gratuity of it. As you would know, there is a large measure of calculation in what public figures do. But here, what does he gain? I’m not a US citizen. In no way can I be of help to President Obama. Clearly he did it for personal reasons, as a reader and as a father. And in two lines, what an insightful analysis of Life of Pi. Bless him, bless him.
- Laura Godfrey, Quill & Quire
2 comments:
Huh. How about that.
Well, Obama's the President of a country that almost never elects atheists to public office. He is often construed by political opponents as hostile to religion because of his support for contraception, etc.
On the other hand, that a Harvard Law graduate would think anything in "The Life of Pi" constitutes proof is an even more troubling possibility.
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