"Why do people move? What makes them uproot and leave everything they've known for a great unknown beyond the horizon?" - Life of Pi

When Yann Martel's "Life of Pi" was first populating bestseller lists and book club discussions, I paid it no mind; or rather, I avoided it because it was talked-about, or because I perceived it as a "book-club book," the sort that wore its themes on its sleeve, asking to be parsed by such questions as "How did Pi's re-naming of himself make you feel? In what ways do you re-name yourself?"

Nonetheless, Mann Booker trumped Oprah, and I pulled "Life of Pi" from the discount rack at the bookstore on my second-to-last day at work. It will be my reading material for the weird limbo of a furniture-less apartment here in Harrisburg, the interstitial U-Haul journey, and probably the first few days in Chicago.

It is a book about a move that goes drastically awry (so I hear; I'm still in the first few chapters). In the realm of omens and totems, perhaps it is a poor choice, but I press on, because the quote that opens this post continues:

 "The answer is the same the world over: people move in the hope of a better life."