Life of Pi

At the moment, I'm reading a great book. It's called "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. Although I find it hard to even give a short summary of what it's about, it really fascinates me... it is very philosophical and between the different stages of the story (it's about an Indian boy whose father owns a zoo until they have to move to Canada and on the Pacific ocean, their ship sinks and only the boy survives together with a tiger...), the author often brings in some general thoughts - those of you who have already had some or another discussion about books with me know that I always define the books I like as "books that make me think" - this is the perfect example of this definition! :)

Need an example? Here's a passage I read today:
„I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary […] It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. […]
You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, […] seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”

I don't know why, but this really touched me - I mean, it's true, isn't it?