The Life of D: a bleak novel

Possible cover for my work-in-progress The Life of D

I wish I could write a life-affirming novel like The Life of Pi. It is just not my voice.

I would like Barack Obama writing to me as he did to Pi author Yann Martel. The president could take quill to paper to write about my novel Iraqi Icicle. He could write something like ‘…an elegant proof of the existence of Good and Evil and bloody good read, mate.’ But presidents really like to endorse life-affirming books not a sardonic neo-noir wild ride like Iraqi Icicle.

Why is that goody-two-shoes constant Pi getting all the attention, anyway, with people making songs, books and movies about it. I believe I am safe ground in presuming Marten’s  title has some reference to that circular thingy pi.

Pi is a very pushy number always putting itself first, as in 2πr and πd. The speed of light is happily last in mc^2. In my novel the life of D, the eponymous D struggles against the evil warlord Pi. Chapters 5-107 will metaphorically reference the injustice of the circumference of a circle not being universally accepted as dπ.

If it were not for us writers, these important issues would pass by un-noticed.

It is like Sammy Beckett wrote in Waiting for Godot

‘How is it that of the four Evangelists only one speaks of a thief being saved. The four of them were there-or therabouts-and only one speaks of a thief being saved.’

Exactly, what is going on here? Is someone trying to pull the wool over our eyes? And to what purpose?

Or what about Alfred Doolittle’s rant in Pygmalion?

‘I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. …

 I don't need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more.’

You can’t argue with that splendid logic, but it took George Bernard Shaw to right it up for us all to see.

Barack Obama need not encourage these life-affirming novelists. Martel conceded writing The Life of Pi was its own rewards – the hefty royalty checks probably helped too. Let’s support us writers, shining our sardonic flashlights on the noir crawl spaces of life.

'A good clear eye on the dirty ways of the world'